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 8 SCENERY AND SEASONS

Then, of a sudden, came one of those complete and rapid changes which so enhance the charm of Kashmir. Dark ominous clouds settled on the near mountain-tops; the distant snows showed up with that steel-grey definition which in stormy days replaces the dreamy indistinctness of more sunny times; now and then a glint of sun breaking through the driving clouds would brighten up some solitary peak; and in the valley bottom gusty bursts of wind would alternate with periods of threatening stillness.

Such signs are usually the presage of unpleasant weather. But in the present case rain did not fall ; and this was fortunate, for I had gone into camp to see something of the mountains. Rising at four on the following morning, and, as soon as I had had a hurried breakfast, mounting a shaggy, naughty little pony captured in the fighting in Tibet, I followed the shadowy form of a shikari bestriding a still more diminutive country pony. Most of the clouds of the previous day had disappeared. The wind had died down, the stars were shining out with that clear brilliance only seen amidst the mountains and in the desert, and there was a sharp, bracing feeling in the air. We stumbled along on our ponies across fields and by