Sir Pratab Singh, Maharajah of Jammu and Kashmir.

Crossing the river, we dived into a bit of the native town, and were much
struck by the want of colour as compared with an Indian street. Everything
seemed steeped in the same neutral brown--houses, boats, people, and dogs!
Emerging from the native street, with its open shop-fronts and teeming
life, we drove for some little way along a straight level road, flanked,
as usual, on either side by poplars of great size which ran through a
brown, flat field, showing traces of recent snow, and finally finished our
two-hundred-mile drive in front of the one and only hotel in all Kashmir.

Our two little chestnuts, which had brought us right through from Chakhoti
to Srinagar--a distance of about seventy-eight miles--in two days, were as
lively and fit as possible, and playfully nibbled at each other's noses as
they were walked off to their well-earned rest.

The ekka horses, too, had brought our heavy luggage all the way from
Abbotabad over a shocking road in the most admirable manner, and we had
every reason to congratulate ourselves on having entrusted the arrangement
of the whole business--the "bandobast" in native parlance--to our henchman
Sabz Ali, who had thus proved himself an energetic and trustworthy
organiser, and saving financier to the extent of some twenty rupees.

I may emphasise here the importance of keeping one's heavy baggage in
sight, herding on the ekkas in front, if possible, and keeping a wary eye
and a firm hand on the drivers at all halts. The Smithsons, who had sent
on their gear from Rawal Pindi some days before we got there, did not
receive it in Srinagar until the 22nd of April. It took about five weeks
to do the journey, and the rifle which I was obliged to leave in Karachi
on the 19th of March finally turned up in Srinagar, after an infuriating