256 THE LOLAB VALLEY. 



soiling-pools, which are well known to the hunter, often cost 

 them their lives. Moreover, the weather and climate there 

 in October and November is simply perfection. 



Although convalescent, I was forced, from inability to 

 make proper use of my legs, to submit to the indignity, as I 

 considered it, of being helped along by a dandy 1 for the 

 greater part of the journey through the mountains between 

 the sanitarium of Murree and Cashmere. My tottering steps 

 were therefore at first turned towards that lovely locality, 

 Lolab, in the " Kamraj " or western end of the Cashmere vale, 

 there to recruit strength before undertaking mountain work, 

 by quietly looking up Bruin among the wild plum-trees, which 

 were at that season loaded with ripe fruit. 



The beginning of September found my little tents, and also 

 those of a companion who joined me at the Cashmere metro- 

 polis, pitched in a grove of splendid old walnut-trees close to 

 the picturesque hamlet of Sogam. It would be difficult to 

 find a more pleasant spot for a convalescent to rest in, than 

 amidst the pastoral scenery of the beautiful little valley of 

 Lolab. There was a calm dreamy repose about its broad 

 green glades, its clear purling brooks, it shady groves of grand 

 old deciduous-foliaged trees, and its gently sloping woodlands 

 of pine, that could not fail to act as a soothing charm for 

 restoring health and strength. 



A garrulous old fossil of a villager volunteered to show 

 Bruin's favourite feeding-grounds in the vicinity. The even- 

 ing we I mean the fossil and myself, for my companion did 

 not shoot first paid them a visit, my rifle was loaded with 

 hardened, hollow, "450 bullets, filled with detonating powder. 

 I mention this trivial circumstance because the mistake made 



i For those who have never seen a dandy of this kind, I may explain that 

 it consists of a sort of canvas hammock slung from a pole. You sit sideways 

 on the hammock, with a strap supporting your back, whilst two mountaineers, 

 bearing the pole on their shoulders, carry you merrily (supposing you are not 

 a Daniel Lambert) along. A dandy can always be extemporised, in an 

 emergency, with a blanket, a bit of rope, and a stick cut by the wayside. 



