aving been damaged, was very
evilly treated by the native craftsman, who bound up its wounds with large
screws!

The mountains of Kashmir have been a constant joy to us. Varying with
every change of light and shade, custom cannot stale their infinite
variety; but as yet I had not seen the great monarch of Chilas, Nanga
Parbat.

In July and early August he is rarely visible from Gulmarg, owing to the
haziness of the atmosphere. One clear morning, however, towards the end of
July, after a night of rain and storm, I was strolling along the Circular
Road when, lo! far away in the north-west, soaring ethereal above the blue
ranges that overlook Gurais, above the cloud-banks floating beyond their
summits, the great mountain, unapproachable in his glory, stood revealed.

The early morning sun struck full on his untrodden snows, making it hard
to realise that eighty-five miles of air separated me from that clear-cut
peak. Soon, very soon, a light cloud clung to his eastern face, and within
ten minutes the whole vision had faded into an up-piled tower of seething
clouds.

Later in the season, as the air grew clearer, Jane and I made almost daily
pilgrimages to the point, only a few minutes' walk from our hut, whence,
framed by a foreground of columnar pines, Nanga Parbat could generally be
seen for a time in the morning.

_Tuesday, August_ 1.--Society in Gulmarg is particularly cheery, as indeed
might be expected where two or three hundred English men and women are
gathered together to amuse themselves and lay in a fresh store of health
and energy before returning to the routine of duty in the plains.

There have been many picnics lately, the little glades or margs, which are
frequent in the forest slopes, being ideal places of rendezvous for
merrymakers on horse or foot. Picnics of all sorts and sizes, from the
little impromptu gatherings of half-a-dozen congenial young souls (always
an even number, please), who ride off into the romantic shades to nibble
biscuits and make tea, to the dainty repasts provided by a hospitable lady,
whose official hut overlooks the Ferozepore Nullah, and who, in turn,
overlooks her cook, to the great gratification of her guests.

How small a thing will upset the best-laid plans of hospitality! It is
said that a most carefully planned picnic, where all the little tables,
set for two, were discreetly screened apart among the bushes, was entirely
ruined by a piratical damsel undertaking a cutt