This morning it was more than usually
wonderful, the whole flank of Nanga Parbat and his lesser peaks, turning
from clear lemon to softest rose, stood radiant above the purple shades of
the great range which lies around Gurais. In the middle distance, rising
above the level yellow of the plain, still dim and shadowy below the
morning light, rolled wave upon wave of the blue hills which hold in their
embrace the fruitful Lolab. At our feet the deodars, still dark with the
shadow of night, crept up the dewy slope upon whose top we stood. Then
suddenly
"The sanguine sunrise, with his meteor eyes,"
flamed over the eastern ridges, and in a flood of glory the soft shadows
and pallid lights of the dawn became merged in the brilliance of a Kashmir
autumn day.
Our march yesterday from Rainawari to Kitardaji was charming. I had no
idea that this Machipura country, which is not much visited by summer
sojourners in Kashmir, was so fine. The district lies along the lower
shoulders and foothills of the Kaj-nag, and, while lacking the savage
grandeur of the Lidar or Upper Sind, yet possesses the charm of infinite
variety and, in this early autumn, a climate in which it is a pure joy to
live. On leaving Rainawari we followed up a river valley for some distance,
and then wound through richly cultivated hollows and past well-wooded
hills, where the dark silver firs and the deodars were lit up by splashes
of scarlet and orange, and the deciduous sumach and thorn-bushes hung out
their autumn flags.
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