A Holiday in the Happy Valley with Pen and Pencil Part 12

Before turning in, I gave orders that a start should be made next morning at five o'clock, but a heavy squall of rain and thunder during the night had the effect of causing orders to be set at naught, and at breakfast-time there was no sign of "up anchor" nor even of "heaving short." An interview with the Admiral showed me that the Wular, in his opinion, was too dangerous to cross to-day--in fact he wouldn't dream of asking coolies to risk it. He was given to understand that we intended to cross, and that the sooner he started the safer it would be.

No coolies being forthcoming, I inhumanly gave orders to get under way--the available crew consisting of the wicked Satarah, the first lieutenant, and the Lady Jiggry. Sulkily and slowly we wended our way past the wide flats which border the Wular, all blazing golden with mustard in full pungent flower.

Before entering the lake the Admiral meekly requested to be allowed to try for coolies in a small village near by. He was allowed quarter of an hour for pressgang work, and sure enough he came back within a very reasonable time with a few spare hands, and then--paddling and poling for dear life--we glided swiftly through the tangled lily-pads and the green rosettes of the Singhara, and soon were _in medias res_ and fairly committed to the deep.

The Wular lay like a burnished mirror, reflecting the b.u.t.tresses of Haramok on our right, and the snowy ranges by the Tragbal ahead, its silvery surface lined here and there with the wavering tracks of other boats, or broken by bristling clumps of reeds and tall water-plants. Our transit was perfectly peaceful, and by lunch-time we were safely tied up to a bank, purple with irises, just below Bandipur.

A visit to the post-office and a stroll up the rocky hill behind it, where we sat for some time and watched a pair of jackals sneaking about, completed a peaceful afternoon.

_May_ 3.--We were up with the lark, and, having moved along the coast a few miles to the west of Bandipur, left the ship before six of the clock in pursuit of bear. I had "khubbar" of one in the Malingam Nullah, and, after a brisk walk over the lower slopes, we entered the nullah and clambered up about 1500 feet to a quiet and retired spot under a shady thorn-bush, where we breakfasted.

We thereafter climbed a little higher, and then sat down while the shikaris departed to spy, their method of spying being, I believe, somewhat after this fashion:--Leaving the sahib with his belongings--notably the tiffin coolie--in a spot carefully selected for its seclusion, the miscreants depart hurriedly and rapidly up the nearest inaccessible crag; this is "business," and throws dust, so to say, in the eyes of the sahib, by means of an exhibition of activity and zeal. Pa.s.sing out of sight over the sky-line, the hunters pause, wink at one another, and, choosing a shady and convenient corner, proceed to squat, light their pipes, and discuss matters--chiefly financial--until they deem it time to return, scrambling and breathless with excitement, to relate all that they have seen and done.

So, while the shikaris unceasingly spied for bear, for nine mortal hours Jane and I camped out on a remarkably hard and unyielding stone, varied by other seats equally tiresome.

Fortunately we had brought books with us, and we relieved the monotony by observing the habits of a pair of "kastooras," a hawk, and a brace of chikor at intervals, but it was truly a tedious chase.

At four o'clock the sons of Nimrod returned, declaring that the bear had been seen, but that as we had on chaplies and not gra.s.s shoes, it would be impossible for us to pursue him. I asked the shikari why the ---- goose he had let me come out in chaplies instead of gra.s.s shoes if the country was so rough? His reply was to the effect that whatever it pleased me to wear pleased him!

_May_ 4.--Armed _cap-a-pie_ so to speak, with pith helmets and gra.s.s shoes, we again set forth at dawn of day to hunt the bear. Breakfast under the same tree, sitting on the same patch of rose-coloured flowers--a sort of fumitory (_Corydalus rutaefolia_)--followed by another nine-hour bivouac, brought us to 5 P.M. and the extreme limit of boredom, when lo! the shikaris burst upon us in a state of frenzied excitement to announce the bear! Off we went up a steep track for a quarter of an hour, until, at the foot of a rough snow slope, the shikari told the much disgusted Jane that she must wait there, the rest of the climb being too hard for her, and, in truth, it was pretty bad. Up a very steep gully filled with loose stones and rotten snow, scrambling, and often hauling ourselves up with our hands by means of roots and trailing branches, we slowly worked our way up a place I would never have even attempted in cold blood.

