Kashmir, Sir Younghusband Francis Edward [the best novels to read .TXT] 📗

ON THE CIRCULAR ROAD, GULMARG

All this is straying far from the original Arcadian simplicity, but those who wish for simplicity can still have it in many another valley in Kashmir—at Sonamarg, Pahlgam, or Tragbal, and numerous other places, and the advantage of Gulmarg is that the visitor can still if he choose be very fairly simple. He can go about in a suit of puttoo. He need not go to a single dance, or theatrical performance, or dinner-party, or play a single game. He need not speak to a soul unless he wants to. He can pitch his tent in some remote end of the marg, and he can take his solitary walks in the woods; but, if after a while he finds his own society is not after all so agreeable as he had thought, if he feels a hankering for the society of his fellows, male or female, and if he finds the temptation to play with some ball is irresistible, then just under his nose is every attraction. He can indulge his misanthropic inclinations at will, and at a turn in those inclinations he can plunge into games and gaiety to his heart's content.

The main charm of Gulmarg will, however, always remain the beauty of its natural scenery and the views of the great peak, Nanga Parbat, 26,260 feet above sea-level, and 80 miles distant across the valley. The marg or meadow itself is a flowery, saucer-shaped hollow under a mountain 13,000 feet high, and bounded by a ridge directly overhanging the main valley of Kashmir. It is 8500 feet above sea-level, open and covered with flowers and soft green turf, but on all sides it is surrounded by forests of silver fir interspersed with spruce, blue pine, maple, and a few horse-chestnuts, and the great attraction is that through this forest of stately graceful firs the most superb views may be had, first over the whole length and breadth of the vale of Kashmir, then along the range of snowy mountains on the north, and as a culminating pleasure, to the solitary Nanga Parbat, which stands out clear and distinct above and beyond all the lesser ranges, and belonging, so it seems, to a separate and purer world of its own. And there is the further attraction in the Gulmarg scenery that it is ever changing—now clear and suffused in brilliant sunlight, now the battle-ground of monsoon storms, and now again streaked with soft fleecy vapours and bathed in haze and colour. No two days are alike, and each point of view discloses some new loveliness.

Round the outside of the ridge runs what is known as the circular road. It has the advantage of being perfectly level, and is fit for riding as well as walking. Except the road through the tropical forests near Darjiling, along which I rode on my way to and from Tibet, and which runs for miles through glorious tropical vegetation, by immense broad-leaved trees with unknown names, all festooned with creepers and lighted with orchids; by great tree ferns, wild bananas, and a host of other treasures of plant life, and through which glimpses of the mighty Kinchinjanga, 28,250 feet, could be caught,—except that I know of no other more beautiful road than this along the ridge of Gulmarg.

IN THE FOREST

From it one looks down through the wealth of forest on to the valley below, intersected with streams and water-channels, dotted over with wooded villages, and covered with rice-fields of emerald green; on to the great river winding along the length of the valley to the Wular Lake at its western end; on to the glinting roofs of Srinagar; on to the snowy range on the far side-valley; and, finally, on to Nanga Parbat itself.

And never for two days together is this glorious panorama exactly the same. One day the valley will be filled with a sea of rolling clouds through which gleams of sunshine light up the brilliant green of the rice-fields below. Above the billowy sea of clouds long level lines of mist will float along the opposite mountain-sides. Above these again will rise the great mountains looking inconceivably high. And above all will soar Nanga Parbat, looking at sunset like a pearly island rising from an ocean of ruddy light.

On another day there will be not a cloud in the sky. The whole scene will be bathed in a bluey haze. Through the many vistas cut in the forest the eye will be carried to the foot-hills sloping gradually towards the river, to the little clumps of pine wood, the village clusters of walnut, pear, and mulberry, the fields of rice and maize, to the silvery reaches of the Jhelum, winding from the Wular Lake to Baramula, to the purply blue of the distant mountains, then on to the bluey white of Nanga Parbat, sharply defined, yet in colour nearly merging into the azure of the sky, and showing out in all the greater beauty that we see it framed by the dark and graceful pines in which we stand.

And this forest has no mean attractions of its own, of which to my little girl the chief were the white columbines. Here also are found purple columbines, delphiniums, what are known as white slipper orchids, yellow violets, balsams, mauve and yellow primulas, potentillas, anemones, Jacob's ladder, monkshood, salvias, many graceful ferns, and numerous other flowers of which I do not pretend to know the name.

FROM THE CIRCULAR ROAD, GULMARG

The Residency is situated on the summit of the ridge above the circular road, and from it can be seen not only Nanga Parbat (through a vista cut in the trees) and the main valley, but also a lovely little side-valley known as the Ferozepur nulla. Looking straight down two thousand feet through the pine trees we see a mountain torrent whose distant rumbling mingles soothingly with the sighing of the pines. Brilliant green meadows, on which a few detached pine trees stand gracefully out here and there, line the river banks. Steep hill-sides, mostly clad in gloomy forest, rise on either hand, but relieved by many patches of grassy sun-lit slope. The spurs become a deeper and deeper purple as they recede. The openings in the forests become wider higher on the mountain-side where the avalanches have scoured them more frequently. Higher still the forest-line is passed, and the little stream is seen issuing from its source among the snow-fields and flowing over enticing grassy meadows. Above the glistening snow-fields rises a rugged peak of the Pir Panjal which, when it is not set against a background of intense blue sky, is the butt of raging storm-clouds.

The most beautiful time in Gulmarg is in September, when the rains are over and the first fresh autumn nip is in the air. Then from the summer-house in our garden, in the early morning, to feast my eyes on Nanga Parbat was a perpetual delight. It was the very emblem of purity, dignity, and repose. Day after day it would appear as a vision of soft pure white in a gauze-like haze of delicate blue. Too light and too ethereal for earth, but seemingly a part of heaven; a vision which was a religion in itself, which diffused its beauty throughout one's being, and evoked from it all that was most pure and lovely.

The foreground in this autumn month was also worthy of the supreme subject of the picture. Through the pines the touches of sunlit meadow, fresh and green, with long shadows of the trees thrown here and there across them and intensifying the effect of the sunlight; the groups of cattle; the horizontal streaks of mist floating on the edge of the woods; the cheerful