Emerging from the pines, we crossed a grassy slope covered with tall primulas (P. denticulata) of varying shades of mauve and lilac, and sat down for a bit among the flowers while the shikaris looked for game. (I need hardly remark that the noble but elusive beast had appeared on the scene shortly after I left on Saturday; a Gujar told the shikari, and the shikari told me, so it must be true.) When we had gathered as many flowers as we could carry, we strolled back to the camp to watch the sunset transmute the snowy crest of Haramok to a golden rose.

Yesterday, Tuesday, I left the camp at dawn, and went all over the same ground, but with no better success, only seeing a couple of bara singh, hornless now, and therefore comparatively uninteresting from a “shikar” point of view.  After a delightful but bearless ramble I returned to breakfast, and then we struck camp, and completed the ascent of the pass over into the Lolab.  Arrived at the top, we turned off the path to the right, and, climbing a short way, came out upon the lower part of the Nagmarg, a pretty, open clearing among the pines where the grass, dotted thickly with yellow colchicum, was only showing here and there through the melting snow.  Choosing a snug and dry place on some sun-warmed rocks at the foot of a tree, we prepared to lunch and laze, and soon spread abroad the contents of the tiffin basket.

There is something, nay much, of charm in the utter freedom and solitude of Kashmir camp life.  There is no beaten track to be followed diligently by the tourist, German, American, or British, guide-book in hand and guide at elbow.  No empty sardine-tins, nor untidy scraps of paper, mar the clean and lonely margs or village camping-grounds.

The happy wanderer, selecting a grassy dell or convenient shady tree with a clear spring or dancing rivulet near by, invokes the tiffin coolie, and if a duly watchful eye has been kept upon that incorrigible sluggard, in short space the contents of the basket deck the sward.  What have we here?  Yes, of course, cold chicken—­

  “For beef is rare within these oxless isles.”

Bread! (how lucky we sent that coolie into Srinagar the other day).  Butter, nicely stowed in its little white jar, cheese-cakes (one of the Sabz Ali’s masterpieces), and a few unconsidered trifles in the form of “jam pups” and a stick of chocolate.

Whisky is there, if required, but really the cold spring water is “delicate to drink” without spirituous accompaniment.

Hunger appeased, the beauty of the surrounding scenery becomes intensified when seen through the balmy veil of smoke caused by the consumption of a mild cheroot, and peace and contentment reign while we feed the sprightly crows with chicken bones and bits of cheese rind.

Shall we ever forget—­Jane and I—­that simple feast on the Nagmarg?

The sloping snow melting into little rills which trickled through the fresh-springing flower-strewn grass; the extraordinary blue of the hillsides overlooking the Lolab Valley seen through the sloping boughs of the pines; the crows hopping audaciously around or croaking on a dried branch just above our heads; and above all, the glorious sense of freedom, of aloofness from all disturbing elements, of utter and irresponsible independence in a lovely land unspoiled by hand of man?