hich was
supposed to have left Baramula some days ago. They started cheerfully, but
vaguely, down the Spill Canal, and we trust they found their ark somewhere!

Promising to send back a boat for the Baines, we paid and dismissed
coolies and ponies, and paddled away over the flood water. The country was
simply a vast lake, the main road merely marked by a dense row of poplars.
Trees rose promiscuously out of the calm and sunlit water, wisps of maize
and wreckage clinging to their lower boughs. Presently the road showed in
patches, a broad waterfall breaking it every here and there as the
imprisoned waters from above sought the slightly lower channel of the
Jhelum.

We passed a party of natives bivouacking near the roof and upper storey of
their wooden hut, which, floating from above, was held up by the Baramula
road. Sounding now and then with our khudsticks, we found no bottom over
the submerged rice crops, though we could see plainly the laden ears
waving dismally down below. This is nothing less than a great calamity for
the owners, as the rice was just ready for gathering.

Towards dusk we arrived at our ships, calmly lying moored to poplar trees
by the roadside, and right gladly did we clamber on board, for our invalid
was pretty well fagged out.

This morning we cast loose from our poplars, and brought the fleet up to
within half a mile of the seventh bridge, or, rather, of the spot where
the seventh bridge used to be, for all but a fragment has been washed away!
The strong current prevented us from getting any higher up the river in
our doungas. Jane and I, however, were anxious to see what appearance
Srinagar presented, so we manned the shikara with five able-bodied
paddlers and pushed our way upwards. Turning into a side canal we passed a
demolished bridge, and tried to force our way up a small but swift stream.

Failing to make anything of it, we landed and had the boat carried over
into a wider channel. Three times we were obliged to get out and leave our
stalwart crew to force the boat on somehow, and they did it well--hauling,
paddling, and shouting invocations to various saints, particularly the one
whose name sounds like "jam paws!"

The water had already fallen some four or five feet, but there was plenty
left. A great break in the bund between Nusserwanjee's shop and the Punjab
Bank allowed us to paddle into the flooded European quarter, past the
telegraph office, standing knee-deep in muddy water,