ard a wooden house-dounga. The flies, too, were unusually malevolent,
and I could scarcely paint, and my wife could hardly read by reason of
their unwelcome attentions.

The coolies were a poor lot and a slack, and as the day grew stuffier and
sultrier so did their efforts on the tow-path become "small by degrees and
beautifully less."

That irrepressible bird--the old cock--refused to consider himself as
under arrest in his hen-coop, and insisted upon crowing about fifteen
times a minute with that fidgeting irregularity which seems peculiar to
certain unpleasant sounds, and which retains the ear fixed in nervous
tension for the next explosion of defiance or pride, or whatever evil
impulse it is which causes a cock to crow.

Driven overboard by the cock, and a feeling that exercise would be
beneficial, we landed in the afternoon, and plodded along the bank for
some miles. The innumerable mulberry trees are loaded with ripe fruit, the
ground below being literally black with fallen berries. We ate some, and
pronounced them to be but mawkish things.

After dinner we sat on deck, as the lamp smelt too strongly to let us
enjoy ourselves in the cabin, and the coolies on the bank and the people
in our boat and those in the cook-boat engaged in a triangular duel of
words, until the last few grains of my patience ran through the glass, and
I spake with _my_ tongue.

There is certainly some curious quality in the air of this country which
affects the nerves: maybe it is the elevation at which one lives--certain
it is that many people complain of unwonted irritability and
susceptibility to petty annoyances. And, while travelling in Kashmir is
easy and comfortable enough along beaten tracks, yet the petty worries
connected with all matters of transport and supply are incessant, and
become much more serious if one cannot speak or understand Hindustani.

It takes some little time for the Western mind to grasp the fact that the
Kashmiri cannot and must not be treated on the "man and brothel" principle.

He is by nature a slave, and his brain is in many respects the undeveloped
brain of a child; in certain ways, however, his outward childishness
conceals the subtlety of the Heathen Chinee.

He has in no degree come to comprehend the dignity of labour any more than
a Poplar pauper comprehends it, but fortunately his Guardians, while
granting certain advantages in his tenure of land and payment of rent,
have bound him, in return,