e of the gunners from
Domel, by a coolie, informed us that the road about a mile short of that
place was completely blocked by a fallen mass of some hundreds of tons.

Our henchman having somewhat recovered of his fever, thanks to a generous
exhibition of quinine, we gave the order to pack and start, hoping to
achieve the twelve miles which separated us from Domel, even though the
last bit had to be done on foot. About two miles from Ghari Habibullah we
came to the Kashmir custom-house, presided over by a polite gentleman,
whose brilliant purple beard was a joy to look upon.

Most of the elderly natives dye their beards with, I think, henna,
producing a fine orange effect, but purple...!

_Bottom_. What beard were I best to play it in?

_Quince_. Why, what you will.

_Bottom_. I will discharge it in either your straw-coloured beard, your
orange-tawny beard, your purple-in-grain beard, or your
French-crown-colour beard, your perfect yellow

_Midsummer Night's Dream_,

Act I. Sc. 2.

"What _coloured beard_ comes next by the window?"

"A black man's, I think."

"I think a _red_: for that is most in fashion."

RAM ALLY.

Truly, until I beheld that tax-gatherer of the Orient, I had no idea that
the "purple-in-grain" beard existed outside a poet's fancy!

The road took us along the left bank of the river, whose soil-stained
waters churned their way through a wild and rocky gorge. On our left the
mountain rose bare and steep, fringed with a few straggling bushes, and
here and there a clinging patch of rose-coloured primula. Part of the
conglomerate cliff had come down and obliterated the road, but a party of
coolies was busily at work, and, after about an hour's delay, we
triumphantly bumped our way past.

The road now led steadily upward, leaving an ever-increasing slope (or
khud) between it and the river, until it attained a height of over a
thousand feet, when, turning to the left, it swung over the watershed, and
began to descend into the valley of the Kishenganga. Through the haze we
could make out Domel, our goal, lying far below, and then the old Sikh
fort of Musafferabad.

The road was so encumbered with rock-falls that we walked the greater part
of it, until we came to the new bridge over the Kishenganga, whose dark
red waters rush into the Jhelum about a mile below.

Here was Musafferabad, the whole place a confused jumble of wheeled
traffic caught up by the big landslip in front.