KASHMIR AND THE HIMALAYAS IN MID-WINTER. 243 



quest of,, but after sand-grouse, partridges, aud even 

 crows, choughs, and corbies, and no success was our 

 lot that day. 



Before leaving Peshawar, I visited, like all other 

 tourists, the shawl-merchants, where rich embroideries 

 and stuffs from the looms of Kashmir and Afghanistan 

 are spread out for one's inspection. I also visited the 

 native city, and finally was much interested in watch- 

 ing the Deputy-Commissioner trying a case of wife- 

 murder committed under the most atrocious circum- 

 stances, a crime by no means unusual in the district. 

 Hence I went by rail to Eawal Pindi and reached 

 Murree, the Summer Hill Station, within a few hours' 

 drive, perched upon the summit of a wooded hill nearly 

 8,000 feet above the sea-level, and commanding a 

 splendid view southwards over the misty plains of 

 India, flat-looking like the ocean, and with rib-like 

 ridges of Himalayan foothills running down into them 

 like the mountains round Ben Lawers descend into 

 Loch Tay, and also northwards over valleys in which 

 the Jhelum flows invisible amid snow -clad ranges, 

 most of them higher than any in Europe. I found 

 Murree totally deserted except by some of the natives 

 and one solitary European, who was starting a new 

 hotel for the summer. Snow lay in patches on the 

 shady side of the mountain, but the regular fall of 

 snow, which generally occurs at this time of the year 

 (January 14), had not yet taken place. 



Arrangements were made with the tehsildar, who is 

 the native official to whom in India one generally 



R 2 



