KASHMIR VALLEYS 205 



and all near things were full of beauty and small 

 interests. The distant ranges across the valley remained 

 invisible, blotted out by damp mists as I took a few 

 minutes' rest for breath, for the height tells on 

 the lungs even here, though not ten thousand 

 feet up. The sycamore disappeared above this, 

 and the trees were almost entirely pines, and 

 mixed with a few stunted birch. Seeing light 

 above me through the thinning trees I made a spurt, 

 and Killenmerg was reached. The sun is one of those 

 sociable companions that is so invariably looked to, to 

 share the traveller's emotions that his full power to 

 cheer and encourage are not realised till withdrawn, 

 and seldom have desolation and loneliness weighed 

 more on my spirits that on my arrival that dull day at 

 the rock-strewn slope above Gulmerg. The elevation 

 is trying to heart and head, and the darts and stabs that 

 mark the drawing of each breath, and the dizzy singing 

 that obscures the sight, conduce to a weighty depression, 

 clogging the footsteps, and generally causing the death 

 of all energetic effort. 



Far below, the little wooden shanties of Gulmerg 

 could be seen, but mist continued to stop all distant 

 views. Above, Apharwat looked strangely grey and for- 

 bidding, its steep sides offering nothing less rugged than 

 boulders and ice as stepping-stones. A vast moraine 

 crossed the merg, obliging me to climb over the rocks, 

 with difficulty avoiding a slip that would have caused 

 an undignified and painful descent between sharp edges 

 and perhaps broken limbs, a difficult situation when 

 the largeness and loneliness of that rocky field was 

 considered. Through some such stone-strewn field 

 Childe Roland must have passed on his solitary ride to 



