CHAPTER II 



MARCH 26-28 — SRINAGAR tO SHITKURI 



Kashmir laziness — Tiffin coolie — Lui — Rice straw for grass shoes — Wet 

 day — Mangam — First camp — Ponies — Mr. Jebb — Servvan — Gund — 

 Difficulty about coolies — Rezin — Snow — Sonamerg Gorge — Shitkuri 

 — Native hut. 



The morning of the 26th of March broke wet and windy, 

 and I awoke to find the men towing. I had had an un- 

 commonly bad night, for I had started with a cold and 

 headache, and the wind blew in strong on me through 

 the matting of the dunga, and the rain accompanied it 

 and dripped from the roof, so that I slept little. We 

 ought by daylight to have been at Manasbal, which is 

 a very easy night's run by boat from Srinagar, but the 

 lazy manjis had evidently taken it quietly during the 

 night, and Abdulla had not kept them up to their work 

 as it was his business to do. The result was that we 

 did not reach Manasbal till 1.30 p.m. 



In the meantime Abdulla had arranged all the 

 baggage into loads ready for the coolies. At Manasbal 

 the permanent coolies mentioned above met us, but only 

 seven instead of eight. One of these, a man called Chand, 

 had been engaged as my tiffin coolie. The custom is 



