Kashmir 153 



refreshing beyond words. It looked, as it is, 

 the land of fruit a land in whose rich soil you have 

 only to plant your walking-stick for it to grow. 



The sleepy, blue Jhelum wound through it like 

 a ribbon laid upon the flat. All round the valley 

 were mountains, grey and wooded up to a certain line, 

 and above that line white, dazzling snow. In the 

 afternoon we reached Gulmerg by a path through the 

 forests a steady ascent from Baramoula ; we had come 

 up into the clouds, too, and it was raw and chilly. 

 Our path eventually opened out into an open space or 

 merg, and here it is that the English in Kashmir 

 yearly congregate, when the valleys below are supposed 

 to be hot and full of mosquitos, living in wooden huts, 

 or in tents, round the edge of the merg under the pines. 



It is an odd little settlement. Soft, short turf in 

 colour positively a poisonous green, it was so vivid 

 carpeted this little basin in the forest, two or three 

 paths intersected it, an ugly church in the middle a 

 good deal spoilt it, on one side was the polo-ground 

 and club, on the other the golf-links, and all round, 

 under the trees at the edge, were the little huts, where 

 everybody was living a picnic life, with their ponies 

 tethered outside. The Resident's house was at one 

 end, the wooden hotel at the other, to which we went, 

 for tents did not look inviting in the mist and rain. 



We had bad weather at Gulmerg. We were not 

 golfers ; it was too wet to get much polo ; and conse- 

 quently the place palled more than it ought to have 

 done, considering how hospitable everybody was. We 



