Page:My Climbs in the Alps and Caucasus (1908).djvu/29

Rh the officer in command at Abbottabad and Chilas to do anything we want.

The Viceroy, we find, has instructed the Resident that we are coming, and our progress will be regal!

Near Baramula we met Major Bruce.

He had come all the way from Abbottabad (120 miles each way) to Baramula to get our ponies, servants, cooks, and such-like ready for us.

He has got us twelve ponies, and a cook, and a man to look after the coolies, and has bought us rice, flour, &c.

Unluckily he had to take his leave earlier, and is now bound to be back with his regiment.

We are now running through a most gorgeous lake in a sort of gondola. The whole of the water is covered with water-lilies, and looks like a great, yellow, shimmering plain; the distances are beautiful; lines of trees and well-formed hills, and in the extreme distance snow-peaks.

Swans and swallows are flying about no end. We must certainly come out and cruise round this lake together.

As far as sketching goes, it licks any place I have ever seen : huge distances, blue hills, black masses of trees, and masses of cloud, but beyond all this a sea of water-lilies.

We are all as fit as possible, and we shall be very comfortable.

When one can hire a horse at 6d. a day and a