A SUMMER IN HIGH ASIA. 



feelings of more than pleasurable anticipation that I 

 found myself gazing once more on the hills that 

 surround the lovely vale of Kashmir, and felt that 

 time was now no object, and that I was free to 

 wander over them as fancy, or the chances of sport 

 might dictate. It is, however, as every traveller 

 in the East well knows, one thing to propose to 

 start on an expedition forthwith, and quite another 

 to find oneself en route. Even with the best 

 laid schemes, and every preparation carefully made 

 beforehand, one is apt to find oneself defeated by 

 the dilatory Asiatic, and patience is a virtue that 

 should certainly be cultivated by a traveller in the 

 East. I was not fortunate in starting on the 

 expedition that is here to be narrated, and the 

 unforeseen delays seemed so interminable that at 

 last I began to wonder if I should ever get off at 

 all. My stores, which were of necessity somewhat 

 considerable, as I had not made up my mind as to 

 where I was going, or for how long I should be 

 away, failed to turn up from Bombay, though I 

 knew that they were on the road somewhere between 

 Rawal Pindi and Srinagar. To storm at the carry- 

 ing company who had undertaken to convey them 

 was useless ; the more angry I became, the more 

 the native clerk would smile, promise, and relapse 

 into Oriental indifference ; nor was it until I had 

 enlisted the kind offices of a R.E. officer, who 

 was in charge of the road, and who ultimately 

 discovered them, forgotten at some wayside station, 



