A great break in the bund between Nusserwanjee's shop and the Punjab
Bank allowed us to paddle into the flooded European quarter, past the
telegraph office, standing knee-deep in muddy water, up over the main road
to Nedou's Hotel, where boats lay moored outside the dining-room windows,
then across the lagoon, lightly rippled by a tiny breeze, beneath which
lay the polo-ground, to the Residency, where we landed to inspect damages.
The water had been all over the lower storey, but a muddy deposit on the
wooden floor, and a brown slimy high-water mark on the door jambs, alone
remained to show what had happened. The piano had been hoisted upon a
table, carpets and curtains bundled upstairs, and everything, apparently,
saved. The poor garden, with its slime-daubed shrubs, broken palings and
torn creepers, trailing wisps of draggled foliage in the oozy brown pools,
was a sad and pitiful sight, especially when mentally contrasted with the
glowing glory of asters and zinneas which it should have been.
The flood has been nearly as bad as the great one of 1903. Fortunately the
Spill Canal, cut above Srinagar to carry off the flood water, took off
some of the pressure; the bund, also, is three feet higher than it was
then, but it gave way in two places--one somewhere near the top, and the
other just below the Bank, letting in the river to a depth of ten feet
over the low-lying quarter. The stream is now falling fast, and, after
doing a little shopping and visiting the post-office, which is temporarily
established on the bund in the midst of an amazing litter of desks, boxes,
and queer pigeon-holes admirably adapted to lose letters by the score, we
spun swiftly down the rushing stream to tea and our cosy dounga.
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