At last we cleared the wood, and, plunging across a perfect slough of deep mud, crawled on to the verandah of the Rampur forest-house, where we sat anxiously watching the hillside until we saw our faithful ponies safely sliding down the hill.

Thursday, May 18.—­The changes of weather in this country are sudden and surprising.  This morning we woke to a perfect day—­the sun bathing the warm hillsides, the picturesque brown village, and the brilliant masses of snowy blossoming fruit-trees with a radiant smile.  And, but for the tell-tale riot of the streams and the sponginess of the compound, there was nothing to betray the past misdeeds of the clerk of the weather.

At noon we set out to cover the short distance that lay between us and Kunis, where we had made tryst with Satarah.  The country was like a series of English woodland glades—­watered by many purling streams, and bright with masses of apple blossom; the turf around the trees all white and pink with petals torn from the branches by the recent storms.  Clumps of fir clothed the hills with sombre green—­a perfect background to a perfect picture.

The flowers all along our path to-day were much in evidence after the rain.  Little prickly rose-bushes (R.  Webbiana) were covered with pink blossoms just bursting into full glory; bushes of white may, yellow berberis, Daphne (Oleoides?), and many another flowering shrub grew in tangled profusion, while pimpernel (red and blue), a small androsace (rotundifolia), hawks-bit, stork’s bill, wild geranium, a tiny mallow, eye-bright, forget-me-not, a little yellow oxalis, a speedwell, and many another, to me unknown, blossom starred the roadside.  In the fields round Kunis the poppies flared, and the iris bordered the fields with a ribbon of royal purple.

We reached Kunis at two o’clock, and found the village half submerged, the water being up and over the low shores from the recent rain.  Our boats were moored in a clump of willows, whose feet stood so deeply in the water that we had to embark on pony-back!  After lunch came the usual difference of opinion with the Admiral, who seems to have great difficulty in grasping the fact that our will is law as to times and seasons for sailing.  He always assumes the role of passive resister, and is always defeated with ignominy.  He insisted that it was too late to think of reaching Bandipur, but we maintained that we could get at any rate part of the way; so he cast off from his willow-tree, and sulkily poked and poled out into the Wular, taking uncommon good care to hug the shore with fervour.

Here and there a group of willows standing far out into the lake, or a half-drowned village, drove us out into the open water, and once when, like a latter-day Vasco de Gama, the Admiral was striving to double the dreadful promontory of a water-logged fence, a puff of wind fell upon us, lashing the smooth water into ripples, whereupon the crew lost their wits with fright, and the lady mariners in the cook-boat set up a dismal howling; the ark, taking charge, crashed through the fence, her way carrying us to the very door of a frontier villa of an amphibious village.  With amazing alacrity the crew tied us up to the door-post, and prepared to go into winter quarters.