As we left the steamy valley and wound up a rapidly ascending path among the lower fringes and outliers of the forest our spirits rose, and by the time we had clambered up the last stiff pull and emerged from the darkly-wooded track into the little clearing, where perches the village of Babamarishi, we were positively cheerful.

Once more the air was fresh and buoyant, the spring water was cool and “delicate to drink,” and from our tents we could look out over the valley lying dim in a yellow heat-haze far below.

Babamarishi is a picturesquely-grouped collection of the usual rickety-looking wooden huts, no dirtier, but perhaps noisier than usual, owing to the presence of a very holy ziarat much frequented by loudly conversational devotees.  We spent the crisp, warm afternoon peacefully stretched on the sloping sward in front of our tents, and making the acquaintance of the only good thing that came out of Palhallan—­a charming quartette of young geese which Sabz Ali had bought and brought.

These delightful birds evinced the most perfect friendliness and confidence in us, and we became greatly attached to them.  They and the fowls seemed excellent travellers, and after a long day’s march would come up smiling, like the jackdaw of Rheims, “not a penny the worse.”

This morning we had but a short and easy march from Babamarishi to Gulmarg, along a good road, through a fine forest of silver fir.

CHAPTER XII

GULMARG

Somehow one’s preconceived ideas of a place are almost always quite wrong, and so Gulmarg seemed quite different from what I had expected.  It seemed all twisted the wrong way, and was really quite unlike the place which my imagination had evolved.

Turning through a narrow gap, we found ourselves facing a wide, green, undulating valley completely surrounded by dense fir forest.  Beyond, to the left, rose the sloping bulk of Apharwat, one of the range of the Pir Panjal; while to the right low, wooded hillocks bounded the valley and fell, on their outward flanks, to the Kashmir plain.

Immediately in front of us a small village or bazaar swarmed with native life, and sloped down to a stream which wound through the hollows.

All round the edge of the forest a continuous ring of wooden huts and white tents showed that the “sahib” on holiday intent had marked Gulmarg for his own.

As we rode through the bazaar the view expanded.  Apharwat showed all his somewhat disappointing face; his upper slopes, streaked with dirty snow, looked remarkably dingy when contrasted with the dazzling white clouds which went sailing past his uninteresting summit.  The absence of all variety in form or light and shade, and the dull lines of his foreshortened front, made it hard to realise that he stood some five thousand feet above us.

Near the centre of the marg, on a small hill, was a large wooden building surrounded by many satellite huts and tents:  this we rightly guessed to be Nedou’s Hotel.  Below, on a spur, was the little church, and to the right, in the hollow, the club-house faced the level polo-ground.