CHAPTER X 



KASHMIR TO CHINA 



ROM our camp at Kaipora the outfit 

 was carried by pack-ponies down again 

 into the valley to Sopor, and thence by 

 doongas through the pretty canals back 

 to Srinagar, where the ravages of the flood were 

 painfully visible in all directions. The hotel on my 

 arrival was still an island, to gain access to which 

 one was obliged to wade knee-deep in water; and 

 here a damp and dismal sight met one's view : the 

 lower floor had been entirely submerged and its 

 furniture ruined, and as the flood had been flush with 

 the second story, arriving guests had been obliged 

 to disembark at the second-floor windows. Perry 

 and I had had remarkable luck with our baggage 

 and city clothes, for by chance they had been placed 

 in the attic, whereas the greater part of the trunks 

 in the hotel had been left below in the storeroom, 

 and as the flood had come up with extreme rapidity, 

 there had been no time to remove them. Some 

 sportsmen who, like ourselves, had been for several 

 months in the mountains, returned while we were 



