Lured by rumours of many bears, Walter and I set forth at daylight for
Tregam, leaving Jane and the youthful Lancer (once more, alas! reduced to
stiff bandages and a painful relapse) in possession of the hut. We "hadna
gane a mile--a mile but barely twa," when the old shikari met us with the
painful intelligence that two sahibs were already at Tregam, and had
killed many bears there, grievously wounding the rest; so we altered
course eight points to port, crossed the Pohru, and made for Rainawari.
A sharp climb over a wooded ridge (on the top of which we halted for
breakfast), followed by a steep descent, brought us into a flat and
well-cultivated plain, which sloped gently from the foothills of the
Kaj-nag to the bed of the Pohru. Everywhere, in the glowing sunlight, the
villagers were busily engaged in reaping the rice, which lay in ripe brown
swathes along the little fields. The walnuts, of which there are a great
plenty in this district, have been lately gathered, some few trees only
still remaining, loaded with a heavy crop, but the main produce lay drying
in heaps in the villages as we rode through.
The road to Rainawari seemed curiously devious. A Kashmiri track seldom
shies at a hill, but pursues its way, heedless of gradient, for its
objective; but this path imitated a corkscrew in its windings, and reduced
us to the utmost limit of our patience before, passing through a small
village whose dull-coloured houses were enlivened with gorgeous festoons
of scarlet chilies, we climbed a steep little hill and found ourselves
upon a park-like lawn or clearing, and facing the cluster of rough wooden
shanties which compose the Rainawari forest bungalow and its outhouses.
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