A winding stream, which we subsequently found to be perfectly ubiquitous, and an insatiable devourer of errant golf-balls, ran deviously through the valley, which seemed to be rather over a mile long, and almost equally wide.

The Smithsons rode away vaguely in search of a camping-ground; while we, having found out where our hut was, turned back and climbed a knoll behind the bazaar, and found ourselves in front of our future home, a very plain and roughly-built rectangular wooden hut, containing a small square room opening upon a verandah, and having a bedroom and bathroom on each side.

Such was our palace, and we were well satisfied with it.

The cook-house and servants’ quarters were in a hut close by, and I could summon my retainers or chide them for undue chatter from my bedroom window—­a serviceable short cut for the dinner, too, in wet and stormy weather!

Life at Gulmarg is extremely apt to degenerate into the “trivial round” of the golf links varied by polo, or polo varied by golf, with occasional gymkhanas and picnics.  There are, doubtless, many delightful excursions to be made, but upon the whole it seems difficult to break far beyond the “Circular Road,” a fairly level and well-kept bridle-path, which for eight beautiful miles winds through the pine forest, giving marvellous glimpses of snowy peaks and sunlit valleys.

The “Circular Road” is always fine, whether seen after rain, when, far below in the Ferozepore Nullah, the

  “Swimming vapour slopes athwart the glen,
  Puts forth an arm, and creeps from pine to pine,”

or when in the evening sunlight the whole broad Valley of Kashmir lies glowing at our feet, ringed afar by the ethereal mountains whose pale snows stand faint in the golden light, until beneath the yellowing sky the clouds turn rosy, and from their midst Haramok and Kolahoi raise their proud heads towards the earliest star.

The expedition to the top of Apharwat is, in my opinion, hardly worth making, but then I was not very lucky in the weather.  Major Cardew, R.F.A., and I arranged to do the climb together, and duly started one excessively damp and foggy morning towards the middle of July.

Taking our ponies, we scrambled up a rough path through the forest to Killanmarg, a boulder-strewn slope, some half a mile wide, which lies between the upper edge of the forest and the final slopes of the mountain.

Sending our ponies home, we set about the ascent of the 3500 feet that remained between us and our goal.  The whole hillside was a perfect wild garden.  Columbines, potentillas—­yellow, bronze, and crimson—­primulas, anemones, gentian, arnica, and quantities of unknown blossoms gave us ample excuse for lingering panting in the rarefied air, as we struggled through brushwood first, and then over loose rocks and finally slopes of shelving snow, before we found ourselves on the crest of the mountain, shivering slightly in the raw, foggy air.