22 
NARRATIVE. 
Behdt. Like all tanks in Kashmir, it swarms with 
fish, which are considered sacred hy the Hindus, and 
are so tame and fearless that they readily take food 
from the hand. On the afternoon of the 26th May we 
marched to Achibal ; the sky was clear on starting, 
but we had proceeded only a few miles when clouds 
began to gather overhead, and before we reached 
Achibal we were drenched with rain. As there was 
no rest-house , our tents had to be pitched on ground 
which was an inch deep under water. When marching 
in the Himalayas — and perhaps elsewhere the same 
may hold good — it is well to make a point of starting 
very early in the morning, as the weather is then 
usually fine, and when rain means to come on it 
generally falls in the afternoon. Camp life in wet 
weather is unpleasant enough, even when the tents 
are pitched on dry ground, but when one has to 
encamp in a six-feet-square tent on ground which is 
already under water, and all one's effects are damp 
and clammy, life in a tent is about as unpleasant a 
position as can well be imagined. 
At Achibal there is an old garden, with fountains 
supplied by one of the largest springs in Kashmir. 
The water issues like a river from a large cleft in a 
rock immediately behind the garden, and forms 
another source of the river Jhelum. At Yernag and 
Achibal the mistletoe — identical with the English 
species — was common on the Walnut-trees, which are 
very abundant here and throughout Kashmir, but 
always cultivated ; the fruit forms a very important 
article of food with the people, and a large quantity 
of oil is expressed from the nuts. 
One of the most striking birds I met with here 
