They
promptly promised that their oxen--like Pegasus--should fly on the wings
of the wind, and, having seen us safely round a corner, departed
peacefully to eat another lotus.
The luggage arrived in Srinagar towards the end of the month.
Sunday morning saw us again battling with a perfect coruscation of
landslips; so "jumpy" was it in many places that we sat with the carriage
doors ajar, in hopes that a timely dart out might enable us to evade a
falling rock. At Mile 46 we were held up for an hour until a ramp was made
over a bad slide, and the carriage and ekkas were unloaded and got across.
The landau looked for all the world like a great dead beetle surrounded by
ants, as, man-handled by a swarm of coolies, it was hauled, step by step,
over the improvised track. A landau is not at all a suitable or convenient
carriage for this sort of work, and had we guessed what was before us we
should most certainly have employed the handier tonga.
The road to-day, cut as it was out of the steep flank of the mountain, was
magnificent, but, in its present condition, nerve-shattering. Fallen
boulders and innumerable mud-slides constantly forced us to get out and
walk, while the sturdy little horses tugged the carriage through places
where the near wheels were frequently within a few inches of the broken
edge of the road, while far below Jhelum roared hungrily as he foamed by
the foot of a sheer precipice.
Reaching Chakhoti about four o'clock, we decided to remain there for the
night, as it was growing late and the weather looked gloomy and
threatening.
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