The road now led steadily upward, leaving an ever-increasing slope (or khud) between it and the river, until it attained a height of over a thousand feet, when, turning to the left, it swung over the watershed, and began to descend into the valley of the Kishenganga. Through the haze we could make out Domel, our goal, lying far below, and then the old Sikh fort of Musafferabad.
The road was so encumbered with rock-falls that we walked the greater part of it, until we came to the new bridge over the Kishenganga, whose dark red waters rush into the Jhelum about a mile below.
Here was Musafferabad, the whole place a confused jumble of wheeled traffic caught up by the big landslip in front. Passing, amid the chatter and clamour of men and beasts, through the medley of bullock-carts and ekkas that crowded every available space, we hauled the carriage through the bed of a watercourse whose bridge was broken. Up over the prostrate trunk of a fallen tree we regained the road, to find ourselves in front of the big landslip of which we had been warned. It consisted of some thousands of tons of dark red mud and loose boulders, and it blocked the road for fully a couple of hundred yards.
A large and energetic swarm of coolies was busily engaged in “tidying up.” This was apparently to be achieved by means of shovels, each little shovel worked by two men—one to shovel, and the other to assist in raising it when full by means of a little rope round the head. This labour had to be lubricated by much conversation.
It seemed upon the whole unlikely that a path could be made for a considerable time, so we lunched peacefully in the carriage, a pair of extremely friendly crows assisting at the feast, and then, leaving our landau to follow as best it might, we walked into Domel, crossing the Jhelum by a fine bridge.
The dâk bungalow, prettily placed in a clump of trees, seemed the abode of luxury to us after the discomfort of Ghari Habibullah, and we fondly hoped that, being now upon the main road which runs from Rawal Pindi to Srinagar, our troubles were over.
Saturday was the 1st of April, the day upon which I should have applied for my pass for Astor. Wiring to Srinagar to explain that I was in Kashmir territory (which I subsequently found was enough to entitle me to a pass), and also to Smithson to say that we were making the best of our way to join him, we “took the road” after breakfast.
The carriage and the two ekkas had come in early, having been unloaded and then carried bodily over the “slide.”
A broad and smooth road, whose gentle gradient of ascent was merely sufficient to keep us level with the river bank, opened up an alluring prospect of ease and comfort. We lay back on our comfortable cushions and watched the clouds as they swept over the mountains, hiding all but occasional glimpses of snow-streaked slopes and steep and barren ridges.
The valley of the Jhelum between Domel and Ghari is not beautiful—merely wide and desolate, with steep hills rising from the river, their lower slopes sparsely clad with leafless scrub, their shoulders merging into the dull mist which hangs around their invisible summits.