Page:Younghusband - Kashmir.pdf/56

 28 SCENERY AND SEASONS

expected every year. But something else ex- ceptional will occur whatever year we choose, and there is little use in describing a normal year, for no such year ever comes in real life.

On the road into Kashmir very serious breaks were made by the rain and by the melting snow and the mud floods which it brought down. Whole stretches of road were completely carried away and wiped out of existence. Bridges were broken; and so dangerous were the falling boulders, that one European was knocked straight into the Jhelum River and drowned, and several natives were badly injured. The dak bungalows were crammed with travellers rolling up from behind, and we subsequently heard of the misery they suffered from overcrowded rooms, from the never-ending rolling of the thunder, and the incessant pelting of the rain. The beauties of Kashmir cannot be attained with- out suffering, and the suffering on the road up is often considerable.

A hard-worked member of the Government of India came from Calcutta to spend a ten-days holiday with us in the middle of this deluge, and as day after day of his holiday went by with nothing but rain, our pride in the glories of Kashmir sank lower and lower, and we feared he would go back