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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.
Jane, who is in splendid condition now, toiled nobly up a track which would have been delightful had the weather been a little less hideous. Reaching the ridge which divides the Lolab from the Pohru Valley, we turned to the left, along the edge, instead of descending forthwith, as we had hoped and expected to do.
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.
Skirting the foot of the wooded ridge on our right, and with the flat and populous levels of the valley on our left, we marched along a good path shaded in many places by the magnificent walnuts and snowy fruit-trees for which the Lolab is justly famed, until, crossing the Pohru by a rickety bridge, and toiling up a hot, bare slope, we reached Kulgam, nestling at the foot of the hills.
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.
Friday, October 6. All Tuesday was spent in honking bear in the lower woods which stretch far towards the Pohru. The high hills which rise above, covered with jungle, are said to be too large to work, and I can well believe it!
Mooring close alongside a remarkably picturesque building standing in the midst of a smooth green lawn, which was once, I believe, a dâk 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.
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.
Making Srinagar my headquarters, I spent two months in travelling in Kashmir, half the time in a native house-boat on the Jhelum and Pohru rivers, and the other half on horseback, camping wherever the scenery was most attractive.
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.
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