above and an uncomfortably mangled death below in
the tide; at the further end another double S curve
took one on to the main road again, and we had
reached Kashmir territory. I felt, grateful to the
gallant Sikh; still more so to the stout pair of reins!
The road widened and twisted, giant cliffs were
piled up on our right hand, a steep slope on our left
ended in the Jhelum—brown, tormented, tossed—the
rain slackened, wind came in less scathing blasts, and
as twilight set in I began to realise that at last I had
reached the flowery land of my dreams, clumps of
ruscotonus, most feathery of shrubs, filled up the undergrowth,
the starry St. John’s wort brightened the
rain-drenched banks, tiny pink tulips and various other
bright flowers cheered me with promise of future
treasure trove.
Darkness had long set in when we reached our
halting-plaoe for the night, having come over one
hundred miles since our early start that morning.
Alas, and alas, Garhi as a “ rest ’’-house proved a snare
and a delusion; two large parties had taken entire
possession. Not a room was to be had; only the fire
in the common dining-room was available for drying
purposes. Imagine the misery of a poor, shivering, rain-
drenched human, aching from fatigue, speechless from
cold, and dependent for warmth on the damp bedding
that had for eighteen hours been dripped upon.
Luckily, a hot dinner put some life into me; a fatherly
Khansamah of huge proportions and ruddy-tinted
beard offered to dry garments before the kitchen fire,
and found it possible to arrange some kind of sleeping
arrangement in a half-finished addition to the bungalow;
and so to bed, in a room windowless and with
undried plaster, fireless, and unfurnished. Never was
dawn so welcome. I could have sat up and crowed
with joy, in reply to the giddy matutinal fowls, so
pleased was I to hear them, and as a little fever can
go a long way towards producing strange impressions,
I was quite prepared when I arose, still voiceless and
with a peculiar fluffiness about the head, to believe
myself either one of them or anything else rather than
the miserable sore thing I really was.
Phenacetin will work wonders in a short space, a
bright sun do more, a good cup of tea most of all towards
restoring a sane view of things, but it may very possibly
have been due to a lingering high temperature that
the mountains on my right seemed that day literally to
touch the heavens, that the Jhelum on the other side
became a coffee-coloured flood flowing far down in a
vast seam in the earth, while all remembrance of the
strange antics of the ponies has remained as a blurred:
vision of wild animals alternately balancing themselves
on their tails and their heads in order that their legs i
might be free for gyrations of the purest phantasy,
often dropping a hind leg over the “ khud ” (sloping
bank), then trying conclusions with the huge boulders
that strewed the road, the debris of the landslips caused
by the heavy rains. It seemed due to a kindly chance
that we did not, a score of times, end our days in the
swift river, and that all the damage to ourselves accruing
from the violent encounters with sharp rocks and other
vehicles were such trifling damages as broken traces
and the grazing a pony’s shoulder; but we made our
passing felt, leaving behind two over-turned “ ekkas,”
one of which contained a very fat ayah, much injured
in the upset.