A Holiday In The Happy Valley With Pen And Pencil

A Holiday in the Happy Valley with Pen and Pencil

“ Over the great windy waters, and over the clear crested summits, Unto the sea and the sky, and unto the perfecter earth, Come, let us go !” CLOUGH 1907...

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PREFACE

I observe that it is customary to begin a book by an Introduction, Preface, or Foreword. In the good old days of the eighteenth century this generally took the form of a burst of grovelling adoration aimed at some most noble or otherwise highly important person. This fulsome fawning on the great was later changed into propitiation of the British public, and unknown authors revelled in excuses for publishing their earlier efforts. But now that every one has written a book, or is about to do so, I

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CHAPTER I INTRODUCTION

A journey to Kashmir now—in these days of cheap and rapid locomotion—is in nowise serious. It takes time, I grant you, but to any one with a few months to spare—and there are many in that happy position—there can be few pleasanter ways of spending a summer holiday. It would be as well to start from England not later than the middle of March, as the Red Sea and the Sind Desert begin to warm up uncomfortably in spring. Srinagar would then be reached fairly early in April, and the visitor should ar

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CHAPTER II THE VOYAGE OUT

It seems extraordinary to me that every day throughout the winter, crowds of people should throng the railway stations whence they can hurry south in search of warmth and sunshine, and yet London remains apparently as full as ever! We plunged into a seething mass of outward-bound humanity at Victoria Station on the 22nd of February, and, having wrestled our way into the Continental express, were whirled across the sad and sodden country to Dover amidst hundreds of our shivering fellow-countrymen

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CHAPTER III KARACHI TO ABBOTABAD

This morning we awoke to find ourselves rattling and shaking our way through the Sind Desert—an interminable waste of sand, barren and thirsty-looking, covered with a patchy scrub of yellowish and grey-purple bushes. I can well imagine how hatefully hot it can be here, but to-day it has been merely pleasantly warm. Jane and I were deeply interested in the novel scenes we passed through, which, while new and strange to us, were yet made familiar by what we had read and heard. The quiet-eyed cattl

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CHAPTER IV ABBOTABAD TO SRINAGAR

Dismal tidings came in of floods and storms on the Hassan Abdal road. The river had swollen, and both men and beasts had been swept away while trying to cross. Undeterred, however, by such news, even when backed by warnings and persuasions from our friends, we set forth in the rain yesterday morning. The prospect was not cheerful—a grey veil of cloud lay over all the surrounding hills, here and there deepening into dark and angry thunder-clouds. The road was desperately heavy, but the General ha

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CHAPTER V FIRST IMPRESSIONS OF SRINAGAR

We learnt that the earthquake of this morning was far more than the ordinary affair that we had taken it to be. The hotel showed signs of a struggle for existence. Large cracks in the plaster, spanned by strips of paper gummed across to show if they widened, and little heaps of crumbled mortar on the floors, betrayed that the grip of mother earth had been no feeble one. Telegrams from Lahore inquired if the rumour was true that Srinagar had been much damaged, and reported an awful destruction an

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CHAPTER VI OUR FIRST CAMP

The fleet, consisting of four sail (I use this word in its purely conventional sense, a dounga having no more sails than a battleship), got under way about 5 A.M., while it was yet but barely daylight, and so we were well clear of Srinagar when we emerged from our cosy cabins into a world of clean air and brilliant colour. The broad smooth current of the Jhelum flowed steadily and calmly through a level plain, bearing us along at a comfortable four miles an hour, the crew doing little more than

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CHAPTER VII BACK TO SRINAGAR

Easter Day, April 23.—We left the Erin district early in the morning following the bara singh fiasco, and punted and poled up the river to join the Smithsons in a last attack upon the duck. We found the bold Colonel, “Rough with slaughter and red with fight,” enjoying himself hugely among the jheels, and we prepared to join in the fray; but our chasse was put an end to by the discovery that the 14th, and not the 15th, was the last legal day for shooting. So we packed away our guns and towed up t

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CHAPTER VIII THE LOLAB

May 1.—The pear and cherry blossom has been so lovely in and around Srinagar that we determined to go to the Lolab Valley and see the apple blossom in full flower. We started in some trepidation, for the warm weather lately has melted much snow on the hills, and Jhelum is so full that we were told that our three-decker would be unable to pass under the city bridges—of which there are seven. We decided to see for ourselves, so set forth about eleven, and soon came to the first bridge, the Amira K

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CHAPTER IX SRINAGAR AGAIN

We have spent the last three weeks or so quietly in Srinagar, our boats forming links in the long chain that, during the “season,” extends for miles along both banks of the river. A large contingent of amphibians dwells in the canal leading to the Dal gates, and the Chenar Bagh, sacred to the bachelor, shows not a spare inch along its shady length. Not being either professional globe-trotters or Athenians, we have not felt obliged to be perpetually in high-strung pursuit of some new thing; and t

