14 
NARRATIVE. 
day, and in the case of Hindus is cooked by each 
man for himself, or by one man for all the others of 
his own caste. This route to Kashmir, although phy- 
sically one of the easiest, is practically about the 
worst, from the absence in many places of any 
attempt at making a road. 
At Dansal, I intimated to the men who were with 
me that 1 proposed to go on to Mir, but they all 
seemed to have had enough of it for one day, so 
giving them the option of coming on by regular 
marches, which they all accepted, I lay down and 
had an hour or two of sleep, until a guide could be 
procured to show me the way. 
I again started before daylight, and as day began 
to break I found myself in an open, well-cultivated 
valley, near a village called Ugerbai ; the hills on 
either side were covered with scrubby jungle,* and the 
country very much resembled the Salt range below 
Jhelum, and had a very parched appearance ; in fact, 
the climate for thirty miles into the low hills differs 
very slightly from that of the Panjab plains. 
The European Cuckoo was calling in every valley, 
and reminded me of home, for during eleven years on 
the plains I had never seen it or heard its call, 
although another species of cuckoo is common 
enough about Lahore. 
At Krimchi, fifteen miles from Dansal, there is a 
halting-place near the village, and there I found one 
of Mr. Forsyth's servants preparing breakfast for me 
under a tree. On the way to Krimchi I noticed, 
growing wild, the five-angled Euphorbia, E. penta- 
gona, so often used as a hedge plant in the Panjab, 
where it goes by the name of Cactus. From its 
