The direct route into Kashmir by Murree is impassable, the snow being
still deep owing to a very late spring following a severe winter. This
will oblige us to go round by Abbotabad, so I wired to my friend General
Woon to warn him that we propose to invade his peaceful home.

_Sunday, March 26._--We stayed a couple of days at Pindi, in order to make
arrangements for transporting ourselves and our luggage into Kashmir. The
journey can be made _viâ_ Murree in about a couple of days by mail tonga,
but it is a joyless and horribly wearing mode of travel. The tonga, a
two-wheeled cart covered by an arched canvas hood and drawn by two
half-broken horses, holds a couple of passengers comfortably, who sit
behind and stare at the flying white ribbon of road for long, long hours,
while the driver urges his wild career. The horses are changed every ten
miles or so, and horrible and blood-curdling tales are extant of the
villainy and wrong-headedness of some of these tonga ponies, how they jib
for sheer pleasure, and leap over the low parapet that guards them from
the precipice merely to vex the helpless traveller. When we suggested that
to sit facing the past might be conducive to a sort of sea-sickness and
certainly to headache, and that a total absence of view was to be
deprecated, it was impressed upon us that if the horses darted over the
"khud," we could slip out suddenly and easily, leaving the driver and the
ponies to be dashed to pieces by themselves! This appeared sound, but,
upon inquiry I could not hear that any accident had ever happened to any
traveller going into Kashmir by tonga.

Besides the tonga, there are other modes of going into Kashmir. For
instance, the sluggish bullock-cart--safe, deliberate, and affording ample
leisure for admiring the scenery; the light native cart, or ekka,
consisting of a somewhat small body screened by a wide white hood, and
capable of holding far more luggage than would at first sight seem