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. It
was situated on a rock, several hundred feet above the river which
separated us from the town; and, from our elevated position, we had
a fine view of the whole place, and got an insight into the manners
and customs of the inhabitants, without their being at all aware of
our proximity.
The women and children appeared to be dressed quite in the Tartar
style: the women with little red square-cornered fez caps, with a
long strip of cloth thrown gracefully over them, and either pyjamas
of blue stuff with a red stripe, or a long loose toga of greyish
cloth, reaching nearly to the feet. The little girls were quite of
the bullet-headed Tartar pattern, of Crimean recollection, but wore
rather less decoration. The Crimean young ladies generally had a three
cornered charm suspended round their necks, while the youthful fashion
of Rajaori, scorning all artificial adornment, selected nature only
as their mantua-maker, and wore their dresses strictly according to
her book of patterns.
Enter page number
PreviousNext
Page 20 of 158
Words from 9875 to 10392
of 82277
