We had intended to leave next Thursday, and had ordered boats to meet us at Parana Chauni, but the road will be so bad that I wired this morning to put off our transport till further orders.

The end of the season at Gulmarg sees the bazaar stock at low water.  Eggs, fowls, cherry brandy, and spirits of wine are “off,” also butter, but the latter scarcity does not affect us, as we make our own in a pickle jar.  The bazaar butter became very bad, probably because the large numbers of visitors to Gulmarg caused an additional supply to be got from uncleanly Gujars, so we, by the kindness of the Assistant Resident, had a special cow detailed to supply us daily with milk at our own door.

That cow was very friendly; I first made its acquaintance one forenoon.  While I was sitting below the verandah sketching, with a dozen lovely peaches spread by me on the hoards to obtain their final touch of perfection in the sun before lunch, the cow strolled up.  I was much interested in the sketch, and believed that the cow was too; but when I looked up at last, expecting to see its eye fixed upon the work in silent approbation,

  “The ‘cow’ was still there, but the ‘peaches’ were gone.”

In the afternoon the weather showed signs of a desire to amend its ways.  The clouds broke here and there, and, though it still rained heavily, it became apparent that the clerk of the weather had done his worst, and the supply of rain was running short.  Clad in aquascutic garments, and surmounted by an ungainly two-rupee bazaar umbrella (my dapper British one having been annexed by a covetous Mangi)—­

  “Ombrifuge, Lord love you, case o’ rain,
  I flopped forth ’sbuddikins on my own ten toes.”

The whole slope in front of the hut was a trickle of water, threading the dying stalks of dock and ragwort, and hurrying down to add its dirty pittance to the small yellow torrent rushing along the greasy strip of clay that in happier days was the path.

The whole marg was become lake or stream—­lake over the polo-ground and half the golf-links—­fed by the weeping slopes on every side, whence innumerable rills rioted over the grass, emulating in ferocity and haste, if not in size, the tawny torrents which drained the sides of Apharwat.

The road from the bazaar to the club was all but impassable, but as it had still a few inches of freeboard, I followed it to the foot of the church slope, and, skirting the hill, inspected the desolation which had been wrought at the Kotal hole, where the stream had torn through its banks and wrecked the green.

During a visit of condolence to Mrs. Smithson, whose unfortunate husband is pursuing markhor in Poonch, the sky cleared—­a splendid effort in the way of a “clearing shower” being followed by a decided break-up of the pall of wet cloud in which we have been too long immersed.  Not without a severe struggle did Jupiter Pluvius consent to turn off the tap, but at length the sun broke through the hanging clouds and sent their sodden grey fragments swirling up the Ferozepore Nullah to break in foamy wreaths round the ragged cliffs of Kulan.