[1] Our pet name for Shikari Mark II., who reigns in the stead of Ahmed
Bot, sacked for expensive inefficiency.
CHAPTER XIV
THE MACHIPURA
Wednesday, _September_ 27.--We left Srinagar yesterday, very sorry indeed
to part from the many good friends we have made and left there. Truly
Kashmir is a hospitable country, and we have met with more kind
friendliness in the last six months than we could have believed possible,
coming as we did, strangers and pilgrims into a strange land. Our
consolation is that every one comes "Home" sooner or later, so that we can
look forward to meeting most of our friends again ere very long, and
recalling with them memories of this happy summer with those who have done
so much to make it so.
Farewell, Srinagar! Your foulness and inward evilness were lost in the
background behind your picturesque and tumble-down houses as we floated for
the last time down Jhelum's olive waters, where the sharp-nosed boats lay
moored along the margin or, poled by their sturdy Mangis and guided by the
chappars of their wives and daughters, shot athwart the eddying flood,
breaking the long reflections of the storeyed banks.
Past the Palace of the Maharajah, its fantastic mixture of ancient
fairness and modern ugliness blending into a homogeneous beauty as
distance lent it enchantment.
Past the temples, their tin-coated roofs refulgent in the brilliant
sunlight; under the queer wooden bridges, their solid stone piers parting
the suave flow of water into noisy swirl and gurgle.
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