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It needed all the beauty of the scene to make me forget that the thirteen miles from Eshmakam were long and hot, and that I was woefully out of condition, and we rejoiced to see the gleam of tents amid the pine-wood which constitutes the camping-ground of Pahlgam.
Pahlgam stands some 2000 feet above Srinagar, and although it is not supposed to be bracing, yet to us, jaded votaries of fashion in stuffy Srinagar, the fresh, clear, pine-scented air was purely delightful, and a couple of days saw us "like kidlings blythe and merry" that is to say, as much so as a couple of sedate middle-aged people could reasonably be expected to appear.
In a sort of orchard of walnut trees, on short, clean, green grass, we pitched our tents, and right glad was I to sit in a comfortable Roorkhee chair and admire the preparations for dinner after a stiff day, albeit we only "made good" some sixteen miles at most. June 20. A brilliant morning saw us off for Pahlgam, along a road which was simply a glorified garden.
We were still close to some of the scattered huts of Pahlgam, so an authority, in the shape of a lumbadhar or chowkidar, or some such, came to our help, and promptly collected for us an elderly gentleman who was tending his flocks and herds in the vicinity.
This is incorrect, the European Residents having frequently attempted, but hitherto vainly, to induce the native authorities to curb Kashmiri cruelty. Friday, June 30. The last few days have been somewhat uneventful. We left Pahlgam at early dawn on Wednesday, just as the first lemon-coloured light was spreading in the east over the pine-serrated heights above the camp.
After a few days at Pahlgam the march would turn and bend its way back to Srinagar, and to what? I could not believe it was to separation in her lovely kindness she had grown so close to me that, even for the sake of friendship, I believed our paths must run together to the end, and there were moments when I could still half convince myself that I had grown as necessary to her as she was to me.
Sonamarg, from description, seemed likely to be quiet, not to say dull, as a residence for two months. One cannot live by scenery alone, and even the loveliest may become toujours pâté de l'anguille. Pahlgam suffered in our eyes from the same failing, and our thoughts turned to Gulmarg. Here, however, a difficulty arose. It is a notoriously wet place.
We had camped on the low ground at Aru, just across the bridge, but about half a mile on, and upon a grassy plateau there is an ideal camping-ground facing down the Lidar Valley, towards the peaks which rise behind Pahlgam. Want of water is the only drawback to this spot, but if mussiks are carried, water can easily be brought from a small nullah towards Lidarwat.
This was perturbing, but as the mistake was not ours, we decided not to allow ourselves to be baulked of a trip for which we had surrendered an expedition to Shisha Nag, beyond Pahlgam. The lower part of the Sind Valley is in nowise interesting; the way was both tedious and hot, and we rejoiced greatly when, having crossed the Sind River, we found a lovely spring and halted for tiffin.
Being still hopeful of achieving the pass over into the Sind, we struck camp early yesterday and marched down to Lidarwat, only to find that the party which we knew had camped there with a view to crossing, had given up the idea and retreated down the valley; so I sent a swift messenger to countermand the three days' supply of "rassad" which I had ordered from Pahlgam for my men, and we marched on to Aru.
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