Twenty minutes' severe exertion brought us to a shelf, or rather slope, of rock on the right, spa.r.s.ely covered with wiry brown gra.s.s from which the snow had but very recently gone, and crowned by a crest of stunted pines.

Up this we wriggled, I being mainly towed up by my shikari's c.u.mmerbund, and, lying under a pine, we peered over the top.

A steep gully divided us from a rough ridge, upon a gra.s.sy ledge of which, about 200 yards off, a big black beast was grubbing and rooting about.

The shikari, shaking with excitement, handed me the rifle, urging me to shoot. I did nothing of the sort, having no breath, and my hand being unsteady from a fast and stiff climb.

I regret to be obliged to admit that, not realising that it would be little short of miraculous to kill a bear stone-dead at 200 yards with a Mannlicher, and being also, naturally, somewhat carried away by the sight of a real bear within possible distance, I waited until I was perfectly steady, and fired. The brute fell over, but immediately picked himself up again and made off. I saw I had broken his fore-shoulder and fired again as he disappeared over the far side of the ledge, but missed, and I saw that bear no more.

We had the utmost difficulty in crossing the precipitous gully to a spot below the ledge upon which the beast had been feeding--the ledge itself we could not reach at all; and the lateness of the hour and the difficulty of the country in which we were, prevented us from trying to enter the next ravine and work up and back by the way the bear had gone. A neck-breaking crawl down a horrible gra.s.s slope brought us to better ground, and I sadly joined Jane to be well and deservedly scolded for firing a foolish shot.

The lady was very much disgusted at having been defrauded of the sight of a bear "quite wild," as she expressed it--a certain short-tempered animal which had eaten up her best umbrella in the Zoo at Dusseldorf not having fulfilled the necessary condition of wildness.

Next day I sent out coolies to search for traces, promising lavish "backshish" in the event of success, but I got no trustworthy news, "and that was the end of that hunting."

_May_ 6.--Jane took a respite from the chase, and I sallied forth alone at dawn up a nullah from Alsu to look for a bear which was said to frequent those parts. A brisk walk of some four miles over the flat, followed by a climb up a track--steep as usual--to the left of the main track to the Lolab, brought us to a gra.s.sy ridge, where I sat down patiently to await the bear's pleasure. I took my note-book with me, and whiled away some time in writing the following:--

Let me jot down a sketch of my present position and surroundings; it will serve to bring the scene back to me, perhaps, when I am again sitting in my own particular armchair watching the fat thrushes hopping about the lawn.

Well, I am perched in a little hollow under a big grey boulder, which serves to shelter me to a certain, but limited, extent from the brisk showers that come sweeping over from the Lolab Valley. The hollow is so small that it barely contains my tiffin basket, rifle, gun, and self--in fact, my gra.s.s-shod and puttied extremities dangle over the rim, whence a steep slope shelves down some 200 feet to a brawling burn, the hum of which, mingling with the fitful sighing of the pines as the breeze sweeps through their sounding boughs, is perpetually in my ears. Across the little torrent, and not more than a hundred yards away, rises a slope, covered with rough gra.s.s and scrub, similar to that in the face of which I am ensconced.

Here the bear was seen at 7 A.M. by a Gujar, who gave the fullest particulars to Ahmed Bot (my shikari) in a series of yells from a hill-top as we came up the valley. We arrived on the scene about seven, just in time to be too late, apparently. It is now 3 P.M., and the bear is supposed to be asleep, and I am possessing my soul in patience until it shall be Bruin's pleasure to awake and sally forth for his afternoon tea.

