ld look out over the valley
lying dim in a yellow heat-haze far below.

Babamarishi is a picturesquely-grouped collection of the usual
rickety-looking wooden huts, no dirtier, but perhaps noisier than usual,
owing to the presence of a very holy ziarat much frequented by loudly
conversational devotees. We spent the crisp, warm afternoon peacefully
stretched on the sloping sward in front of our tents, and making the
acquaintance of the only good thing that came out of Palhallan--a charming
quartette of young geese which Sabz Ali had bought and brought.

These delightful birds evinced the most perfect friendliness and
confidence in us, and we became greatly attached to them. They and the
fowls seemed excellent travellers, and after a long day's march would come
up smiling, like the jackdaw of Rheims, "not a penny the worse."

This morning we had but a short and easy march from Babamarishi to Gulmarg,
along a good road, through a fine forest of silver fir.

CHAPTER XII

GULMARG

Somehow one's preconceived ideas of a place are almost always quite wrong,
and so Gulmarg seemed quite different from what I had expected. It seemed
all twisted the wrong way, and was really quite unlike the place which my
imagination had evolved.

Turning through a narrow gap, we found ourselves facing a wide, green,
undulating valley completely surrounded by dense fir forest. Beyond, to
the left, rose the sloping bulk of Apharwat, one of the range of the Pir
Panjal; while to the right low, wooded hillocks bounded the valley and
fell, on their outward flanks, to the Kashmir plain.

Immediately in front of us a small village or bazaar swarmed with native
life, and sloped down to a stream which wound through the hollows.

All round the edge of the forest a continuous ring of wooden huts and
white tents showed that the "sahib" on holiday intent had marked Gulmarg
for his own.

As we rode through the bazaar the view expanded. Apharwat showed all his
somewhat disappointing face; his upper slopes, streaked with dirty snow,
looked remarkably dingy when contrasted with the dazzling white clouds
which went sailing past his uninteresting summit. The absence of all
variety in form or light and shade, and the dull lines of his
foreshortened front, made it hard to realise that he stood some five
thousand feet above us.

Near the centre of the marg, on a small hill, was a large wooden building
surrounded by many satellite huts and tents: this we