CHAPTER IX

SRINAGAR AGAIN

We have spent the last three weeks or so quietly in Srinagar, our boats forming links in the long chain that, during the “season,” extends for miles along both banks of the river.  A large contingent of amphibians dwells in the canal leading to the Dal gates, and the Chenar Bagh, sacred to the bachelor, shows not a spare inch along its shady length.

Not being either professional globe-trotters or Athenians, we have not felt obliged to be perpetually in high-strung pursuit of some new thing; and to the seeker after mild and modest enjoyment there is much to be said in favour of a sojourn at Srinagar.

Polo, gymkhanas, lawn-tennis, picnics, and golf are everyday occurrences, followed by a rendezvous at the club, where every one congregates for a smoke and chat, until the sun goes down behind the poplars, and the swift shikaras come darting over the stream like water-beetles to carry off the sahibs to their boats, to dress, dine, and reassemble for “bridge,” or perhaps a dance at Nedou’s Hotel, or at that most hospitable hub of Srinagar, the Residency.

Polo is, naturally, practically restricted to the man who brings up his ponies from the Punjab, but golf is for all, and the nine-hole course, although flat, is not stale, and need not be unprofitable, unless you are fallen upon—­as I was—­by two stalwart Sappers, sons of Canada and potent wielders of the cleek, who gave me enough to do to keep my rupees in my pocket and the honour of the mother country upheld!

On May 26th we took shikara and paddled across the Dal Lake to see something of the Mohammedan festival, consisting in a pilgrimage to the Mosque of Hasrat Bal, where a hair of the prophet’s beard is the special object of adoration.

As we neared the goal the plot thickened.  Hundreds of boats—­from enormous doungas containing the noisy inhabitants of, I should suppose, a whole village, down to the tiniest shikara, whose passenger was perched with careful balance to retain a margin of safety to his two inches of freeboard—­converged upon the crowded bank, above which rose the mosque.

How can I best attempt to describe the din, the crush, the light, the colour?  Was it like Henley?  Well, perhaps it might be considered as a mad, fantastic Henley.  Replace the fair ladies and the startling “blazers” with veiled houris and their lords clad in all colours of the rainbow; for one immortal “Squash” put hundreds of “squashes,” all playing upon weird instruments, or singing in “a singular minor key”; let the smell of outlandish cookery be wafted to you from the “family” boats and from the bivouacs on the shore; let a constant uproar fall upon your ears as when the Hall defeats Third Trinity by half a length; and, finally, for the flat banks of Father Thames and the trim lawns of Phyllis Court, you must substitute the Nasim Bagh crowned with its huge chenars, and Mahadco looking down upon you from his thirteen thousand feet of precipice and snow.