A visit of ceremony, and an invitation to share our “irishystoo” and camp-fire, brought Mrs. Locock across, and we made the acquaintance of a lady well known for her prowess as a shikari throughout Kashmir—­

  “There hunted ‘she’ the walrus, the narwal, and the seal. 
    Ah! ’twas a noble game,
    And, like the lightning’s flame;
  Flew our harpoons of steel”

I cannot resist the quotation, but I do not really think Mrs. Locock hunts walruses in Kashmir, and I know she doesn’t use a harpoon.  No matter, she proved a cheery and delightful companion, and we entirely forgave her for coming to Tronkol and poaching on our preserves.

We were extremely amused at the surprise she expressed at Jane’s feat in climbing from Wangat.  Evidently Jane’s reputation is not that of a bullock-workman in Srinagar!

This morning we all three went to see Lake Gangabal.  An easy path leads over some three or four miles of rolling down to our destination, which is one of a whole chain of lakes—­or rather tarns—­which lie under the northern slopes of Haramok.

We came first upon a small piece of water, lying blue and still in the morning sun, and from which a noisy stream poured forth its glacier water.  This we had a good deal of trouble in crossing, the ladies being borne on the broad backs of coolies, in attitudes more quaint than graceful.  A second and deeper stream being safely forded, we climbed a low ridge to find Gangabad stretched before us—­a smooth plane of turquoise blue and pale icy green, beneath the dark ramparts of Haramok, whose “eagle-baffling” crags and glittering glaciers rose six thousand sheer feet above.  In the foreground the earth, still brown, and only just released from its long winter covering of snow, bore masses of small golden ranunculus and rose-hued primulas.

An extraordinary sense of silence and solitude filled one—­no birds or beasts were visible, and only the tinkle of tiny rills running down to the lake, and the distant clamour of the infant river, broke, or rather accentuated, the loneliness of the scene.

We had brought breakfast with us, and after eating it we made haste to recross the two rivers, because, troublesome as they were to ford in the morning, they would certainly grow worse with every hour of ice-melting sunshine.

Once more on the camp side, however, we strolled along in leisurely mood, staying to lunch on top of the ridge overlooking Tronkol.  I left the ladies then to find their leisurely way back among the flowery hollows, and made for a peak overlooking the head of the Chittagul Nullah.  A sharp climb up broken rocks and over snow slopes brought me to the top, a point some 13,500 feet above the sea.  In front of me Haramok, seamed with snow-filled gullies, still towered far above; immediately below, the saddle—­brown, bare earth, snow-streaked—­divided the Chittagul Nullah from Tronkol.  Far away down the valley the Sind River gleamed like a silver thread in the afternoon light, and beyond, the Wular lay a pale haze in the distance.