From Dalhousie into Chamba 83 



Across the valley below we looked on to the 

 mountains topped with snow, dazzling in the early 

 sunlight. 



Suddenly the welcome sounds of breakfast. Lai 

 Khan and our Portuguese cook, who had a magnificent 

 name with a thousand titles, and whom we always 

 called " The Commander of the Portuguese Army," 

 emerged from behind some rocks farther down the 

 path, and appeared with a cloth and all the civilised 

 adjuncts, followed by tea and coffee, fried fish and a 

 steaming omelette, dal and rice, porridge, scones and 

 jams, fruit, etc. It is a truism to say that there are 

 no dining-rooms like Heaven's own halls, no keener 

 appetiser than the morning air. 



Afterwards we fell back upon our books, papers, 

 and pencils, and lay looking up at the dense, vibrating 

 roof of leaves, and through its chinks into the blue 

 beyond. The place was full of meanings and sugges- 

 tions : an uncongenial companion would have jarred 

 bitterly. One with the inanities of custom, to be borne 

 with in the stupefying atmosphere of wall-papers, 

 carpets, and furniture, he would hardly have been in 

 a suitable environment here. Language is a poor 

 bull's-eye 'lantern wherewith to show off" the vast 

 cathedral of the world, and there come times in our 

 noisy, bustling little lives when it is superfluous, and 

 we realise that " Speech is of time, silence of eternity." 

 A trivial remark breaks such a silence, and our souls 

 tell us that the Divine Gates are closing. 



The forests immediately round Dalhousie consist 



