, as the boatman is a much more useful fellow than the other man. He
acts as a servant, knows all the places I am going to, including
Ummernath, and has many excellent characters from those who have
employed him. There was such a scene when my intentions were made known
to the other crew, at first with tears and folded hands they
supplicated, but when that proved useless they took to cursing and
gesticulating, which they continued as their boat moved away and so long
as they were within hearing, screaming across the water, making faces,
and shaking their fists aloft; the old man was especially violent, it
was very laughable. My present crew consists of the man I have
mentioned, three good looking young woman, one of whom has the hooping
cough, and a variety of children I have not yet made out the different
relations to each other. There was lightning and some heavy rain last
night (the result no doubt of yesterday's ceremony) and the sky is still
gloomy and overcast. On from Alsoo after Chota Hazree or first breakfast
to Lunka, a small island, which is only fifty yards square, is thickly
covered with pine trees, with trailing grape vines clinging around their
boughs, on it stands an old ruin, and fallen pillars and carved stones
litter the ground. From a distance it looked very lovely, floating as
it were on the bosom of the open waters, but as we neared it an
unpleasant odour became perceptible, rapidly increasing to a horrid
stench. This proceeded from a colony of natives who were in temporary
habitation of the island, and were engaged in catching and drying the
fish with which the lake abounds. I landed however, but was soon forced
to beat a rapid retreat. Such a mass of all kinds of filth crowded in so
small a space, I have never before witnessed. Man is ever the plague
spot of the world, where he is not, all is peace, and beauty, with his
presence comes contamination and discord. Saw many a whistling seal in
one part of the lake. The water soon became contracted into a narrow
channel, with a low bank on either side, after travelling a few miles
more we reached the broad Jhelum above its entrance into the lake.
Remained for the night at Hajun.

JULY 26th, Sunday.--Moved on in the morning to Manusbul, a small lake
connected with the river by a canal. This lake is about three miles long
and one mile wide, it is very deep in the middle, and said by the
natives to be unfathomable. In one of the Hindoo Legends we are to