The curious formation of the valley was very
observable as we drove along, for, as the vast overhanging
ranges receded from the river, the under cliffs,
called “ karewas,” became visible. I t is supposed that
these formed the bed of the great lake once co-extensive
with the present Jhelum valley. The fan-shaped
plateaux are now the favoured land for cultivation, their
Ekkas a t Baramula
rich, alluvial soil being the best suited for the saffron
crop, a very valuable product. I t was a land of contrasts
that we were being whirled through. Sometimes
mammoth slabs of rock towered above us in a
manner anything but reassuring when one noticed the
easy way in which they disintegrated after heavy rains;
water-falls, frost-bound above, sun-loosened below, tore
and tumbled down the mountain sides, threatening'
destruction to all obstacles, and vast moraines scarred
the hills, then, with abrupt transition, would succeed a
grassy slope, starred with the most delicate spring'
flowers, shaded by fruit trees just bursting into bloom,
or a cluster of wooden huts, the open work of the
wooden shutters—glass windows are an unknown quantity—
still closed with paper and felt against therigorous
winter cold, and sheltered by spreading walnut or
chenaar trees (the oriental plane). The great size of
the representatives of our forest trees was very noticeable—
walnuts, planes, deodars, poplars, are all Goliaths,
and dwarf the already tiny proportions of the houses
and the “ ziarats,” wooden Mahomedan shrines, used
as mosques. These are pretty little square structures
with pyramidal roofs usually smothered with creamy
imperial lilies, scarlet tulips, or blue iris. The Kashmiri
is such a brawny, muscular person, one wonders how
he contrives to live or worship in such Wee boxes.
Later, I became convinced that, like a squirrel, the
householder never uses his dark, warm burrow save
to secrete his winter food-stuffs, spending his life in the
open, and only curling up round his kangar (charcoal
basket) when the weather outside was impossible.
Hour after hour went by, and on we tore along this
one specimen of a road as yet achieved in Kashmir,
Always the same features were noticeable, though fresh
beauties constantly showed themselves—piled-up masses
of rock, the outer barricades of the great mountain
rampart stretching for two hundred miles between
India and the happy valley, an angry rushing river,
bearing with giddy speed great rafts of timber and
mammoth trunks that constantly blocked, and were