We climbed one of the minarets, and had a view of the city at our feet, and the green and fertile plains stretching dim into the shimmering haze beyond the Ravee River.

Then back to the hotel through the teeming alleys and down to the station—­the road, that we had found so bitterly cold in the early morning, now a blaze of sunlight, where the dust stirred up by the shuffling feet of the wayfarers quivered in the heat, and the shadows of men and beasts lay short and black beneath them.

We were not sorry to seek coolness in the bare railway carriage, and let the fresh wind fan us as we sat by the open window and watched the flat, monotonous landscape sliding past.

The journey from Lahore to Rawal Pindi is not a very long one—­only about 170 miles, or less than the distance from London to York; but an Indian train being more leisurely in its movement than the Great Northern Express, gave us ample time to contemplate the frequent little villages—­all very much alike—­all provided with a noisy population, among which dogs and children were extremely prevalent; the level plains, broken here and there by clumps of unfamiliar trees, and inhabited by scattered herds of water buffaloes, cattle, and under-sized sheep, all busily engaged in picking up a precarious livelihood, chiefly roast straw, as far as one could see!

We had grown so accustomed to the monotony of the plains, that when we suddenly became aware of a faint blue line of mountains paling to snow, where they melted into the sky, the Himalayas came upon us almost with a shock of surprise.

As we drew nearer, the rampart of mountains that guards India on the north, took form and substance, until at Jhelum we fairly left the plain and began to ascend the lower foothills.

Between Jhelum and Rawal Pindi the line runs through a country that can best be described by that much abused word “weird.”  Originally a succession of clayey plateaux, the erosion of water has worn and honeycombed a tortuous maze of abrupt clefts and ravines, leaving in many cases mere shafts and pinnacles, whose fantastic tops stand level with the surrounding country.  The sun set while we were still winding through a labyrinth of peaks and pits, and the effect of the contrasting red gold lights and purple shadows in this strange confused landscape was a thing to be remembered.

We rolled and bumped into Pindi at 8 P.M., having travelled nearly 1000 miles during our two days and nights in the train.

Our friends the Smithsons were on the platform waiting to receive us and welcome us as strangers and pilgrims in an unknown land.  They have only remained here to meet us, and they proceed to Kashmir to-morrow, sleeping in a carriage in the quiet backwater of a siding, to save themselves the worry of a desperately early start to-morrow morning.

The direct route into Kashmir by Murree is impassable, the snow being still deep owing to a very late spring following a severe winter.  This will oblige us to go round by Abbotabad, so I wired to my friend General Woon to warn him that we propose to invade his peaceful home.