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Updated: June 3, 2025
The next day we drove all about Poonah, and went to see the Palace of the Peshwas, in the Indian bazar. It is now used as a library below and a native law courts above. Then we went to Parbat, the Maharatta chief's palace. There are three pagodas in this building, and one small temple particularly struck me.
We are within unpleasantly easy reach of the western and north-western frontier now; for the opposite slope of Nanga Parbat and the ridge to which it belongs is held by the independent Mohammedan tribes of Yaghistán, born marauders since the beginning of tradition. They have a republican form of government, one of the fierce democracies numbering only seven houses.
If we are insatiate of climbing or find the heat at Astor only 7853 feet above the sea oppressive, we have the ice-cone of Nanga Parbat, 26,629 feet high, within ten miles to the west.
The march of about thirteen miles from Kitardaji to Baramula is fine the views of Nanga Parbat in the early hours, before the sun's full strength cast a golden glow over the distance, were magnificent, and long we lingered upon the last ridge, gazing over the great valley, ringed with its guardian mountains, ere we sadly turned our backs for the last time on the scene, and wended our way downward to Baramula and our boats.
This we took to be Hari Parbat, the ancient citadel of Srinagar, and presently, through the poplars and the willows queer wooden huts or châlets began to appear, and the increasing number of men and beasts upon the road showed the proximity of the city.
On Wednesday afternoon the ten ponies, carefully ordered a week before from the outlying villages, were congregated on the weedy slope which falls away from our verandah, picking up a scanty sustenance from decaying ragwort and such like. Secure in the possession of the necessary transport, Jane and I strolled forth for a last look at Nanga Parbat, should he haply deign to be on view.
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.
And the famous Valley is all the more beautiful because it is ringed round with a circle of snowy mountains of at least Alpine magnitude, with a glimpse here and there, such as that of Nanga Parbat, of much more stupendous peaks beyond; and because the sky is so blue, the atmosphere so delicate in its hues, and the sunshine so general throughout the year.
A combination of matted and decaying water-plants, mud, and young cabbages kept in place by rows and thickets of willow scrub, is curious, but not lovely; and our eyes turned away to where Hari Parbat raised his crown of crumbling forts above the native city, or to the mysterious ruins of Peri Mahal, clinging like a swallow's nest to the shelving slopes above Gupkar.
Now Haramukh, and Nanga Parbat, and all the other hills that stood in a vast circle round great Westarwan, as courtiers waiting on their king, grew vexed because he treated them as nought; and when the summer cloud that soared above their heads hung on his shoulders like a royal robe, they would say bitter, wrathful words of spite and envy.
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