KASHMIR VALLEYS 141 



wondered what large, ponderous intruder was passing 

 overhead, casting a shadow as of possible danger on 

 the denizens of the dark depths. 



Before many days had passed I made another expedi- 

 tion to the more distant Shalimar Bagh, visiting on 

 the way the Nasim Bagh. Like a vast park, this once 

 garden, shorn of its terraces and its fountains, is still 

 beautiful chenaars in full beauty shade the green 

 sward, and thickets of flowers, all that remain of the 

 well-kept shrubberies, in places brighten with their gay 

 colours the darkness of the dense tree foliage. Many 

 small boats and some thoroughly English-looking 

 yachts were moored beside the bank, and a well-stocked 

 market garden close by looked decidedly inviting for a 

 prolonged stay. From this point we crossed the lake, 

 passing a strange island, the Sona Lanka or Char 

 Chenaar (four chenaars) from the number of great 

 planes that once shaded its four sides. Strange stories 

 are told of the making of this islet, how a fair queen, 

 wishing for a pavilion from which all the beauties of 

 the lake could be seen and its exquisite reflections 

 watched, ordered that foundations were to be made in 

 this, the deepest part, regardless of cost, and the wretched 

 lake dwellers were ordered to meet here, bringing their 

 boats filled with stones, that these might be sunk and 

 the islet rest secure. This they did, imploring that their 

 boats, on which they depended for cultivating their 

 gardens, might not be taken. Those to whom bread 

 and cheese, or rather ortolans and wines, come without 

 attracting notice to their cost, cannot be expected to 

 consider such trifles as wooden craft and hardly raised 

 crops, and the boats were ordered to be sunk ; and then 

 their owners, knowing that without these they were 



