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 THE DAL LAKE IN SPRING 25

and larger pear trees ‘were snow-white masses. The pink-tinged apple blossoms, the chenar, and walnut leaves were just appearing, and the poplar and mulberry leaves showed faint symptoms of bursting. We were in the first, most delicate flush of early youthful spring.

A mile from Srinagar, on the way to Gupkar and the Dal Lake, the road passes over a gap between the Takht-i-Suliman and the range to the north, This spot is well known as “The Gap”; and as it is perhaps a hundred feet above the valley level an extensive view is obtained, on the one hand, over the great Vale of Kashmir to the snowy Pir Panjal range in the background on the south, and on the other hand to the Dal Lake, Haramokh, _and the mountain range, close by on the north. There were very few days when either in the morning or evening I did not visit this spot, and hardly ever did I see the same view. Every day there seemed some fresh beauty; and which day in spring, and whether the days in spring were more beautiful than the days in autumn, I could never satisfy myself. On April 1st, looking south- ward, there was first on the sloping foreground an almond orchard with a sprinkling of trees in white and pink blossom and the remainder in