KASHMIR VALLEYS 195 



life to sleep above all, to sleep between close walls in 

 crowded houses is a horror and no refreshment, very 

 different to the light slumber that comes when there is 

 naught between the wayfarer and the velvety dark sky, 

 and only the camaraderie of trees and flowers. 



That night was an initiation into, or rather the 

 renewal of an old intimacy with, the secret springs of 

 nature. I understood how much to be pitied were 

 all who had not felt the soft, protecting hand of 

 that transparent darkness laid directly on them 

 without screens of walls and carpets. Cobwebs 

 of doubts, difficulties, misgivings were brushed 

 aside by the besom of an understanding bigger 

 greater than myself, that had taken posession 

 of my small nature, and so long as those glorious hours 

 lasted I was caught up into a companionship of great 

 things, a fellowship with vast enterprise. I was not the 

 " crushed worm " of some superior being looking con- 

 descendingly down, but I was honoured like the tiny 

 stone that becomes part and parcel of a vast and glorious 

 mosaic. Soon after dawn I was afoot, and walking 

 round the " circular road " to see whether vast Nanga 

 Parbat would reveal himself. Alas! mists blotted out 

 all view; even the nearer peaks were invisible, and 

 sight could not pierce the intervening clouds sufficiently 

 to see even the Wular Lake or the Jhelum below. 



For two years the temple of Martand and the peak 

 of Nanga Parbat had been names of magnetic power to 

 me ; to see them I had crossed seas and lands. Martand 

 had been closely scanned and shown itself a worthy 

 shrine; Nanga Parbat still held aloof. It had proved 

 impossible with the short time at my command to 

 attempt a nearer approach to that vast monarch of the 

 Central Asian heights, and as day after day passed at 



