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On leaving Sir Amar Singh, one of his henchmen conducted me across the iron bridge spanning a cut from the Jhelum, and into the warren-like precincts of the Palace; presently we emerged from an obscure passage, and found ourselves at the "front door," where, in the visitors' book, by means of the stumpy pencil attached thereto, I inscribed my name and condition. April 27.
But the mercury was 92 degrees in the shade and the sun-blaze terrific, and it was a relief when the boat swung round a corner, and left the stir of the broad, rapid Jhelum for a still, narrow, and sharply winding canal, which intersects a part of Srinagar lying between the Jhelum and the hill-crowning fort of Hari Parbat.
We consigned him and the elusive "chota resident," who was in command of the rest of the party, to perdition, and decided to pursue the even tenor of our way to the Lidar Valley. The upper reaches of the Jhelum tire not wildly or excitingly lovely. The narrowed waters, like sweet Thames, run softly between quiet British banks, willow veiled.
The other bridges were all easier than the first, and we shot them gaily, spending the rest of the day in floating quietly down the river, and finally anchoring or rather mooring, for anchors are, like boat-hooks, masts, sails, rudders, and rigging, alike unknown to the "jollye mariners" of the Jhelum some two or three miles above the entrance to the dreaded Wular Lake.
Fallen boulders and innumerable mud-slides constantly forced us to get out and walk, while the sturdy little horses tugged the carriage through places where the near wheels were frequently within a few inches of the broken edge of the road, while far below Jhelum roared hungrily as he foamed by the foot of a sheer precipice.
Joyous anticipations filled our hearts as we neared central Kashmir, paradise land of lotus lakes, floating gardens, gaily canopied houseboats, the many-bridged Jhelum River, and flower-strewn pastures, all ringed round by the Himalayan majesty. Our approach to Srinagar was through an avenue of tall, welcoming trees. We engaged rooms at a double-storied inn overlooking the noble hills.
Road continued same character all the way along, though much above the tortuous and noisy Jhelum, and its ups and downs were the roughest, longest, and most trying, I have yet experienced. I am pleased to know that the remaining two marches will be, in the words of my Coolies over "uch'-cha rasta," a good road.
Chikar is a good sized village with a fort and is situated on the summit of a mountain at least two thousand feet above the Jhelum. There is a fine view of the surrounding hills from the Barahduree. Shortly after our arrival it began to rain, and has turned out a wet day.
It seemed upon the whole unlikely that a path could be made for a considerable time, so we lunched peacefully in the carriage, a pair of extremely friendly crows assisting at the feast, and then, leaving our landau to follow as best it might, we walked into Domel, crossing the Jhelum by a fine bridge.
The light fell brightly on the river at the Residency stairs where I embarked, on perindas and state barges, with their painted arabesques, gay canopies, and 'banks' of thirty and forty crimson-clad, blue-turbaned, paddling men; on the gay facade and gold-domed temple of the Maharajah's Palace, on the massive deodar bridges which for centuries have defied decay and the fierce flood of the Jhelum, and on the quaintly picturesque wooden architecture and carved brown lattice fronts of the houses along the swirling waterway, and glanced mirthfully through the dense leafage of the superb planes which overhang the dark-green water.
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