114 AFOOT THROUGH THE 



respectable twenty-seven in twenty-four hours, and I 

 felt myself entitled to a " day off," so it was arranged 

 that I should start early, the track being shadeless 

 almost the entire way, and after reaching Ganderbal, 

 eight miles distant, rest, or rather attend to writing, 

 mending, and such like uninteresting details that are 

 more or less necessary after a sojourn in the wilds. 

 Before six I had had my early cup of tea and w s ready to 

 be off, passing out of sight of the pretty little Manasbal 

 as I reached the edge of the cup-like ridge that divides 

 it from the adjoining lands. The ground was starred 

 with soft little pink and white dianthus, and great was 

 the pride of a handsome native woman when I per- 

 mitted her two toddling bairns to assist me in making 

 up a bunch of them. Then we walked together some 

 way, she carrying the babies, alternately teasing them 

 with fine large mulberries which she held to their 

 expectant lips and then quickly withdrew as they 

 eagerly essayed to snatch them. It was a pretty scene, 

 and I regretted when they strayed behind in a pretty, 

 deeply-shaded village. 



I was obliged to push on across the steamy 

 rice fields, where the men Were working at the 

 first kushaba knee-deep in the slimy water-covered 

 ooze. This kushaba is a curious process peculiar to the 

 culture of rice, a grain that involves an enormous 

 amount of labour from the time it is sown in April till, 

 ripe and golden, it is cut and garnered in September. 

 First the soil is prepared by being made very dry or 

 very wet, according to the method preferred by the 

 cultivator. That generally adopted is the dry, and when 

 the ground has been ploughed it is then moistened for 

 the sowing. As a rule the seed is scattered directly on 



