KASHMIR VALLEYS 187 



below in the valley the whole merg spread out before 

 me, vast shelving sweeps of greenness and flowers 

 screened on every side by secular forests of giant pines 

 from the fierce blasts and rigorous tempests that sweep 

 over the lonely snow-clad peaks above. 



It was like standing on the outer rim of a great 

 saucer, winter above, spring at my feet, spring that, 

 as is her wont, had arrayed herself in her best-hued 

 cloak of white and blue, the colours of virginal new life 

 and passionless fruitfulness. Among the Alps the snow 

 slopes give way to the gentians and narcissus; in our 

 spring gardens the frost-bound soil slowly softens and 

 clothes itself with a wreath of snowdrops, of anemones, 

 blue squills, starch hyacinths, and starry chionadoxa; 

 and here in Kashmir the snows had given place to a 

 wealth of blue iris that bordered each streamlet, peering 

 curiously into the waters to watch their liberation from 

 their long-borne frost chains, or crowned the little 

 clusters of mud-plastered graves announcing to the poor 

 bodies hidden away below that they were not forgotten, 

 while the friendly free breath of the victorious spring 

 was waking all round to new life. 



Above the waters gathered, at the bottom of the 

 hollow below me were other blossoms that matched the 

 iris, blue anemones, blue gentians, blue forget-me-nots, 

 blue Jacob's ladder, and thousands and thousands of 

 white stitchwort and chickweed, white ornithagallum 

 that imitate the lilies of the valley so well, and white 

 marsh marigolds. The towering pine forests stood dark 

 and sombre, ringing round the grassy basin, and dividing 

 the flowery whiteness below from the cold glistening 

 snows above. It was one of these scenes that, like the 

 court of King Solomon, takes the heart out of a woman, 

 impressing her with a depressing feeling of fugitiveness 



