by tiny green frogs, which added a pleasantly moist
cool impression, the distance promised to be fulfilled
in the twinkling of an eye, rather than in the shaking
of a leg. Later on in the day when, after a noonday
rest, a steep descent had taken us into a sun-baked,
scorching valley, with no leaf of shade to protect from
the almost blinding reflection on smooth, hot boulders,
things wore a different aspect, and the way lengthened
itself interminably. The rushing streams, on whose
banks a delightful coolness had been found, soon
dwindled to mere threads lost in a vast bed of great
grey stones that reflected every glowing, burning ray.
Not a tree was to be seen, save an occasional stunted
willow, whose appearance I hailed with renewed energy
from a distance, approached slowly, lingered under, and
separated myself from sadly. The country of roses,
jessamine, and berberis had been left far behind, and
not a green thing relieved the weary eyes. The track
gave the impression of having been marked out by cattle
in wet weather and then left to its own resources, with
result that progress was a perpetual emotion. One
foot slid into a hole, much to the detriment of a fine
blister forming on the heel; the other in its efforts to
escape a stone fell in a rut. Stopping to give both time
to recover, the sun threatened to fire them, and, in
making a step forward, a hole hidden in the ground
revealed itself in the twisting of an ankle. I t was
hardly with the alert, brisk step—a pedestrian’s pride—
that I entered the village of Vernag, but the mere
promise of its shady glades seen from afar off had put
fresh vigour into my movements, and coming to the
first of the pure ice-cold streams that make this place
so famous, I was quite prepared to forget all discomforts
in my enjoyment of the refreshing coolness of its
many springs and famous trees. The old palace still
stands, little altered apparently since the day it was
built, more than three hundred I years ago, when
Jehangir and the fair ladies of his court retired here
from the heat of the plains of India and bathed in the
blue waters, and arranged banquets and nautches in the
torch-lit pleasances. Innumerable springs rise from
the limestone rocks, and a part of their waters are
caught in a vast tank built by the Great Mogul, and
surrounded by him with a terrace supported by stone
columns and alcoves forming bathing-houses. The
waters as they flow away are spanned by a part of the
palace, and are then diverted and divided, forming a
series of terraces and waterfalls, the former filled by
cleverly constructed fountains, still in good working
order and able to fulfil their purpose in life. I laid
out on the grass, a light wind just stirring the leaves
of the trees above me, and the men made tea—the best
tea ever presented for human refreshment, it appeared
then—and when they had laid out my modest equipage
close to the water, decorated the cloth with a bunch
of apple blossom and pink roses, added a saucer of
watercress picked close by to my modest feast, the
successor of the emperors felt herself well satisfied
with the taste of those long-dead architects, and with
the provision made by them for the comfort of posterity.
For the first time my experiences of sleeping accommodation
were to be enlarged by the shelter of a palace.
Into a large, panelled room overlooking the tank my
belongings were placed, the sliding shutters fitted into
the carved woodwork were taken out to let in the fight,
and I sat on the terrace above the water to enjoy the