210 AFOOT THROUGH THE 



their precious gift. Years after they will still stir his 

 emotions, bring back afresh to his memory echoes of 

 past enjoyments ; and, when he is living the sad, sunless 

 life of a western city, will put such an ache into 

 his being, such a home-sickness for beautiful glades 

 and great towering trees to his heart, and bring 

 to his mind such vivid impressions of acrid- 

 scented wood fires, lush wet grasses, and the 

 scents of a thousand flowers that, till the picture 

 is dulled and the feeling numbed by the manifold 

 bonds and tyrannies of a modern existence, he will be 

 willing to cast away all hope of material gain, all ambi- 

 tions, all petty strivings, and join himself once more to 

 the life of the forests in order to watch again the 

 free, fantastic insect life, the floral wealth, and 

 unfettered, unconfined by walls and streets, to note the 

 gay processions of the seasons nature's varying fetes 

 in honour of the fullest perfections of the year. 



A really exhaustive catalogue of Kashmirian plants 

 and flowers is badly needed. This is a field for amateurs 

 as yet but little worked, and though a Gulmerg flora 

 has been put together, much still remains to be done 

 by those with eyes and leisure. Many of the hitherto 

 little-known valleys will probably yield rich rewards 

 to the energetic searcher, and even when no new 

 varieties can be added to the world's flora, it is 

 sufficiently cheering to be able to aid those who come 

 after with perhaps less experience and less spare time 

 by correctly naming, describing, and locating those 

 plants already known to exist in this world's garden. 

 It is not an easy matter determining whether tjie finds 

 are new friends or old under somewhat varying guise, 

 for the circumstances of their growth are so different 

 to aught anywhere else, that they strike very different 



