KASHMIR VALLEYS 103 



I was taken, after various slips and jolts, and deposited 

 in safety. " Where is the Sahib's pony ? " questioned my 

 Charon. "Shanks' mare" as an expression does not 

 exist, so far as I know, in either Hindustani or Kashmiri, 

 but he took in my methods of travel, and his eyes rolled 

 and his hands were held up in astonishments " To 

 Baltal and back, to Islamabad, and beyond, and walking, 

 surely this is a marvel," and a friend who happened to 

 come by was enlightened as to my extraordinary pro- 

 ceedings. " Truly, truly, the ways of the Sahib log are 

 beyond comprehension," was their only comment. A 

 Kashmiri, when obliged, will march the most wonderful 

 distances, often with a heavy load on his back, but the 

 moment he is able, a pony is purchased for twenty to 

 sixty rupees, and never again, unless driven by some 

 untoward fate, will he use his own two feet for journeys. 

 By two o'clock I had reached the shady camping- 

 ground at Kangan, and found my tent under a glorious 

 walnut tree, plentifully decorated with mistletoe, so 

 fine and green that it would have made the fortune of a 

 flower shop later in the year. The day was young, but 

 I had travelled more than seventeen miles since the 

 dawn, and I felt I could allow myself an easy afternoon, 

 so I rested lying under the great shady trees, lulled to 

 a pleasant drowsiness by the myriad-voiced life all 

 around gilded dragon flies, fluttering butterflies, and 

 golden-winged bees passed on their way full of energy 

 in the revivifying sunshine; birds trolled out gay 

 roundelays; through all was the deeper note of the 

 rushing stream speaking to the flower-decked banks, 

 gaily garrulous after the months of enforced silence 

 amid the vast snow stretches from which it was but 

 lately freed. 



