KASHMIR VALLEYS 247 



" good-bye " as I packed into the rickshaw, good-bye to 

 perfumed rose bushes, to great, gorgeous hollyhocks, to 

 graceful ipomoeas, " plume-waving ferns," and pearly 

 portulacas. They had all come to perfection since I 

 first saw them, showing sketchily their future charms, 

 and their pleasant, bright faces now looked ghostly and 

 sad, sprinkled with rain-drop tears, and white in the 

 starlight. Nature is generally so unsympathetic, so 

 aloof from the joys and sorrows of the mortals that walk 

 lovingly in her ways, studying her face and taking 

 careful note of her mysteries, that this little exhib tion 

 of feeling touched me, and as my jinrickshaw was 

 quickly run down the path, I turned again to wave 

 farewell to the tall ones of the flock, that craned long 

 necks over the wall, or threw long tendrils across, to 

 afford me a last glimpse. 



Quickly down the road we passed, slowing as we 

 mounted to the gap, faster again on the long descent to 

 the Residency, then under the deep shade of giant 

 poplars to the mail office, a picturesque thatched 

 building of nogged brickwork. Naturally I had to 

 wait; that is the East, one eternal waiting where the 

 fittest (those who survive) know best how to work and 

 " wait," the fate of those who " hustle the East " is writ 

 elsewhere with certainty. 



That July night there was little hardship in 

 lingering when the alternative was a passage in a 

 stuffy waggon. The moon had set early, the skies 

 were clean swept, the light unseen, hidden by the 

 gaunt eastern ranges, could be guessed at as the 

 stars nearing the rocky heights were nipped out. They, 

 too, were saying good-bye, and the unfeeling sun was 

 having his way cleared before him, prepared to shine as 



