A Holiday in the Happy Valley with Pen and Pencil Part 23

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 with them memories of this happy summer with those who have done so much to make it so.

Farewell, Srinagar! Your foulness and inward evilness were lost in the background behind your picturesque and tumble-down houses as we floated for the last time down Jhelum's olive waters, where the sharp-nosed boats lay moored along the margin or, poled by their st.u.r.dy Mangis and guided by the chappars of their wives and daughters, shot athwart the eddying flood, breaking the long reflections of the storeyed banks.

Past the Palace of the Maharajah, its fantastic mixture of ancient fairness and modern ugliness blending into a h.o.m.ogeneous beauty as distance lent it enchantment.

Past the temples, their tin-coated roofs refulgent in the brilliant sunlight; under the queer wooden bridges, their solid stone piers parting the suave flow of water into noisy swirl and gurgle.

Past the familiar groups of grave, white-robed men solemnly washing themselves, then scooping up and drinking the noisome fluid; past their ladies squatting like frogs by the river-side, washing away at clothes which never seem a whit the cleanlier for all their talk and trouble.

Past the children and fowls, and cows and crows, all hob-n.o.bbing together as usual.

Past all these sights--so strange to us at first and now so strangely familiar--we floated, till the broken remnant of the seventh bridge lay behind us, and the lofty poplars that hem in the Baramula road stood stark and solemn in their endless perspective.

Here a jangling note, out of tune and harsh, was struck by the dobie, with whom we had a grave difference of opinion regarding the washing.

That gentleman having "lost by neglect" certain articles of my kit--to wit sundry shirts and other garments--and having rendered others completely _hors de combat_ by reason of his sinful method of washing, I decided to "cut" three rupees off his remuneration.

This decision seemed to have taken from him all that life held of worth, and he implored me to spare his wife, children, and home, all of whom would be broken up and ruined if I were cruel enough, to enforce my awful threat. Seeing that I was obdurate, being well backed by the infuriated Jane, whose underwear showed far more lace and open work than nature intended, the wretched dobie melted into loud and tearful lamentation, and perched himself howling in the prow. This soon became so boresome that I deported him to Hesketh's boat, where he underwent another defeat at the hands of that irate Lancer, whose shirts and temper had suffered together; finally the woeful washerman, still howling lugubriously, was landed on the river bank, and we saw and heard him no more!

Down the gentle river we swiftly glided all day, while the Takht and Hari Parbat grew smaller and bluer, and Srinagar lay below them invisible in its swathing greenery.

Reaching Sumbal at sunset, we turned to the left down a narrow ca.n.a.l, and soon the Wular lay--a sheet of molten gold--upon our right; and by the time we had moored alongside a low strip of reedy bank, the glorious rosy lights had faded from the snows of the Pir Panjal, and their royal purple and gold had turned to soft ebony against the primrose of the sky.

A few hungry mosquitoes worried us somewhat before sunset, promising worse to follow; but the sharp little breeze that came flickering over the Wular after dark seemed to upset their plans, and send them shivering and hungry to shelter among the reeds and rushes.

This morning we crossed the Wular, starting as the first pale dawn showed over the eastern hills.

Before the sun rose over Apharwat, his shafts struck the higher snows and turned them rosy; while the lower slopes, their distant pines suffused with strong purple, stood reflected in the placid mirror of the lake.

"Full many a glorious morning have I seen Flatter the mountain tops with sovran eye,"

but seldom a more lovely one than this--our last on the Wular Lake.

The active figures of the propellent Mangis, and the quiet ones of their ladies at the helm, completed a picture to be recalled with a sigh when we are parted by thousands of miles from this entrancing valley.

Sopor we had understood to be but an uninteresting place, but we were, perhaps, inclined to regard things Kashmirian through somewhat rosy spectacles. Anyhow, we rather liked Sopor. Mooring close alongside a remarkably picturesque building standing in the midst of a smooth green lawn, which was once, I believe, a dak bungalow, we halted to make arrangements for the hire of coolies and ponies to take us inland, and I went off to the post-office for letters and to make inquiries as to the probable depth of water in the river Pohru.

Our skipper, Juma, affirmed that there was no water to speak of; but Juma probably--nay, certainly--prefers the _otium_ of a sojourn at Sopor to the toil of punting up the Pohru.

The postmaster declared that there was lots of water, but qualified his optimism by saying that it was falling fast. So we arranged for our land transport of ponies for ourselves, and a dandy for Hesketh, to meet us one march up the river at Nopura, while we ourselves set forward in our boats to Dubgam, three or four miles down the Jhelum, where the Pohru joins it.

At the entrance are large stores of timber, princ.i.p.ally deodar, which is floated down from the Lolab, stored at Dubgam, and sent thence down country and otherwhere for sale. The great boom across the river to catch the floating logs had been carried away in the flood, and merely showed a few melancholy and ineffectual spikes of wood sticking up above the now calm and sluggish river.

We towed up easily enough, through a quiet and peaceful country, which only became gorgeous under the alchemy of sunset, reaching Nopura in good time to tie up before dinner.