There is certainly no bear now, so I pa.s.s the time in sleeping, eating, smoking, writing, and observing the manners and customs of a family of monkeys who are disporting themselves in a deep glen to the left. Beyond this ravine rises a high spur, beautifully wooded, the princ.i.p.al trees being deodar, blue pine (_Excelsa_) and yew. This is sloped at the invariable and disgusting angle of 45 degrees. Beyond it rise further wooded slopes, with snow gleaming through the deep green, and above all is the changing sky, where the clear blue gives way to a billowy expanse of white rolling clouds or dark rain-laden ma.s.ses, which pour into the upper clefts of the ravine, and blot out the serried ranks of the pines, until a thorough drenching seems inevitable--when lo! a glint of blue through the gloomy background, and soon again,

"With never a stain, the pavilion of Heaven is bare."

The immediate foreground, as I said before, slopes sharply from my very feet, where a clump of wild sage and jasmin (the leaves just breaking) grows over a charming little bunch of sweet violets. Lower down I can see the lilac flowers of a self-heal, and the bottom of the little gorge is clothed with a bush like a hazel, only with large, soft whitish flowers.

My solitude has just been enlivened by the appearance of a cheerful party of lovely birds. They are very busy among the "hazels," flying from bush to bush with restless activity, and wasting no time in idleness. They are about the size of large finches--slender in shape, with longish tails.

They are divided into two perfectly distinct kinds, probably male and female. The former have the back, head, and wings black; the latter barred with scarlet, the breast and underparts also scarlet. The others--which I a.s.sume to be the females--replace the black with ashy olive, the wings being barred with yellow, the underparts yellowish. The very familiar note of the cuckoo, somewhere up in the jungle, reminds me of an English spring.

4 P.M.--I knew it! I knew that if the wind held down the nullah I should be dragged up that horrible ridge opposite. Hardly had I written the above when I was hunted from my lair, and rushed down 200 steep feet, and then up some 500 or 600 on the other side of the stream, through an abattis of clinging undergrowth that made a severe toil of what could never have been a pleasure. There can be no doubt but that a pith helmet--a really shady, broad one--is a most infernal machine under which to force one's way through brushwood.

Well, all things come to an end--wind first, temper next, and finally the journey.

My shikari is a fiend in human shape. He slinks along on the flat at what _looks_ like a mild three-miles-an-hour const.i.tutional, but unless you are a _real_ four-mile man you will be left hopelessly astern; but when he gets upon his favourite "one in one" slope, then does he simply sail away, with the tiffin coolie carrying a fat basket and all your spare lumber in his wake, while you toil upward and ever upwards--gasping--until with your last available breath you murmur "Asti," and sink upon the nearest stone a limp, perspiring worm!

5.30 P.M.--That bear has taken a sleeping draught!

I am now perched on a lonely rock, my hard taskmaster having routed me out of a very comfortable place under a blue pine, whose discarded needles afforded me a really agreeable resting-place, and dragged me away down again through the pine forest and jungle; hurried me across a roaring torrent on a fallen tree trunk; personally conducted me hastily up a place like the roof of a house; and finally, explaining that the bear, when disturbed, must inevitably come close past me, has departed with his staff (the chota shikari, the tiffin coolie, and a baboon-faced native) to wake up the bear and send him along.

After the first flurry of feeling all alone in the world, with only a probable bear for society, and having loaded all my guns, clasped my visor on my head and my Bessemer hug-proof strait-waistcoat round my "tummy," I felt calm enough to await events with equanimity.

6.15 P.M.--A large and solemn monkey is sitting on the top of a thick and squat yew tree regarding me with unfeigned interest. The torrent is roaring away in the cleft below. Nothing else seems alive, and I am becoming bored----What? A bear? No! The shikari, thank goodness!

"Well, shikari--Baloo dekho hai?" No, it is pa.s.sing strange, but he has _not_ seen a bear. "All right! Pick up the blunderbuss, and let us make tracks for the ship."

_Wednesday, May_ 10.--Beguiled by legends of many bears, detailed to me with apparently heartfelt sincerity by Ahmed Bot, I have been pursuing these phantoms industriously.

On Monday we quitted our boat, and started upon a trip into the Lolab Valley. The views, as the path wound up the green and flower-spangled slope, were very beautiful, and, when we had ascended about 1500 feet and were about opposite to the supposed haunt of Sat.u.r.day's bear, we determined to camp and enjoy the scenery, not omitting an evening expedition in search of our shy friend.

