NATUEALIST IN INDIA. 185 



cumulated to even several inches, and the little village of 

 Sipoor looked on the 24th of April as if it had been mid- 

 winter ; and what appeared strange, among the cold and snow 

 all the apricot trees were in full bloom ! The thermometer 

 stood at 40° in a neighbouring hamlet, where, among cattle 

 and cackling hens, we spent a sleepless night from the 

 attacks of legions of "cimex" and "pulex," both of which 

 aboimd in the native dwellings of Cashmere. 



One beautiful morning, shortly after sunrise, as my shick- 

 aree was seated beside me on a mountain-top, from which a 

 magnificent view of the valley was visible, we had been in- 

 tently scanning the hill-sides for game, when, suddenly turn- 

 ing towards me, and pointing downwards, he exclaimed, 

 " What could have induced the English to have given that 

 fine valley to Goulab Singh ? " He knew the story of how it 

 was purchased by the present ruler at the termination of the 

 Sutluj campaign even better than I did ; but the sudden 

 ebullition of affectionate regard for his native land overcame 

 him, and seeing it to such advantage on that bright spring 

 morning, the simple shickaree turned an aesthetic ; and no 

 wonder, for before or since I never beheld a lovelier scene : 

 there lay the fine broad vaUey, far, far down, the Jhelum, 

 twisting through its rich field? covered with grass, and irri- 

 gated by numberless mountain torrents, — the rising sun just 

 gilding the tops of its snow-clad barriers, and the smoke rising 

 from hundreds of villages and hamlets, half-hid among pro- 

 fusion of tree and jungle. Verily, well might have the poet 

 sang, — " If there be an Elysium on earth it is this — it is this." 



Prom the Trahal we crossed a range, and entered the Duch- 

 inpara, a magnificent offshoot from the Cashmere valley, where 

 it opens out into a broad plain, several miles in breadth, then 

 gradually narrowing and bursting through the Northern Pin- 



