... Anyhow the
head and tail seem all right.... Tom says the proper thing to do is to
measure something--he can't quite remember whether it is the horns or the
tail, but the latter seems the more remarkable, so we measured that, and
found it to be 3 feet 4 inches."
"By a little judicious pulling, the chickory, who knows all about
measuring things, elongated it to 4 feet 3 inches."
"This, he says, is a '_Record_'--how nice!"
_Wednesday, April 12._--The place where we tied up was not far from the
point where the Jhelum expands into the Wular Lake--a broad expanse of
water, some seven or eight miles wide in places, which holds the proud
record of being the largest lake in all India.
The mountains rise steeply from its northern shores, and from their narrow
glens, squalls swift and strong are said frequently to sweep over the open
water, particularly in the afternoons. The bold sailormen of Kashmir are
not conspicuous for nautical daring--in fact their flat-bottomed arks,
top-heavy and unwieldy, destitute alike of anchor and rudder, are not fit
to cope with either wind or wave; they therefore aim at punting hurriedly
across the danger space as soon after dawn as may be--panting with
exertion and terror, they hustle across the smooth and waveless water,
invoking at every breath the protection of local saints.
Long before we had left our beds, and blissfully unconscious of our awful
danger, we were striking out for Bandipur, which haven we safely reached
about 8 A.
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