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We had got up before dawn to see the sunrise, but afterwards took things leisurely, as the march is short to Baramula, and our boats were to be in waiting there, and we had made all arrangements for a landau and ekkas to be in readiness to take us down to Rawal Pindi, while the Colonel returned up the Jhelum for more shooting before rejoining his wife at Bandipur.
The march down to Bandipur was a short and easy one, and we got comfortably settled on board our boats early in the afternoon. About sunset the clouds gathered thick over the hills which we had left, and a thunderstorm broke, its preliminary squall throwing the crews of our fleet into a fearful fuss, and sending them on to the bank with extra ropes and holdfasts to make all secure.
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.
Charlotte and Jane, mounted astride a brace of native ponies, led the way, and, in ragged array, the rest of the procession followed. A quarter of a mile from the landing-place, clustered at the foot of a steep little hill a spur from the higher ranges lies the village of Bandipur, dirty and picturesque, with, its rickety-looking wooden houses, and its crowded little bazaar.
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.
Long before we had left our beds, and blissfully unconscious of our awful danger, we were striking out for Bandipur, which haven we safely reached about 8 A.M. on a still and glorious morning. Then came the business of collecting coolies and ponies, and loading them up with the tents and lesser baggage under the direction of Sabz Ali and the shikari. By nine o'clock we were off.
He insisted that it was too late to think of reaching Bandipur, but we maintained that we could get at any rate part of the way; so he cast off from his willow-tree, and sulkily poked and poled out into the Wular, taking uncommon good care to hug the shore with fervour.
Armed to the teeth and thirsting for blood, the hunter and the huntress cast loose their matted dounga and paddled away merrily down the Jhelum to Bandipur, thence to pursue the royal bara singh, and later, if possible, scale the snow-barred slopes of the Tragbal and penetrate the lonely Tilail Valley to assail the red bear and the multitudinous ibex.
Over Tronkol, bare uplands, rising wave above wave, shut out the view of Gangabal and the track over into the Erin Nullah and down to Bandipur. On our left towered the bastions of Haramok, his snow-crowned head rising grimly into the clear blue sky.
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