THE BEAUTIFUL JHELUM. 121 



fit again ere I commenced rough mountain-climbing. There 

 was little to interest us along the first part of our route, so we 

 got over it as quickly as possible, our object being to reach 

 our shooting-ground in the beginning of May, which is gene- 

 rally considered the best spring month for ibex-hunting. 

 Earlier in the year, and particularly if it be a late one as 

 regards snow, this sport is attended with considerable risk 

 from the constant falling of avalanches ; and the mountain- 

 passes leading into the best ibex country are then difficult to 

 cross, and sometimes not practicable before May. Later in 

 the season, when the mountains are more free of snow, the 

 ibex are higher up and more scattered on them, and conse- 

 quently more difficult to find. 



Every traveller by the Murree route to Cashmere must be as 

 much struck as we were with the romantic beauty of that part 

 of it between Uri and Baramoola, where, for the last eighteen 

 miles or so before reaching the valley, the path winds through 

 shady woods of deodar cedars, horse-chestnuts, and other 

 grand forest - trees, or thickets of hawthorn and wild -rose 

 bushes, where steep sloping acclivities and craggy pine-clad 

 1 mights flank it 011 the right, whilst on the left the river Jhelum 

 rushes by with a deafening roar, which resounds among the 

 mountains rising lofty, and often snow-capped, on either side 

 it the contracted and winding valley through which that 

 splendid river here flows. The tremendous volume of water 

 tears and surges along, in some places taking the form of a 

 raging cataract, in others churning itself into broad sheets of 

 seething foam. The Cashmerees have it that the beautiful 

 .Hidum gives vent to these mad caprices by way of showing 

 her \vrnth at being forced to quit their lovely valley, through 

 which she flows so tranquilly. And should the wayfarer 

 have an archaeological bent, he can here find, half hidden 

 among trees, and much overgrown by their .unarled old roots, 

 some curious ruins so ancient as to be of doubtful origin 

 t interest him as he rests by the roadside. 



