Jane has certainly been anything but well lately, and I confess to a certain feeling best described as “slack and livery.”

We had not intended to remain nearly so long in Srinagar, but the continuity of the chain of entertainments proved too firm to break, and dances and dinners, bridge and golf, kept us bound from day to day, until the fete at the Residency on the 15th practically brought the Srinagar season to a close, and broke up the line of house-boats that had been moored along both banks of the river.

We had arranged to start with a party of three other boats up the river, visiting Atchibal with our friends, and then going up the Lidar Valley, while they retraced their way to Srinagar.

The most popular bachelor in Kashmir was appointed commodore, and deputed to set the pace and arrange rendezvous.  He began by sending on his big house-boat, dragged by many coolies, to Pampur, a distance of some ten miles by water, and, following himself on horseback by road, instituted a sort of “Devil take the hindmost” race, for which we were not prepared.

On reaching Pampur we heard that the “Baltic Fleet” had sailed for Avantipura, so we followed on; but, alas! having made a forced march to this latter place, we found that Rodjestvenski Phelps had again escaped us and “gone before.”

We consigned him and the elusive “chota resident,” who was in command of the rest of the party, to perdition, and decided to pursue the even tenor of our way to the Lidar Valley.

The upper reaches of the Jhelum tire not wildly or excitingly lovely.  The narrowed waters, like sweet Thames, run softly between quiet British banks, willow veiled.  The wide level flats of the lower river give place to low sloping hills or “karewas,” which fall in terraced undulations from the foothills of the higher ranges which close in the eastern extremity of the Kashmir Valley.

It was well into the evening, and the sun had just set, throwing a glorious rosy flush over the snows which surround the Lidar Valley, when we came to the picturesque bridge which crosses the stream at Bejbehara.

The scene here was charming—­a grand festa or religious tamasha being toward; the whole river was swarming with boats—­great doungas, with their festive crews yelling a monotonous chant, paddled uproariously by.  Light shikaras darted in and out, making up for want of volume in their song by the piercing shrillness of their utterances.  The banks and bridge teemed with swarming life, and all Kashmir seemed to have contributed its noisiest members to the revel.