The cavalcade was increased during the afternoon by the addition to our
numbers of a dog--a distinctly ugly, red-haired native sort of dog,
commonly called a pi-dog. He appeared, full of business--from nowhere in
particular--and his business appeared to be to go to Eshmakam with us.
As we neared that place the road began to rise through the loveliest
woodland scenery--white roses everywhere in great bushes of foamy white,
and in climbing wreaths that drooped from the higher trees, wild indigo in
purple patches reminding one not a little of heather. Above the still
unseen village a big ziarat or monastery shone yellow in the sinking
sunlight, and overhead rose a rugged grey wall of strangely pinnacled
crags, outliers of the Wardwan, showing dusky blue in the clear-cut
shadows, and rose grey where the low sun caught with dying glory the
projecting peaks and bastions.
In a sort of orchard of walnut trees, on short, clean, green grass, we
pitched our tents, and right glad was I to sit in a comfortable Roorkhee
chair and admire the preparations for dinner after a stiff day, albeit we
only "made good" some sixteen miles at most.
_June_ 20.--A brilliant morning saw us off for Pahlgam, along a road which
was simply a glorified garden. Roses white and roses pink in wild
profusion, jasmin both white and yellow, wild indigo, a tall and very
handsome spiraea, forget-me-not, a tiny sort of Michaelmas daisy, wild
strawberry, and honeysuckle, among many a (to me unknown) blossom, clothed
the hillside or drooped over the bank of the clear stream, by whose
flower-spangled margin lay our path, where, as in Milton's description of
Eden,
"Each beauteous flower,
Iris all hues, roses, and jessamine
Reared high their flourished heads.
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