M. on a still and glorious morning.
Then came the business of collecting coolies and ponies, and loading them
up with the tents and lesser baggage under the direction of Sabz Ali and
the shikari.
By nine o'clock we were off. Charlotte and Jane, mounted astride a brace
of native ponies, led the way, and, in ragged array, the rest of the
procession followed. A quarter of a mile from the landing-place, clustered
at the foot of a steep little hill--a spur from the higher ranges--lies
the village of Bandipur, dirty and picturesque, with, its rickety-looking
wooden houses, and its crowded little bazaar. It is a place of some
importance in Kashmir, being the starting-point for the Astor country and
Gilgit--and here the sahib on shikar bent, obtains coolies and ponies to
take him over the Tragbal Pass into Gurais. A post and telegraph office
stands proudly in the middle of the little village, and behind it lies a
range of "godowns" filled with stores for the use of a flying column
should the British Raj require to send troops quickly along the Gilgit
road.
Passing through into the open country, we found ourselves on a good
road--good, that is to say, for riding or marching, as no roads in Kashmir
are adapted for wheeled traffic excepting the main artery from Baramula to
Srinagar, and the greater portion of the route from Srinagar to Gulmarg.
This road we followed up a gradually narrowing valley, and over a brawling
little river, until at Kralpura the Gilgit road begins the steep ascent to
the Tragbal by a series of wide zigzags up the face of a mountain.
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