Evidently Jane's reputation is not that of a
bullock-workman in Srinagar!
This morning we all three went to see Lake Gangabal. An easy path leads
over some three or four miles of rolling down to our destination, which is
one of a whole chain of lakes--or rather tarns--which lie under the
northern slopes of Haramok.
We came first upon a small piece of water, lying blue and still in the
morning sun, and from which a noisy stream poured forth its glacier water.
This we had a good deal of trouble in crossing, the ladies being borne on
the broad backs of coolies, in attitudes more quaint than graceful. A
second and deeper stream being safely forded, we climbed a low ridge to
find Gangabad stretched before us--a smooth plane of turquoise blue and
pale icy green, beneath the dark ramparts of Haramok, whose
"eagle-baffling" crags and glittering glaciers rose six thousand sheer
feet above. In the foreground the earth, still brown, and only just
released from its long winter covering of snow, bore masses of small
golden ranunculus and rose-hued primulas.
An extraordinary sense of silence and solitude filled one--no birds or
beasts were visible, and only the tinkle of tiny rills running down to the
lake, and the distant clamour of the infant river, broke, or rather
accentuated, the loneliness of the scene.
We had brought breakfast with us, and after eating it we made haste to
recross the two rivers, because, troublesome as they were to ford in the
morning, they would certainly grow worse with every hour of ice-melting
sunshine.
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