KASHMIR VALLEYS 33 



further progress would be very difficult over a thirteen 

 thousand feet pass, and so, unwilling as I was, I 

 decided to turn back. After resting I had little wish 

 to halt; the fine air, acting like champagne, had made 

 me feel as if I had brought myself out in a new and 

 very improved edition since the terrible time at the 

 Garhi rest-house on our way in. Fed by the breeze it 

 was a genuine "hawakhanah" ("eating the air" 

 taking the air, as we should say) on that clear, far-off 

 height. The ten miles of road to be retraced filled me 

 with no misgiving, in such an atmosphere there being 

 no adequate reason for not " walking for ever." If men 

 could negotiate perpendicular hillsides with fifty to 

 sixty pounds on their backs there was no fear of twenty 

 or twenty-five miles on a fairly good road with so much 

 of absorbing interest on every hand. Nanga Parbat, 

 " mountain of the gods," as the natives call it (Dyomir), 

 could not be seen from my resting-place, but there were 

 many lesser monarchs who kinged it in the absence of 

 that mighty chieftain of Hindu Kush, highest among 

 them being Haramuk, with his triple diadem of snow 

 jewelled by the gorgeous sun, with diamonds whose 

 facets were frost-draped rocks. Far below, the blue 

 waters of the Wular sparkled in the mid-day glare, 

 hemmed in south by range behind range of blue mist- 



v C-J CJ 



draped mountains. Blue and white, those were the 

 colours of the valley repeated again and again in the sky, 

 the hills, the forest flowers ; only the coolie and I were 

 khaki-hued smears in the pure scheme of colour, dust 

 images in a gorgeous setting! 



The homeward march proved comparatively short, 

 for I took the coolies' path, although as a mode of pro- 

 gression sliding over slipper}- grass and rocky boulders 

 D 



