oiled plates or hand up the next course.

A funny little sideboard and cupboard contained a slender stock of knives,
forks, and glasses, and part of a broken-down dinner set, while the
fireplace easily held three dozen of soda-water.

Then came Jane's bedroom, fitted with a cupboard and shelves, which were a
constant source of covetousness to me, who had none. A small bathroom
completed our suite of apartments, and, after the bare boards of the
_Cruiser_, the _Moon_ seemed to overflow with luxury.

We have been taking life easily here for the last week. The Smithsons
intend going into Tilail as soon as the Tragbal becomes feasible; we
propose to remain in Srinagar for a while. The weather has not been very
fine--cold winds and a good deal of rain, varied by thunderstorms, being
our daily experience. The spring is, I am told, exceptionally backward,
and, although the almond is in full and lovely flower, the poplars and
chenars are barely showing a sign of life.

My wife having gone to lunch at the Residency this afternoon, I walked
half-way up the Takht-i-Suleiman, whose sharp, rock-strewn pyramid rises a
thousand feet above Srinagar.

The view of the Kashmir plain, through which the river winds like a silver
snake; the solemn ring of mountains, enclosing the valley with a rampart
of rock and snow; the innumerable roofs of the city, glittering like
burnished scales in the keen sunlight, densely clustered round the
fort-crowned height of Hari Parbat, went to make up such a picture as
Turner would have kneeled to.

Of course it is simply futile to compare one magnificent view with another
which differs entirely in kind. All that one can do is to lay by in the
memory a mental picture-gallery of recollection; and as I sat in the
shelter of a big rock, gazing out over the level plain stretching below,
where the changing shadows as they swept by turned the amber masses of the
trees to gold, I conjured up in my mind's eye other scenes whose beauties
will remain with me while life shall last:--The purple and gold of a
glorious sunset over Etna, the Greek theatre of Taormina in front of me,
with the sea below--a shimmering opal that melted away in the haze beyond
Syracuse; the awful rapids raging furiously below Niagara, a very ocean
tortured and maddened to blind fury, pouring its irresistible torrents
through the chasm above the whirlpool; and again, a cloudless October
morning, with just the keen zest of early autumn in t