In the beginning of October my wife and I started for a fortnight’s trip to the top of the Chor, a fine mountain sixty-two miles from Simla, and close on 12,000 feet high.  We were accompanied by a very dear friend of ours—­now no more—­Colonel Baigrie, who was soon afterwards made Quartermaster-General in Bombay.  He was a talented artist and delightful companion, and notwithstanding the old adage that two are company and three none, we three enjoyed our holiday immensely.

After crossing a stream called the Ghiri, below Fagu, the road passes through beautiful forest and cliff scenery, and for the most part was fairly easy, until the foot of the mountain was reached about six miles from the top, when it became very precipitous and difficult.  We were the whole day doing this march, breakfasting in one place and lunching in another higher up.  There was a good deal of snow in the shady spots.  A few days before we had noticed that the top of the mountain was white, but the sun was still too strong in the daytime for the snow to lie long in exposed parts.  The way being too steep for my wife to ride or go in a dandy, we all three walked, or rather climbed, up to the shoulder where our tents were pitched, about a mile from the summit.

The forest through which we passed was very beautiful, commencing with dark-green ilex, glistening holly, and sombre brown oak, interspersed with groups of the dainty, graceful, white-stemmed birch, and wreathed with festoons of the scarlet Himalayan vine.  As we mounted higher, trees became fewer and the foliage less luxuriant, till at length only oaks were to be seen, their branches twisted into all sorts of weird, fantastic shapes from the strength of the south-west monsoon.  Huge rocks became more frequent, covered with lichens and mosses of every shade, from dark-green to brilliant crimson.  At length trees and shrubs were left behind, except the red-berried juniper, which grows at a higher elevation here than any other bush, and flourishes in the clefts of the rocks, where nothing else will exist.  We got up in time to see the most glorious sunset; the colours were more wonderful than anything I had ever seen before, even in India.  My wife urged Baigrie to make a rough sketch, and note the tints, that he might paint a picture of it later.  He made the sketch, saying:  ’If I attempted to represent truly what we see before us, the painting would be rejected by the good people at home as absurdly unreal, or as the work of a hopeless lunatic.’  There was such a high wind that our small tents had a narrow escape of being blown away.  That night the water was frozen in our jugs, and it was quite impossible to keep warm.

We were up betimes the next morning, and climbed to the highest peak, where we found breakfast awaiting us and a magnificent view of the Himalayan ranges, right down to the plains on one side and up to the perpetual snows on the other.  We descended to the foot of the mountain in the afternoon, and then returned, march by march, to Simla.