he air, as I lay high
up on a hillside in Ardgour watching for deer--with the hills of Lochaber
and Ballachulish reflected in all their glory of purple and russet in the
waters of Loch Linnhe, windless and still!

Chills can be caught amidst the most glorious scenery--the little tufts of
purple self-heal at my feet were shivering and shaking in a biting breeze
that swept down from the snows to the north-east, and although I am an
admirer of Kingsley, I do not hold with him in his wrong-headed admiration
for a "nor'-easter"--so I quitted my perch in search of tea.

_Easter Monday_.--The Smithsons scuttled away in a great hurry to-day,
their shikari, Asna (the best shikari in Kashmir), having heard that,
owing to the lateness of the season, the bara singh have not even yet all
shed their horns--so Charlotte is filled with high hope. The bears, too,
are said to be waking from their winter's doze and poking around in warm
and balmy corners.

Armed to the teeth and thirsting for blood, the hunter and the huntress
cast loose their matted dounga and paddled away merrily down the Jhelum to
Bandipur, thence to pursue the royal bara singh, and later, if possible,
scale the snow-barred slopes of the Tragbal and penetrate the lonely
Tilail Valley to assail the red bear and the multitudinous ibex.

Jane and I having decided that a purely shikar expedition into the more
difficult parts of the country was not suited to our prosaic habits,
remained to enjoy the effeminate pleasures of Srinagar till the weather
should grow a few degrees warmer.

As we are bidden to a sort of state luncheon to-morrow, given by the
Maharajah, it appeared to me to be but right and seemly to go and inscribe
my name in the visitors' book of His Highness, and also to call upon his
brother, the Rajah Sir Amar Singh. I went with the more alacrity as I
thought it might prove interesting. Strolling across the big bridge above
the Palace, I soon found myself in the purely native quarter, immersed in
a seething crowd of men and beasts, from beneath whose passing feet a
cloud of dust rose pungent. The water-sellers, the hawkers of vegetables
and of sweets, the cattle, the loafers and the children got into the way
and out of it in kaleidoscopic confusion. By the side of the street,
money-changers, wrapped in silent consideration, bent over their trays of
queer and outlandish coins. Bright cottons and silks flaunted pennons of
gorgeous colours. Brass, glowing like