A.M. by an earthquake!

I had just realised what the untoward commotion meant when I heard Jane
from under her "resai" ask, "What _is_ the matter--is it an earthquake?"
Almost before I could reply, she was up and away, in a fearful hurry and
very little else, towards the open country.

I followed, but finding hoar-frost on the ground and a nipping eagerness
in the air, I went back for a "resai." The feeling was that of going into
one's cabin in a breeze of wind, and the door was flapping about. Seizing
the wrap in some haste, as I was afraid of the door jamming, I rejoined
Jane in the open, to watch the poplars swaying like drunken men and the
solid earth bulging unpleasantly. The shock lasted for three minutes, and
when it seemed quite over we retired to our beds to try to get warm again.

The morning at breakfast-time was perfectly beautiful. Baramula lay
serenely mirrored in the silver waters of the Jhelum, its picturesque
brown wooden houses clustering on both banks, and joining hands by means
of a long brown wooden bridge. No signs of any unusual disturbance could
be seen among the chattering crews of the snaky little boats and
deep-laden "doungas" that lined the banks or furrowed the waters of the
shining river.

We left Baramula in high spirits to accomplish the five-and-thirty miles
which still stretched between us and Srinagar. The scenery was quite
different from anything we had yet known, for now we were in the broad
flat valley of Kashmir, which stretches for some eighty miles from beyond
Islamabad, on the N.E., to Baramula, planted at the neck where the Jhelum
River, after spreading itself abroad through the fertile plain,
concentrates to pour its many waters through the mountain barrier until it