_Friday, September 29_.--On Thursday morning we started, as usual, at dawn, and proceeded to pole and haul our way up the devious channel of the Pohru.

Some four or five miles we accomplished successfully, although there were ominous signs of a gradual lack of water, until we came upon a hopeless shallow, where the river, instead of concentrating its energies on one deep and narrow channel, had run to waste over a wide bed, where the wrinkling wavelets showed the golden brown of the gravel just below the surface. Our big dounga stuck hard and fast at once, and Captain Jurna promptly gave up all hope of getting farther. He was, in fact, greatly gratified to find his prophesies come true, and an insufferable air of "I told you so" overspread his face as he wagged his head with mock sorrow, and gently poked the bottom with his pole to show how firmly fixed we were.

Having an invalid with us, however, it was important to gain every easy mile we could, and it was not until all the fleet in turn had attempted to cross the shallow, and failed, that we made up our minds to take to our land transport. It was uncommonly hot in the full glare of the sun as Hesketh in his dandy, Jane on her "tattoo," and I on foot set forward for the forest house at Harwan, which lay some five miles away across the fields, where the rice is now being busily cut.

At the foot of a very brown and parched-looking hill stood the little wooden hut, facing the valley of the Pohru and the Kaj-nag range. Hot and thirsty, we blessed the good Mr. Blunt, the kindly forest officer, who had so courteously given us permission to use the forest huts of the Lolab and the Machipura. Our blessings of Blunt turned swiftly to curses directed towards the chowkidar, who was not to be seen, and who had left the hut firmly fastened from within. An attempt to force the door brought upon us the resentment of a highly irritable swarm of big red wasps, who plainly regarded us as objectionable intruders; and Jane was really getting quite cross (she says--she always does--that it was I who lost my temper)--before the bold sweeper, prying round the back premises, found an unbarred window, and the joy bells rang once more.

The Colonel turned up from the Malingam direction, and pitched his tent in the rest-house compound; and, as the afternoon grew cooler, he and I sallied forth to select a few chikor for the pot.

The chikor is extremely like the ordinary European redleg or Barbary partridge, not only in colouring, but in habit, loving the same dry, scrub-covered country, and preferring, like him, to run rather than fly when pursued. The chikor, however, is certainly far superior in the capacity of what fowl fanciers call "a table bird," being, in fact, truly excellent eating.

He is not an altogether easy bird to shoot, owing to his annoying predilection for the steepest and rockiest hillsides, and those most densely clothed in spiny jungle, wherein lurking, he chooses the inopportune moment when the sportsman is hopelessly entangled, like Isaac's ram, to rise chuckling and flee away to another hiding-place.

Without dogs, he would be often extremely hard to find; but unluckily for himself, being a true Kashmiri bird, he cannot help making a noise, and thereby betraying his presence. His corpse, when dead, is hard to find in the jungle, and a runner is, of course, hopeless without canine help. It is well, therefore, to kill him as dead as possible, and to that end I used No. 4 shot, with, I think, a certain advantage over Walter, who shot with No. 6, and who, in consequence, lost several birds.

The friendliness and sociability of the beasts and birds of Kashmir has been a great joy to us. The thing can be overdone, though, and both the wasps and the rats of Harwan were inclined to overstep the bounds of decorum.

The latter were obviously overjoyed to see visitors, and visions of unlimited plunder from our festive board would, of course, put them somewhat above themselves. Still, they should have refrained from rioting so openly around our beds as soon as the lights were out, and Jane was naturally indignant when a large one ran over her feet!

On Friday morning we left Harwan, pretty early, as usual, for it is still somewhat too warm to travel comfortably in the middle of the day. The Colonel (always an early bird) got away first, followed by our invalid in his dandy, while Jane and I remained to hunt the loiterers out of camp. A glorious morning, and the cheering knowledge that breakfast was in front of us, sent us merrily along for a mile or two, until branching paths led us to inquire of an intelligent Kashmiri, who appeared to be busily engaged in reaping rice with a penknife, as to the road taken by our precursors, especially the tiffin coolie!

The industrious one had seen no sahibs at all pa.s.s by. This was a blow, and Jane and I sat down to review the situation. We finally decided that the son of the soil was indulging in what the great and good Winston Churchill has called a "terminological inexact.i.tude," as the others must have gone by one of the two roads; so, putting our fortunes to the touch, we took the left-hand path, and were in due time rewarded by reaching Sogul, and there finding our pioneers peacefully seated under a tree, and breakfast ready.

Leaving Sogul, we skirted for some miles a bare ridge which rose on the right, and which looked an ideal ground for chikor, and then turned into a beautiful valley drained by the Pohru, now quite a small and insignificant stream.

Drogmulla, our objective, lies about fourteen miles from Harwan, and the forest house is a full mile beyond the village, at the end of a somewhat steep and winding path.

A welcome sight was the snug rest-house, perched upon a hillock above a fussy little stream and surrounded by a fine clump of deodars.

