The neat bottines, a la Diane Chasseresse, took a charming touch of lightness from the aluminium nails which decorated the “uppers” with a quaint and original Dravidian cornice.

She carried a spring bouquet of wild onions en branche—­ornaments (of course), diamonds.

Every one remarked that Jane was simply too lovely for words, as, with the sweet simplicity of an ingenue, en combinaison with the craft of a Machiavella (I beg to point out that I know my Italian genders), she draped her lissom form in the clinging folds of an enormous habit de peau de brebis—­portions of ear and the tip of her nose tilted over the edge of the deep turned-up collar, which, on one side, supported the coquettish droop of the hairy “Tammy” that, dexterously pinned to the spikes of a diamond fender, gave a clou to the entire “sac d’artifice.”

Walter, having already shot two bara singh and a serow, came under the “statute of limitations” of the Kashmir Game Laws, and had to sound the “cease firing” as regards these animals; but Charlotte and I, having “khubbar” of game, started at 7 A.M. in pursuit.  She, attended by Walter and in tow of Asna (the best shikari in all Kashmir), followed up the nullah which lay to our right, while I deflected to the north.  Having donned grass shoes, I started off up a very steep slope which rose directly behind the camp.  Reaching snow within a few minutes of leaving my tent, I was glad to find it hard and the going good, the early sun not yet having had time to soften and destroy the crisp surface.

Up and up we toiled, I puffing like any grampus—­partly by reason of not yet being in good condition, and partly on account of the height, which was probably nearly 9000 feet above sea level.  As we rose to the shoulder of the hill the gradient became much easier, and I had leisure to admire the panorama that stretched around the snowy ridge, which fell away abruptly on either side through dense pine forests.  The day was quite glorious....  The sun, blazing in a cloudless sky, cast sharp steel-blue shadows where rock or tree stood between the snow and his nobility.  The white peaks that rose around in marvellous array seemed so near in the bright air that it seemed as though one could see the smallest creature moving on their distant slopes.  But there was little life observable in this still and silent world—­nothing but an occasional pair of crows flapping steadily over the woods, or a far vulture circling at a giddy height in the “blue dome of the air.”  Silence everywhere, except for the distant and perpetual voice of many waters murmuring in the unseen depths below.

To the south—­showing clear above the serrated back of the ridge beyond the camp—­stood the Pir Panjal; pale ivory in the pale horizon below the sun.  At the foot of the valley up which we had come yesterday, and partly screened by the intruding buttresses of its enfolding hills, the Wular Lake lay a shimmering shield of molten silver.