Srinagar. Accordingly, instead of unpacking our "detonating musquetoons,"
we exhumed our evening clothes, and began life in Srinagar with a cheerful
dinner at the Residency.

_Friday, April 7th_.--We are evidently somewhat premature here as far as
climate goes. The weather since our arrival has become cold and grey, and
we have seemed on the verge of another snowfall. However, the clerk of the
weather has refrained from such an insult, contenting himself with sending
a breeze down upon us fresh from the "Roof of the World," and laden with
the chilly moisture of the snows. We have consumed great quantities of
wood, vainly endeavouring to warm up the den which Mr. Nedou has let to us
as a sitting-room. Fires are not the fashion in the public rooms--probably
because the only "public" besides ourselves consist of one or two
enterprising sportsmen, who doubtless are acclimatising themselves to camp
life amid the snows, and have implored the proprietor to save his fuel and
keep the outer doors open.

Yesterday, we went on a shopping excursion down the river, our "hansom"
being a long narrow sort of canoe, propelled and dexterously steered by
four or five paddlers, whose mode of _digging_ along by means of their
heart-shaped blades reminded me not a little of the Kroo boys paddling a
fish-canoe off Elmina on the Gold Coast.

We embarked close to the back of the hotel, at the Chenar Bagh, and went
gaily enough down the strong current of what we took to be an affluent of
the Jhelum. As a matter of fact, the European quarter forms an island, low
and perfectly flat, the banks of which are heaped into a high dyke or
"bund," washed on one side (the south) by the main river, and on the other
by the Sunt-i-kul Canal, down which we have been paddling.