184 AFOOT THROUGH THE 



people remained peculiarly obliterated, as is their wise 

 custom when the air is disturbed, and so I departed for 

 my solitary tramp, satisfied that when I was found dead 

 by the way they would be sorry they had treated me 

 so thoughtlessly. It was an unfriendly road, mounting, 

 always mounting with that aggravating unsteadiness 

 which allows of no comfortable downhill breaks to give 

 an added spurt to the next ascent. 



If I had had the energy to look up, white peaks 

 before me might have served as tempting goal posts, 

 and had I not realised that to stand still was to be lost, 

 I could have waited for a few minutes to look behind 

 at the Jhelum winding its way through the green valley, 

 that was shut in on the thither side by ranges of 

 dark hills surmounted by Haramuk, from whom it was 

 impossible to be long separated, and a few other giants. 

 I would not even delay to drink water from a racy 

 streamlet that rushed with prodigious noise and splash- 

 ing down on my right, and, disappearing under the 

 roadway, turned up again on the left with a fine air 

 of " Hullo, here we are again, why do you not hurry 

 along as quickly as I do ? " before it finally made its way 

 down the rose-clad bank to lower levels where the last 

 " kushaba " was in progress, the rice plants having by 

 this time reached fine dimensions. Instruction might 

 have been sucked in on every side by one who had not 

 concentrated his whole mind in mere physical progress, 

 for the road passed through strange strata, and some 

 curious examples of the " karewa " (explained else- 

 where) were worth an examining look, not just the 

 angry contempt which was all I could spare then. I 

 was wound up to go a certain distance, and any deviation 

 from straight ahead could only be accomplished at risk 

 of the works running down too soon. 