A tiny lawn in front was decorated with an artificial tank full of water-plants, and through the opening, among the trees, we saw the snowy crest of Shambrywa and the Kaj-nag rising over the deeply-wooded foothills.

Drogmulla was so fascinating a spot, and the weather was so remarkably fine, that we made up our minds to remain here for a few days. That old red-bearded snake, the shikari, has sent the Colonel into a seventh heaven of antic.i.p.ation by pointing to the encircling forest with promise of "pul-lenty baloo, sahib, this pul-lace." We straightway ordained a honk.

Our sick soldier is so much better since leaving Gulmarg that he is able to hop "around" with considerable activity on his crutches.

_Sat.u.r.day, September_ 30, 4 P.M.--Walter and I have been bear-honking all day in a district reputed to be simply crawling with bears. I love bear-honking; it is such a peaceful occupation.

After a stiff and very hot scramble up a rugged hillside covered with the infuriating scrub through which nothing but a reptile could crawl easily, the spot is reached within short range of which (in the opinion of the "oldest inhabitant," backed up by the "Snake") the bear _must_ pa.s.s.

Here the battery of rifles and guns is carefully arranged, and I proceed to wipe my heated brow and settle down to the calm enjoyment of the honk.

Drawing forth my cigar-case, I am soon wreathed in the fragrant clouds engendered by the incineration of a halfpenny cheroot, and, with a sigh of satisfaction, I spread out my writing or sketching materials and proceed to scribble or paint, calm in the knowledge that nothing on earth is in the least likely to disturb the flow of ideas, or interrupt the laying on of a broad flat wash. Now and again, lazily, I lean back to watch the witless hoverings of a big b.u.t.terfly, or sleepily listen to the increasing sound of the tom-toms and the yells of the beaters, whose voices, as those of demons of the pit, rend the peaceful air and add to my sense of Olympian aloofness!

A feeling of drowsiness steals over me; that succulent cold chikor, followed by a generous slice of cake upon which I so n.o.bly lunched, clouds somewhat my active faculties, and the article--"A Bear Battue in the Himalayas"--which I am engaged in writing for the _Field_--seems to flag a little.

Come, come! Begone dull sloth--let me continue--

"As the sound of the beaters swells upon the ear, and the thunder of the tom-toms grows more insistent, the keen-eyed sportsman grasps more firmly the lever of his four-barrelled Nordenfeldt and prepares to play upon the bears his hail of stinging missiles. Hark! The plot is thickening, behind yon dense screen at the end of the cover the ph---- bears are beginning to crowd, the pattering of their feet upon the dead leaves sends a thrill through the beating heart of the expectant sportsman. A few bears break back amid wild yells from the coolies. One or two odd ones dart out here and there at angles of the covert. Steady! Steady! Here they are, following the lead of yon fine old c.o.c.k; with a whirr and a rush the bouquet is upon us. The shikari, mad with excitement, presses the second Gatling and the light Howitzer into our hands as he screams: 'Bear to right, sahib!--Bear over!!--Bear behind!!! Bang--bang!'"

"Eh? What? Oh, all right, shikari. Honk finished? Is it? Saw nothing? Dear me! how very odd. Very well, then gather up my guns and things, and we'll go on to the next beat."

_Sunday, October 1_.--To-day being Sunday, we have been idle and happy--sketching, loafing, and enjoying the scenery and the glorious weather. Our bear-honk yesterday was only productive of annas to the beaters, but we picked up some chikor on the way home, and we have found mushrooms growing close to the hut, so that our lower natures are also satisfied. After lunch I mustered up energy sufficient to take me down to the village to sketch a native hut which, surrounded by a patch of flaming millet, had struck me on Friday as an extraordinary bit of colour. Jane and Walter, after many "prave 'orts" about climbing the ridge behind Drogmulla, contented themselves with a minor ascent of a knoll about fifty feet high, while the Lancer, reckless in his increasing activity, managed to trip over his crutches and give himself an extremely unfortunate fall.

_Monday, October 2_.--There was a man who, during our bear-honk on Sat.u.r.day, rendered himself conspicuous, partly by reason of his likeness to my shikari, and also because of his complete knowledge of the whereabouts of all bears for many miles around. He was quite glad to impart much information to us, and so won upon the sporting but too trustful heart of the brave Colonel, that he was retained by that officer in order that he might show sport to the Philistines, and annas and even rupees were bestowed upon him; and he and the old original "Snake" were sent forward on Sat.u.r.day evening, as Joshua and Caleb, to spy out the promised land in the neighbourhood of Tregam.

Lured by rumours of many bears, Walter and I set forth at daylight for Tregam, leaving Jane and the youthful Lancer (once more, alas! reduced to stiff bandages and a painful relapse) in possession of the hut. We "hadna gane a mile--a mile but barely twa," when the old shikari met us with the painful intelligence that two sahibs were already at Tregam, and had killed many bears there, grievously wounding the rest; so we altered course eight points to port, crossed the Pohru, and made for Rainawari.