We Afterwards Went Straight
Up A Precipitous Mountain, Wooded With Pine, Which Was No Light Work
For The Coolies, Heavily Laden As They Were.
No sooner, however,
were we on the top of this than down we went on the other side; and
how the ponies managed their ups-and-downs of life was best known
to themselves; certainly, nothing but a cat or a Cashmere pony could
have got over the ground.
About nine A.M. we reached "Nowshera," under
another salute, where we found an indifferent-looking "Baraduree,"
completely suffocated among the trees of a garden called the "Bauli
Bagh," or "Reservoir Garden," from a deep stone well in the centre of
it. Here we got on indifferently well, the weather being close after
the rain, and the place thickly inhabited by crowds of sparrows,
all with large families, who made an incessant uproar all day long;
besides an army of occupation of small game, which interfered sadly
with our sleeping arrangements at night. In the evening we made the
acquaintance of a loquacious and free-and-easy gardener, entirely
innocent of clothes, who came and seated himself between F. and myself,
as we were perched upon a rock enjoying the prospect. According to his
account, the Maharajah's tenants pay about seven rupees, or fourteen
shillings, per annum for some five acres of land. In the middle of
the night we came in for another storm of thunder and lightning,
which took a good many liberties with our house, but cooled the air;
and only for the mosquitoes, and other holders of the property, whose
excessive attentions were rather embarrassing, we would have got
on very well. As it was, however, I hardly closed an eye all night,
and spent the greater part of it in meandering about the Bauli Bagh,
VESTITO DA NOTTE - in which operation I rejoice to think that, like
the Russians at the burning of Moscow, I at least put the enemy to
very considerable inconvenience, even at the expense of my own comfort.
JUNE 16. - About half-past four A.M. we got under weigh again,
heartily delighted to leave the sparrows and their allies in undisputed
possession of their property.
The "kotwal," and other authorities, who had been extremely civil in
providing supplies, coolies, &c., according to the Maharajah's order,
took very good care not to let us depart without a due sense of the
fact, for they bothered us for "bukhshish" just as keenly as the lowest
muleteer; and when I gave the kotwal twelve annas, or one shilling and
sixpence, as all the change I had, he assured me that the khidmutgar
had more, and ran back to prove it by bringing me two rupees. I gave
the scoundrel one, and regretted it for three miles, for he had robbed
the coolies in the morning, either on his own or his master's account,
of one anna, or three-halfpence each, out of their hardly-earned
wages. To-day we find ourselves once more among the rocks and pines,
and as we progressed nothing could exceed the beauty of the views
which opened upon us right and left. A mountain stream attended our
steps the whole way sometimes smoothly and placidly, sometimes dancing
about like a mad thing, and teasing the sturdy old battered rocks and
stones which long ago had settled down in life along its path, and
which, from the amount of polish they displayed, must themselves have
been finely knocked about the world in their day. Rounding a turn of
the river, where it ran deeply under its rocky bank, we came suddenly
upon the ghastly figure of a man carefully suspended in chains from a
prominent tree. His feet had been torn off by the wolves and jackals,
but the upper part of the body remained together, and there he swung
to and fro in the breeze, a ghastly warning to all evildoers, and
a not very pleasing monument of the justice of the country. He was
a sepoy of the Maharajah's army, who had drowned his comrade in the
stream below the place where he thus had expiated his crime. Not far
from this spot we discovered traces of another marauder, in the shape
of a fresh footprint of a tiger or a leopard, just as he had prowled
shortly before along the very path we were pursuing.
From this we gradually got into a region of fruit-trees, interspersed
with pines; and sometimes we came upon a group of scented palms, which
looked strangely enough in such unusual company. Through clustering
pomegranates, figs, plums, peach-trees, wild but bearing fruit, we
journeyed on and on; and, as new beauties arose around us, we could
not help indulging in castles in the air, and forming visions of
earthly paradises, where, with the addition only of such importations
as are inseparable from all ideas of paradise, either in Cashmere or
elsewhere, one might live in uninterrupted enjoyment of existence,
and, at least, bury in oblivion all remembrance of such regions as the
"Plains of India."
About ten A.M., after a continuous series of ups-and-downs of varied
scenery, we arrived at "Chungas," a picturesque old serai, perched
upon a hill over the river. It was marked off in our route as having no
accommodation, but, located among the mouldering remnants of grandeur
of an old temple in the centre of the serai, we managed to make
ourselves very comfortable, and thought our "accommodation" a most
decided improvement upon our late fashionable but rather overcrowded
halting-place. From the serai we can see, for the first time, the
snowy range of the Himalayas, trending northwards, towards the Peer
Punjal Pass, through which our route leads into the Valley of Cashmere.
JUNE 17. - Another ride through hill and dale to "Rajaori," or
"Rampore," a most picturesque-looking town, built in every possible
style of architecture, and flanked at one extremity by a ruined
castle. Our halting-place was in an ancient serai, with a dilapidated
garden, containing the remains of some rather handsome fountains.
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