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CHAPTER X THE LIDAR VALLEY

We were glad enough to leave Srinagar, as that place has been undoubtedly trying lately, being extremely hot and relaxing. The river, which had been up to the fourteen-foot level, as shown on the gate ports at the entrance to the Sunt-i-kul Canal, had fallen to 9-1/2 feet, and the mud, exposed both on its banks and in the fields and flats which had been flooded, must have given out unwholesome exhalations, of which the riverine population, the dwellers in house-boats and doungas, got the full be

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CHAPTER XI GANGABAL

Friday, June 30.—The last few days have been somewhat uneventful. We left Pahlgam at early dawn on Wednesday, just as the first lemon-coloured light was spreading in the east over the pine-serrated heights above the camp. The rapids below Colonel Ward’s bungalow, which had been fierce and swollen as we passed them on our upward way, were now reduced to roaring after the subdued fashion of the sucking dove; so we hardly paused to contemplate either them or the big boulder, red-stained and holy, a

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THE HOOPOE

Early history of .—Tereus, King of Thrace, annoyed his wife Procne so much by the very marked attention which he paid to her sister Philomela, that she lost her temper so far as to chop up her son Itylus, and present him to his papa in the form of a ragoût. This, naturally, disgusted Tereus very much, and he “fell upon” the ladies with a sword, but, just as he was about to stab them to the heart, he was changed into a Hoopoe, Philomela into a nightingale, Procne into a swallow, while Itylus beca

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CHAPTER XIII THE FLOOD

Tuesday, September 12.—A second edition of the Noachian deluge is upon us! It began to rain on Saturday, at the close of a hot and stuffy week, and, having succeeded in thoroughly soaking the unfortunate ladies who were engaged in a golf competition that day, it proceeded to rain abundantly all through Sunday and Monday. The outlook from our hut is dispiriting; through a thick grey veil of vapour the gleam of water shines over the swamp that was the polo-ground. The little muddy stream in which

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CHAPTER XIV THE MACHIPURA

Wednesday, September 27.—We left Srinagar yesterday, very sorry indeed to part from the many good friends we have made and left there. Truly Kashmir is a hospitable country, and we have met with more kind friendliness in the last six months than we could have believed possible, coming as we did, strangers and pilgrims into a strange land. Our consolation is that every one comes “Home” sooner or later, so that we can look forward to meeting most of our friends again ere very long, and recalling w

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CHAPTER XV DELHI AND AGRA

The journey down was uneventful, and quite unlike the journey up, when we had been briskly occupied in dodging landslips for days. A good road, white and dry, and sloping steadily downward; a good pair of ponies, strong and willing; a roomy landau, wherein Hesketh—still suffering from his fall at Drogmulla—could stretch himself in comparative comfort, combined to bring us to Kohala this afternoon in a state of excellent preservation. Here we crossed the bridge, which brought us to the right bank

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CHAPTER XVI UDAIPUR

We arrived, very sleepy and gritty, at Chitor at 5.30 A.M., to find an unprecedented mob of first-class passengers en route for Udaipur, and only one very minute compartment in which to stow them. The station-master—a solemn Baboo, full of his own importance, becomingly clad in a waving white petticoat, with bare legs and elastic-sided boots, surmounted by a long cutaway frock-coat, topped by a black skull-cap, and finally decorated by a pen behind his ear—seemed totally unable to cope with the

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APPENDIX I

BIG GAME LICENSE No. I, Price Rs. 60 (sixty only). This license will remain in force from the 15th of March 190 to the 15th November 190, and is subject to the Kashmir Stata Game Laws; it permits the Licensee to shoot the undermentioned game in the Districts and Nullahs open to sportsmen, and, subject to Rules 8 and 9 of these Laws, small game between the above dates. _Name of Licensee____________________________________________ _Address_____________________________________________________ _Sign

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APPENDIX II

From the earliest times the Kashmiris have been objects of contempt and derision, whilst the women have been—perhaps unduly—lauded for their looks and general excellence. The Kashmiris themselves are of opinion that “once upon a time” they were an honourable and valiant folk, brought gradually to their present condition by foreign oppression. To a certain extent this is probably true, but, according to the Rajatarangini Kulan , they were noted for dishonesty and cunning long before the evil days

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APPENDIX III

I had hoped to have given, through the kindness of Colonel Ward, a full list of the birds of Kashmir. Up to the time of going to press, however, the complete list has not been made out. A very large proportion, however, has been published in the Journal of the Bombay Nat. Hist. Society . I would refer those desirous of a knowledge of the birds of Kashmir to the above Journal for 23rd April and 20th Sept. 1906, and 15th Feb. 1907. Also to Hume and Henderson’s Lahore to Yarkand , and to Le Mesurie

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PRÉCIS OF EXPENSES—TWO PERSONS

EXPENSES IN KASHMIR (6 Months) BARAMULA TO BOMBAY (1 Month)...

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