THE BARA SING. 309 



Indeed, all was seen from out a frame, and from under a 

 canopy, of bright foliage. While from below was wafted 

 up a delicious fresh fragrance of rich and abundant vege- 

 tation, giving an idea of teeming fertility, but all of 

 nature's wildest. I felt that had I done nothing more 

 in this long excursion than just bring myself to this spot 

 to feast upon these charms of nature, I had been amply 

 repaid. 



I had dismounted, and now descended, the way run- 

 ning down in short sharp zigzags, the declivity on this 

 side being of great length and extremely steep. Paus- 

 ing, now and again, on some prominence to gaze out 

 upon the glorious picture around, thus I went down my 

 way rejoicing into a fine grassy vale : then mounted and 

 rode some ten miles along it, with an occasional stretch 

 of intervening pine woods to cross the mountains on 

 either side glorious ; those on the left more thickly 

 timbered. Luxuriating in such scenery so widely dif- 

 ferent from that recently quitted I reached our halting 

 place, a sweet spot, a level turf close by a river, over 

 which is thrown a rude but picturesque bridge. A strag- 

 gling hamlet being hard by, a few acres of cultivation, 

 irregular and unfenced, are spread around, the grain now 

 in sheaves. The valley has opened out into an expanse 

 of downs ; but lofty mountains, mostly covered to their 

 summits with vegetation or timber, overlook and shut it 

 in. One remarkable mountain, richly clad below, but 

 his hoary summit bare rock broken into countless pin- 

 nacles, stands as a gaunt sentinel over the hamlet. 



I was charmed with so delightful a spot for a bivouac, 

 and determined to halt to-morrow (Sunday), though I 

 should have to send for provisions, that is, flour. Subhan 

 went off on his tat to visit a shepherd on a neighbouring 

 mountain, and obtain reliable information of shikar. He 



