he man who brings up his
ponies from the Punjab, but golf is for all, and the nine-hole course,
although flat, is not stale, and need not be unprofitable, unless you are
fallen upon--as I was--by two stalwart Sappers, sons of Canada and potent
wielders of the cleek, who gave me enough to do to keep my rupees in my
pocket and the honour of the mother country upheld!

On May 26th we took shikara and paddled across the Dal Lake to see
something of the Mohammedan festival, consisting in a pilgrimage to the
Mosque of Hasrat Bal, where a hair of the prophet's beard is the special
object of adoration.

As we neared the goal the plot thickened. Hundreds of boats--from enormous
doungas containing the noisy inhabitants of, I should suppose, a whole
village, down to the tiniest shikara, whose passenger was perched with
careful balance to retain a margin of safety to his two inches of
freeboard--converged upon the crowded bank, above which rose the mosque.

How can I best attempt to describe the din, the crush, the light, the
colour? Was it like Henley? Well, perhaps it might be considered as a mad,
fantastic Henley. Replace the fair ladies and the startling "blazers" with
veiled houris and their lords clad in all colours of the rainbow; for one
immortal "Squash" put hundreds of "squashes," all playing upon weird
instruments, or singing in "a singular minor key"; let the smell of
outlandish cookery be wafted to you from the "family" boats and from the
bivouacs on the shore; let a constant uproar fall upon your ears as when
the Hall defeats Third Trinity by half a length; and, finally, for the
flat banks of Father Thames and the trim lawns of Phyllis Court, you must
substitute the Nasim Bagh crowned with its huge chenars, and Mahadco
looking down upon you from his thirteen thousand feet of precipice and
snow.

Half-an-hour of this kaleidoscopic whirl of gaiety satisfied us. The sun,
in spite of an awning, was a little trying, so we sought the quiet and
shade of the Nasim Bagh for lunch and repose.

Returning towards Srinagar about sundown, we stopped to visit the ancient
Mosque of Hassanabad, which stands on a narrow inlet or creek of the Dal
Lake, shaded by chenars and willows in all their fresh spring green. A
little lawn of softest turf slopes up gently to the ruined mosque, of
which a portion of an apse and vaulted dome alone stand sentinel over its
fallen greatness. Around lie the tombs of princes, whose bones have
moulder