INTRODUCTORY, 
9 
Jamu, twenty-five miles to the north-east. The road 
from Sydlkot to Jamu is for the most part merely a 
track through fields, without any regularly made 
road. We travelled, however, at a rattling pace the 
whole way, until near Jamu, when the road became 
alarmingly bad, and after having several narrow 
escapes of being upset, we were at last brought to 
a stand-still by going over a vertical drop of about 
two feet, which nearly pitched us all out of the 
carriage and broke the pole ; but the coachman, who 
seemed to take this as a matter of course, quietly pro- 
ceeded to a neighbouring bush, and producing some 
ropes and spare poles which were there kept con- 
cealed, set to work to fit in a new pole. It appeared 
that accidents were of frequent occurrence at this 
part of the route, and instead of mending the road, 
which to European notions would have seemed the 
proper course, the Oriental mind preferred the other 
alternative. 
Near the foot of the hills here, as elsewhere along 
the Himalayas, there is a strip of dense jungle ; at 
Jamu it is only about two miles wide, and consists 
chiefly of Acacias, Zizyjphus, Jusiicia, &c. It is care- 
fully preserved by the Maharajah of Kashmir as a 
shooting ground, and is said literally to swarm with 
wild pig. On one occasion, some years ago, when 
stationed at Syalkot, a number of us were invited to 
Jamu to have some pig shooting in this jungle. A 
very good bag was made, but at the end of the day 
some doubts arose as to whether we had not been 
shooting domesticated porkers, for one of the pigs 
when shot was said to have had a rope about its neck. 
Jamu, the winter residence of the Maharajah of 
