The burra shikari saw
it too, but was of opinion that it was too late to go and bag it. I think
he was right, so we went back to camp without further adventure.
Yesterday we left Kulgam, and followed up a track to a small village which
lies at the foot of the track leading over to Gurais and the Tilail
country. Here we camped in a grove of walnuts, which stood by an icy
spring. Jane and I went for a stroll, watched a couple of small
woodpeckers hunting the trunk of a young fir within a few feet of us, but
retreated hurriedly to camp on the approach of a heavy thunderstorm. This
was but the prelude to a bad break in the weather; all to-day it has
rained in torrents, and everything is sopping and soaked. The little
stream which yesterday trickled by the camp is become a young river, and
it is a perfect mystery how Sabz Ali manages to cook our food over a fire
guarded from the full force of the rain by blankets propped up with sticks,
and how, having cooked it, he can bring it, still hot, across the twenty
yards of rain-swept space which intervenes between the cook-house and our
tent.
_Monday, May_ 15.--The deluge continued all night, and only at about ten
o'clock this forenoon did the heavy curtain of rain break up into ragged
swirls of cloud, which, torn by the serrated ridges of the gloomy pines,
rolled dense and dark up the gorges, resonant now with the roar of
full-fed torrents.
The men are all beginning to complain of fever, and have eaten up a great
quantity of quinine.
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