CHAPTER I 



MARCH 15-25 LUCKNOW TO SRINAGAR 



Start — Ekkas — Kohala — Garhi — Uri — Rope Bridges — Baramulla — 

 Dungas — Shooting grounds — Haramosh — Conditions of journey — 

 Tents — Srinagar — Parwanas — Shopping — Battery. 



It was not till the spring of 1896 that I was able to 

 carry out the shooting trip in Kashmir, which I had 

 projected twelve years before, when in 1884 I bought 

 Col. Ward's book dealing with the sport to be had in 

 that celebrated land. There had been difficulty about 

 leave, and I had been obliged to go home three times, and 

 one thing or another had interfered. But at last I had 

 settled everything, and with a year's furlough in hand, my 

 wife and I started on the 15th of March 1896 from 

 Lucknow, where I was then Deputy-Commissioner, for 

 Rawal Pindi, the nearest railway station to Srinagar, the 

 capital of Kashmir, and the starting-point of the tongas 

 for that country. We took with us two servants — a 

 khidmatgar^ named Hade Hosein, and a sweeper — 

 trusting to obtaining whatever others we should want 

 on our arrival. The only other member of the party 



1 Table-servant. 

 B 



