KASHMIR VALLEYS 79 



to the parched pedestrian. The cloying sweetness of 

 this small wild variety soon nauseates, and in a short 

 time they are left entirely to the cattle, great branches 

 being cut or the fruit shaken down in heaps for their 

 benefit. Returning to the boat by a path bordered 

 with roses and jessamine, I plucked bouquets of the 

 yellow and pink blooms, almost overpowering in their 

 fragrance, and I was pleased by the appreciation of 

 two coolies who stopped their downward march to 

 collect some particularly good specimens growing high 

 up among the rocks. 



By six the following morning I was ready for our 

 start, and watched the ponies being laden up. This 

 their masters accomplished by the slow process of 

 fastening on in insufficient style one object, and 

 letting the pony wriggle it round, they the 

 while grumbling at the weight, and always 

 beginning the loads by the most unwieldy object, 

 so that no room was left for other addenda. 

 When the sight had ceased to amuse, I quite firmly, and 

 not too mildly, suggested a different modus operandi, 

 audibly stating the reduction from backsheesh neces- 

 sitated by each hitch or slip, and at last had the pleasure 

 of seeing my " Lares and Penates," nobly topped by the 

 fine outline of the bath, disappearing at a fair pace 

 down the sunlit road. 



It was a day of days. A cool breeze tempered some- 

 what the fierce heat of the sun, and for several miles the 

 road was shaded by great overhanging mulberry and 

 walnut trees. Spring was in the air ; hundreds of birds 

 twittered and chirruped from the bushes by the way- 

 side; thousands of butterflies wrought a flicker of 

 colour. The villages we passed through were almost 



