NATUEALIST IN INDIA. 295 



By night and day the varying seasons round. 



The feet of destiny are not more slow 



Than that mute creature, haply not so sure."* 



The Suru glacier terminates abruptly in a vaulted cavern, 

 from whicli the Scinde or Wurdwun river takes its rise. As 

 we descended, the surroimding mountains began little by little 

 to show approaches to verdure, commencing with birch, which 

 was succeeded by grassy slopes covered with pasturage, dense 

 and luxuriant as any we had yet seen. Abundance of wild 

 onions and rhubarb covered these slopes, and although it was 

 the 16th of August, the cuckoo's chaunt sounded sweet from 

 the birken woods around, and the wild scream of the red 

 marmot was heard shrill and loud above the roaring of the 

 cataract. Continuing our course down the mountains gradu- 

 ally sloping towards the valley of Wurdwun, either by rugged 

 pathways or wading knee-deep through long grass, we at 

 length gained the banks of the Scinde river, and after toiling 

 over its rugged bottom, and picking our way through the for- 

 est we found ourselves once more at Sochness. The snow had 

 long since disappeared, and the valley of Wurdwun was now 

 clad in verdure, presenting a strange contrast to what we had 

 witnessed in May ; however, the misery and wretchedness of 

 the inhabitants continued as before, such utter apathy and 

 grovelling indigence as the most degraded of Oriental races 

 present. The men, dressed in their long loose gowns, pre- 

 sented a most effenjinate appearance. One cannot help feel- 

 ing that, even makiag every allowance for the tyranny and 

 oppression of their rulers, the Cashmerians are naturally a 

 phlegmatic and spiritless people. Everywhere in Cashmere 

 you see the- inhabitants indolent to a degree, filthy in their 



* Sir Lanceolot: a Legend of the Middle Ages, by F. W. Faber, D.D., 

 Priest of the Oratory of St. Philip-Neri. 



