Again, when at length Srinagar, the capital of Kashmir, was reached, and I was back in my much-loved garden, still other signs of spring's arrival were evident. Violets, pansies, wallflowers, narcissus, crocuses, and daisies were out. A few green blades were showing through the brown grass. Rose leaf-buds were bursting. In one garden near a few apricot blossoms had actually bloomed. And the whole garden was filled with the spring song of the birds lightly turning to thoughts of love—thrushes, minas, sparrows, blue-tits, hoopoes, starlings; bold, familiar crows, and, most delightful of them all, the charming little bulbuls with their coquettish top-knots—the friendly little beings who come confidingly in at the windows and perch on the curtain rails or chairs, and even on the table to peck sugar from the basin.
And so for many days the weather continued, the temperature a degree or two below freezing-point at night, and rising to a maximum of 55° in the shade and 105° in the sun in the day-time. Day after day cloudlessly clear. The snowy ranges standing out sharp and distinct. The nearer mountains still covered with snow to within a thousand or two feet of the valley level. In the early morning all the valley-bottom glistening silvery-white with hoar frost. Then towards noon a curious struggle between summer and winter. The aspect of the country outside the garden entirely winter—leafless trees and frost-withered grass; but in the still air the sun's rays, with daily increasing power, having all the warmth of an early summer day in England; and under the noonday sun the mountains fading in a dreamy haze.
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; here and there sweeping along their summits whirling snowstorms were driven along; the distant snows showed up with that steel-grey definition which in storm-ridden days replaces the dreamy indistinctness of more sunny times; now and then a glinting sun-ray breaking through the driving clouds would brighten up some solitary peak; and in the valley bottom periods of threatening stillness would alternate with gusty bursts of wind.
SUNSET ON THE WULAR LAKE
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 shoot a bara-singh, the famous Kashmir stag. 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, and the stars were shining out with that clear brilliance only seen amidst the mountains and in the desert. There was a sharp, bracing feeling in the air—not the same stinging cold I had felt when riding along this road at night in January, but strong and invigorating. We stumbled along on our ponies across fields and by paths which only a native could detect. At each village dogs howled dismally at us, but not a soul was astir. We gradually approached the dark outlines of the mountains, and near their base, while it was still pitch dark, we were joined by other shikaris who, like stage conspirators and with bated breath, explained where a stag had been seen on the previous day. I had then to dismount and walk; steadily and silently we ascended the mountain-side, and by sunrise were 3000 feet above the valley. The shikaris were now visible, and like their class hard and keen-looking, clearly used to living on mountain-sides in cold and heat, and to be ever peering into distances. The head shikari was a grey, grizzled, old-looking man, though I daresay he was really not over fifty; hard and tough, and very grave and earnest—for to him all else in the world is play, and shikar is man's real work in life. Residents, no doubt, have some employments to amuse themselves with in ordinary times; but when the real business of life has to be done they come to him, and he takes them gently in hand like little children, and shows them the haunts of the Kashmir stag, his habits, where he wanders, and how to pursue him.
DAWN IN THE NULLA