1 76 Sport and Life in the Further Himalaya 



Union Jack. We are at length in our own 

 garden, and after the glare and dust, how de- 

 lightful the change was can be left to the 

 imagination. To the lady of our party, any- 

 how, after the long marches through a barren 

 wilderness of mountains, its cool shade savoured 

 of Elysium. 



Our house was built some decades ago by 

 the first Commissioner and celebrated explorer, 

 Ney Elias. The walls were frescoed by lama 

 artists in the brilliant pigments used in Tibetan 

 monasteries. Those in the hall and climbing 

 up the stairs represented the Dogra invasion 

 of Ladak, with elephants, cavalry, and foot- 

 soldiers climbing over the diminutive green and 

 white pyramids which conventionally represented 

 the snow -crested Himalaya; while upstairs the 

 walls of the passages and of the dining-room 

 were done in rectangles, each one depicting a 

 Tibetan fairy tale. The drawing-room was on 

 the upper floor, and commanded from its windows 

 one of those views which always remain in the 

 memory. Looking over the garden and across 

 a wide sandy valley, one saw some five or six 

 miles away and a thousand feet below us the 

 glitter of the Indus meandering in a dark belt 

 of green. Beyond this a superb snowy range, 

 with towering crests 20,000 feet and more in 



