CHAPTER VII 



B ARAM U LA 



WE have left the Alps behind us a long climb, but 

 finished at last and now here we are suddenly 

 transplanted to that beautiful garden called Cashmere 

 the Indian Italy, a land breathing of Romeo and 

 Juliet. 



We have made our entry at Baramula, where the 

 Jhelum, the Hydaspes of the ancients, leaves its 

 silent, grassy banks to fall headlong into the plains of 

 the Punjaub, becoming ever wilder as it leaps from 

 rock to rock. How quietly it flows here through 

 the valley between its smiling banks ! A feeling of 

 warmth and peace steals over our senses. Sweet- 

 scented carpets literally spread themselves out before 

 our astonished eyes the whole valley is one moving 

 mass of bursting bloom in the June haze. What a 

 sparkling, laughing, enticing world ! Nature here 

 draws her resources from the deep wells of life's 

 eternity ! 



Alas ! how quickly the vision fades ! We are 

 fast approaching Europe's culture, the great Dak 



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