JHELUM RIVER 27 



The plain is absolutely flat, well wooded, and fairly 

 well watered. On one sandy section there seemed 

 to be a camel farm, for I saw over a hundred, and 

 very well they looked. 



Between Lahore and Wazirabad we crossed the 

 Jhelum River, wider than the Thames at West- 

 minster. It is the irrigator of the Punjab. If 

 anything can save me from a deficit this year it 

 will be the harvest. The country I have been 

 through looked like a very fertile district in France. 

 All highly cultivated and the crops superb. The 

 only danger is a shortage of labour through 

 malaria, of which there is an ominous threatening. 



At Jhelum the river widens out into a broad 

 lake, and from Jhelum to Rawalpindi the train 

 climbs slowly and tediously through a curious 

 country which looks as though giant children had 

 been making giant pies all over it. I am told it 

 is the result of two sand-storms meeting and 

 bunching up the sand driven by the wind from 

 opposite directions. 



It seemed quite arid and the heat was oppres- 

 sive. Gradually one rises into more mountainous 

 country, rocks taking the place of mounds. 



At Rawalpindi I was able to hire, utterly re- 

 gardless of cost, a De Dion motor with quite the 

 best driver I ever sat behind a Punjabi. We left 

 Rawalpindi at 4.30 and got as far as Murree, where 

 I had to pass the night in an indifferent hotel- 

 bungalow. I had to start again at 6.45 a.m., and 

 had one of the most tiring days I ever remember. 

 We travelled for fifteen hours at a stretch over the 

 worst road I ever knew a motor attempt. I stopped 

 at Baramulla and got some tea, petrol, and carbide 