Jane joining me, we had a most charming ramble down a narrow track to the bed of the stream which rushes down from the snow-covered ridge guarding the Lolab. Here we crossed into a splendid belt of gaunt silver firs, the first I have seen here; whitish yellow marsh-marigolds and a most vivid "smalt" blue forget-me-not with large flowers were abundant, also an oxalis very like our own wood-sorrel.

Emerging from the pines, we crossed a gra.s.sy slope covered with tall primulas (P. _denticulata_) of varying shades of mauve and lilac, and sat down for a bit among the flowers while the shikaris looked for game. (I need hardly remark that the n.o.ble but elusive beast had appeared on the scene shortly after I left on Sat.u.r.day; a Gujar told the shikari, and the shikari told me, so it must be true.) When we had gathered as many flowers as we could carry, we strolled back to the camp to watch the sunset trans.m.u.te the snowy crest of Haramok to a golden rose.

Yesterday, Tuesday, I left the camp at dawn, and went all over the same ground, but with no better success, only seeing a couple of bara singh, hornless now, and therefore comparatively uninteresting from a "shikar"

point of view. After a delightful but bearless ramble I returned to breakfast, and then we struck camp, and completed the ascent of the pa.s.s over into the Lolab. Arrived at the top, we turned off the path to the right, and, climbing a short way, came out upon the lower part of the Nagmarg, a pretty, open clearing among the pines where the gra.s.s, dotted thickly with yellow colchic.u.m, was only showing here and there through the melting snow. Choosing a snug and dry place on some sun-warmed rocks at the foot of a tree, we prepared to lunch and laze, and soon spread abroad the contents of the tiffin basket.

There is something, nay much, of charm in the utter freedom and solitude of Kashmir camp life. There is no beaten track to be followed diligently by the tourist, German, American, or British, guide-book in hand and guide at elbow. No empty sardine-tins, nor untidy sc.r.a.ps of paper, mar the clean and lonely margs or village camping-grounds.

The happy wanderer, selecting a gra.s.sy dell or convenient shady tree with a clear spring or dancing rivulet near by, invokes the tiffin coolie, and if a duly watchful eye has been kept upon that incorrigible sluggard, in short s.p.a.ce the contents of the basket deck the sward. What have we here?

Yes, of course, cold chicken--

"For beef is rare within these oxless isles."

Bread! (how lucky we sent that coolie into Srinagar the other day). b.u.t.ter, nicely stowed in its little white jar, cheese-cakes (one of the Sabz Ali's masterpieces), and a few unconsidered trifles in the form of "jam pups"

and a stick of chocolate.

Whisky is there, if required, but really the cold spring water is "delicate to drink" without spirituous accompaniment.

Hunger appeased, the beauty of the surrounding scenery becomes intensified when seen through the balmy veil of smoke caused by the consumption of a mild cheroot, and peace and contentment reign while we feed the sprightly crows with chicken bones and bits of cheese rind.

Shall we ever forget--Jane and I--that simple feast on the Nagmarg?

The sloping snow melting into little rills which trickled through the fresh-springing flower-strewn gra.s.s; the extraordinary blue of the hillsides overlooking the Lolab Valley seen through the sloping boughs of the pines; the crows hopping audaciously around or croaking on a dried branch just above our heads; and above all, the glorious sense of freedom, of aloofness from all disturbing elements, of utter and irresponsible independence in a lovely land unspoiled by hand of man?

The afternoon sun smote us full in the face as we descended the bare and not too smooth path that led into the valley, and we were right glad to reach the shade of a grove of deodars that covered the lower slopes of the hill. The Lolab Valley, into which we had now penetrated, is a rich and picturesque expanse of level plain, some fifteen miles long by three or four broad, apparently completely surrounded by a densely-wooded curtain of mountains, rising to an elevation of some 3000 feet above the valley on the south and west, but ranging on the other sides up into the lofty summits which bar the route into Gurais and the Tilail. The mountain chain is not really continuous, the river Pohru, which drains the valley, finding outlet to the west e'er it bends sharply to the south and enters the Wular near Sopor.