We towed up easily enough, through a quiet and peaceful country, which only became gorgeous under the alchemy of sunset, reaching Nopura in good time to tie up before dinner.

Friday, September 29.—­On Thursday morning we started, as usual, at dawn, and proceeded to pole and haul our way up the devious channel of the Pohru.  Some four or five miles we accomplished successfully, although there were ominous signs of a gradual lack of water, until we came upon a hopeless shallow, where the river, instead of concentrating its energies on one deep and narrow channel, had run to waste over a wide bed, where the wrinkling wavelets showed the golden brown of the gravel just below the surface.  Our big dounga stuck hard and fast at once, and Captain Jurna promptly gave up all hope of getting farther.  He was, in fact, greatly gratified to find his prophesies come true, and an insufferable air of “I told you so” overspread his face as he wagged his head with mock sorrow, and gently poked the bottom with his pole to show how firmly fixed we were.

Having an invalid with us, however, it was important to gain every easy mile we could, and it was not until all the fleet in turn had attempted to cross the shallow, and failed, that we made up our minds to take to our land transport.  It was uncommonly hot in the full glare of the sun as Hesketh in his dandy, Jane on her “tattoo,” and I on foot set forward for the forest house at Harwan, which lay some five miles away across the fields, where the rice is now being busily cut.

At the foot of a very brown and parched-looking hill stood the little wooden hut, facing the valley of the Pohru and the Kaj-nag range.  Hot and thirsty, we blessed the good Mr. Blunt, the kindly forest officer, who had so courteously given us permission to use the forest huts of the Lolab and the Machipura.  Our blessings of Blunt turned swiftly to curses directed towards the chowkidar, who was not to be seen, and who had left the hut firmly fastened from within.  An attempt to force the door brought upon us the resentment of a highly irritable swarm of big red wasps, who plainly regarded us as objectionable intruders; and Jane was really getting quite cross (she says—­she always does—­that it was I who lost my temper)—­before the bold sweeper, prying round the back premises, found an unbarred window, and the joy bells rang once more.

The Colonel turned up from the Malingam direction, and pitched his tent in the rest-house compound; and, as the afternoon grew cooler, he and I sallied forth to select a few chikor for the pot.

The chikor is extremely like the ordinary European redleg or Barbary partridge, not only in colouring, but in habit, loving the same dry, scrub-covered country, and preferring, like him, to run rather than fly when pursued.  The chikor, however, is certainly far superior in the capacity of what fowl fanciers call “a table bird,” being, in fact, truly excellent eating.