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Yesterday we left Kulgam, and followed up a track to a small village which lies at the foot of the track leading over to Gurais and the Tilail country. Here we camped in a grove of walnuts, which stood by an icy spring.

They have been in Gurais and the Tilail district ever since they left Srinagar on the 24th April, and have had an adventurous and difficult time, with plenty of snow and torrents and avalanches, but somewhat poor sport. Tuesday, July 11. On Sunday morning the combined fleet sailed for Palhallan.

One clear morning, however, towards the end of July, after a night of rain and storm, I was strolling along the Circular Road when, lo! far away in the north-west, soaring ethereal above the blue ranges that overlook Gurais, above the cloud-banks floating beyond their summits, the great mountain, unapproachable in his glory, stood revealed.

It is a place of some importance in Kashmir, being the starting-point for the Astor country and Gilgit and here the sahib on shikar bent, obtains coolies and ponies to take him over the Tragbal Pass into Gurais.

In front, the sheeted mountains which guard Gurais and flank the icy portals of the Tragbal stood, a series of glistening slopes and cold-crowned precipices, while to the east Haramok reared his 17,000 feet into a threefold peak of snowy majesty. It was a sight to thank God for, and to remember with joy all the days of one's life.

and each dawn saw us up and out to watch these sunrises, whose splendour cannot be expressed on paper. This morning it was more than usually wonderful, the whole flank of Nanga Parbat and his lesser peaks, turning from clear lemon to softest rose, stood radiant above the purple shades of the great range which lies around Gurais.

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.