Over it flew a great "banner with a strange device," and
we assumed (and rightly) that we looked upon the palace of His Highness
Sir Pratab Singh, Maharajah of Jammu and Kashmir.
Crossing the river, we dived into a bit of the native town, and were much
struck by the want of colour as compared with an Indian street. Everything
seemed steeped in the same neutral brown--houses, boats, people, and dogs!
Emerging from the native street, with its open shop-fronts and teeming
life, we drove for some little way along a straight level road, flanked,
as usual, on either side by poplars of great size which ran through a
brown, flat field, showing traces of recent snow, and finally finished our
two-hundred-mile drive in front of the one and only hotel in all Kashmir.
Our two little chestnuts, which had brought us right through from Chakhoti
to Srinagar--a distance of about seventy-eight miles--in two days, were as
lively and fit as possible, and playfully nibbled at each other's noses as
they were walked off to their well-earned rest.
The ekka horses, too, had brought our heavy luggage all the way from
Abbotabad over a shocking road in the most admirable manner, and we had
every reason to congratulate ourselves on having entrusted the arrangement
of the whole business--the "bandobast" in native parlance--to our henchman
Sabz Ali, who had thus proved himself an energetic and trustworthy
organiser, and saving financier to the extent of some twenty rupees.
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