Passing the somewhat uninviting little village of Rampur, we crossed a torrent pouring out of a dark pine-clad gorge, and halted for tea by the curious ruined temple of Bhanyar.  The building consists of a rectangular wall, cloistered on two sides of the interior and surrounding a small temple approached by a dilapidated flight of stone steps.  I regret to be obliged to own that I know but a mere smattering of architecture.  I do not feel competent therefore to discuss this, the first Kashmiri temple I have seen, upon its architectural merits.  I only know that it struck me as being extremely small, and principally interesting from its magnificent background of shaggy forest and snow-capped mountain.

Tea on a short smooth sward, starred with yellow colchicum, while the carriage, travel-stained and with one step lacking, stood on the road hard by, and the horses nibbled invigorating lumps of “gram” and molasses.  Then the etna was returned to the “allo bagh” (yellow bag) and the tea things to the tiffin basket, and away we went along the now smooth and level road with only fifteen easy miles between us and Baramula.

The vegetation had gradually grown much richer.  The sparse and storm-buffeted pines and the rough scrub merged into a tangled mass of undergrowth and forest, where silver firs and deodars rose conspicuous.  The little streams that rushed down the hillsides were fringed with maidenhair fern, lighted up here and there with a bunch of pink primula or a tiny cluster of dog violets.

Jhelum had ceased from roaring, pursuing his placid path unwitting of the rush and fury that would befall him lower down, and by-and-by we emerged from the dark and forest-covered gorge into a wide basin where the river, now smooth and oily, reflected tall poplars and the red shoots of young dogwood.

Through a village, round a sweep to the left, over a tract said to be much frequented by serpents, and then in the deepening and chilly dusk we made out Baramula, lying engirdled by a belt of poplars about a mile away.

Glad were we, and probably gladder still our weary horses, to draw up before the uninviting-looking dak bungalow, knowing that only thirty-five miles of level and open road lay now between us and Srinagar.

The dak bungalow of Baramula is, upon the whole, the worst we have yet sampled.  No fire seemed able to impart any cheerfulness to the gloomy den we were shown into, and the dinner finally produced by the khansamah-kitmaghar-chowkidar (for a single tawny-bearded ruffian represented all these functionaries when the morning tip fell due) was not of an exhilarating nature.  Strolling out to have a look at the town of Baramula, I shivered to see a heap of snow piled up against the wall.  It snowed here, heavily, three days ago, I am told.

We have not been, so far, altogether lucky in the weather.  Bitter cold in Europe, cold at Port Said and Suez, chilly in the Red Sea, and wet at Aden!  Distinctly chilly in India, excepting during the day; we seem to have hit off the most backward spring known here for many years.  The Murree route, which was closed to us by snow, should have been clear a month earlier, and spring here seems not yet to have begun.