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A restless confusion of dragons from Leh, lotus from the Dal Lake, and the ever-present chenar leaf, hobnob together with British very British crests and monograms on the tops of tables and the seats of chairs portions of the furniture that should be left severely plain.

This jungle was very extensive, and the rocky bed of a mountain-torrent divided it into two portions; on the right hand was fine open forest, and on the left thorny chenar. The elephants were in the open forest, close to the edge of the torrent.

Once, in the twilight under the chenar trees, I saw a white gleaming and thought it a swiftly passing Being, but when in haste I gained the tree I found there only a Ninefold flower, white as a spirit in the evening calm. I would not gather it but told Vanna what I had seen. "You nearly saw;" she said. "She passed so quickly. It was the Snowy One, Uma, Parvati, the Daughter of the Himalaya.

On the banks of the Ungerengeri flourished the banana, and overtopping it by seventy feet and more, shot up the stately mparamusi, the rival in beauty of the Persian chenar and Abyssinian plane. Its trunk is straight and comely enough for the mainmast of a first, class frigate, while its expanding crown of leafage is distinguished from all others by its density and vivid greenness.

Many of the names of places and towns of Afghanistan have not only a meaning in the American-Maya language, but are actually the same as those of places and villages in Yucatan to-day, for example: The Valley of Chenar would be the valley of the well of the woman’s children chen, well, and al, the woman’s children.

After dinner last night we left the hotel, truly thankful to shake the dust of its gloomy precincts from our feet, and sought our boats, which were moored in the Chenar Bagh. How snug and bright the "ship" seemed after the murky corridors of Nedou! And yet the Cruiser was not much to boast of, really, in the way of luxury. Let me describe a typical boarded dounga.

But I could not help thinking that had we not been spectators the chenar trees might have witnessed the triumph of reason over religious prejudice. During the heat of the day we rested in this pleasant grove, and with sleep and conversation passed the hours away, while the sentries pacing to and fro alone disturbed the illusion that this was some picnic party in a more propitious land.

We embarked close to the back of the hotel, at the Chenar Bagh, and went gaily enough down the strong current of what we took to be an affluent of the Jhelum. The river life was most fascinating crowds of heavy doungas lay moored along the banks their long, low bodies covered in by matting, and their extremities sloping up into long peaked platforms for the crew.

On either side long spurs advance into the valley, and the houses are built in terraces on the sides of the hollow so formed. Great chenar trees, growing in all their luxuriant beauty out of the rocky ground by the water-course, mark the hillside with a patch of green in contrast to the background of sombre brown.

This chenar extended for some acres, and rose like a hedge, forming a sudden wall of thorns, which effectually checked our advance. The elephants had retired to this secure retreat, and having winded us they kept up an uninterrupted roaring.