he surface of the ground is covered, yet the arches are of very
good shape. On the opposite bank of the Jhelum there are forests of
Deodar, but though they grow down to the waters edge, there is not one
on this side. (Larix Deodora, called by the Hindoos, "the God Tree" is a
stately pine, growing to a great height, and of a very gradual and
elegant taper. Its foliage is of the darkest green colour, and it gives
the mountains a very sombre appearance.) The hills have become much more
rugged and abrupt. I know of no single condition which gives a scene so
great an aspect of wildness and desolation, as dead fir trees. There
they stand on the most barren and inaccessible places, rearing their
gaunt and whitened forms erect as ever, and though lifeless yet not
decayed. Seared and blasted by a thousand storms, they stand stern and
silent, ghostlike and immoveable, scorning the elements. No wind murmurs
pleasantly through their dead and shrunken branches, the howling tempest
alone can make them speak, and then with wild straining shriek and harsh
rattle, they do battle with the whirlwind. It was getting hot and I was
thinking of my dandy, when a storm passed over with heavy rain. This was
a mitigated evil (if an evil at all for my bed remained dry, and a wet
bed is the worst result of a shower) as it rendered walking cool and
pleasant. It cleared up again, and I rode the last half mile. The
cleanest and best bungalow here I have been in since I left Ghuri. The
view down the valley is extremely pretty, hills rising one above the
other, but shut in on all other sides by high mountains. Gingle, which
is only one or two huts, stands on a small plateau a quarter of a mile
long by one hundred and fifty yards wide, fifty feet above the Jhelum.
The ground is laid out in paddy fields irrigated by a stream of the
coolest and purest water. It is a great satisfaction to be able to drink
water freely without fear. In the plains of India the water is so
contaminated as to be almost poisonous, and I do not think that previous
to this march I had drank a gallon of it since I landed in Calcutta.

JULY 16th.--Left Gingle with the earliest streak of dawn for Baramula,
an eighteen mile march. Road very much more level, never ascending high
above the river whose erratic course we continued to follow. Passed
through groves of hazel overrun by wild vines, but both grapes and nuts
as yet green. The plateaus become gradually larger and almost
continu