A Holiday in the Happy Valley with Pen and Pencil

by T. R. Swinburne

Friday, April 14.—A very fairly fine morning enabled us to strike camp yesterday, and get the baggage off in good time. The Smithsons decided to make for the jheels near the river, in order to give the duck a final worry round before the season closes on the 15th.

My shikari having reported a good bara singh in a small nullah off the Erin, I arranged to go in search of him. The march down to Bandipur was a short and easy one, and we got comfortably settled on board our boats early in the afternoon. About sunset the clouds gathered thick over the hills which we had left, and a thunderstorm broke, its preliminary squall throwing the crews of our fleet into a fearful fuss, and sending them on to the bank with extra ropes and holdfasts to make all secure. An elderly lady, with a dirty red cap and very untidy ringlets, superintended the business with much clamour. We take her to be the wife or grandmother (not sure which) of the skipper.

It was with an undoubted sense of solid comfort that we lay in our cosy beds under a wooden roof, whereon the fat rain-drops sputtered, while the thunder still crackled and banged in the distance!

We shifted before dawn to a small village a couple of miles to the east, and at 6.30 Jane and I set out to attack the bara singh, of which the shikari held out high hope. My wife, mounted on a rough pony, was able to accomplish with great comfort the two miles of flat country which we had to traverse before turning off sharp to the right along a track which led steeply upwards through the scrub that clothed the lower part of the nullah.

There is something unusually charming in the dawn here—the crisp, buoyant air, the silent hills, their lower slopes and corries still a purple mystery; on high, the silver peaks—looking ridiculously close—change swiftly from their cold pallor into rosy life at the first touch of the risen sun.

The first part of our day’s work was easy enough. The sun was still hidden from us behind the mountain flange on our left; the snow patches on the sky-line ahead seemed comparatively near, and the diabolical swiftness of the shikari’s stealthy walk was yet to be fully realised.

Up and up we went, first through a thick scrub or jungle of a highly prickly description, over a few small streams, then out upon a grassy ridge, up which we slowly panted. The gradient became sharper, and I began to feel a little anxious about Jane, as the short, brown grass was slippery with frost—a slip would be very easy, and the results unpleasant. However, with the able assistance of the shikari, she did very well, and, having crossed a shelving patch of snow by cutting steps with our khudstick, we found ourselves, after an hour and a half’s stiff climbing, on the sky-line of the ridge that had seemed but an easy stroll from below. The heights and distances are most deceptive, partly on account of the crystal clearness of the air, and partly because of the magnitude of everything in proportion. The mountains are not only high themselves, but their spurs and foothills would rank as able-bodied mountains were they not dwarfed by peaks which average 15,000 feet in height above the sea. The pines which clothe their sides, the chenars and poplars in the valley, are all enormous when compared with their European cousins.

The view was most remarkable as we gained the crest of the ridge—a sea of white cloud came boiling up from the valley to the east, and, pouring over the saddle upon which we stood, gave only occasional glimpses of snow and pine and precipice above, or the glint of water in the rice-fields far below. Once, between the swirling cloud masses, the near hills lay clear in the sunshine for a few moments and revealed a party of five bara singh hinds, crossing the slope in front of us, and not more than 150 yards away. Alas! there was no stag.

This was not satisfactory weather for stalking. However I was hopeful, as I have noticed that in the fine forenoons a thick white belt of cloud often forms about the snow level—roughly, some 8000 feet above the sea, or 3000 above the Wular Lake—and hangs there for an hour or two, to disappear entirely by midday. And so it came about to-day; after a halt for tiffin, I set forward in brilliant sunshine, while Jane remained quietly perched on the hillside, as the shikari said the road was not good for a lady. The shikari was right, as, within ten minutes of starting, we had to drop from the crest of the ridge to circumvent a big rock which barred our way, to find ourselves confronted by a very unpleasant-looking slope of short brown grass, which fell away at an angle of about 50° to what seemed an endless depth. This grass, having only just become emancipated from its winter snow, had all its hair—so to speak—brushed straight down, and there was mighty little stuff to hold on to! Carefully digging little holes with our khudsticks, and not disdaining the help of my shikari, I got across, and thankfully scrambled back to the safety of the ridge.

Now we reached snow, and the going became easier, whereupon Ahmed Bot promptly set a pace which left me struggling far behind. As the sun grew stronger the surface-crust of the snow became soft, and at every few steps one went through to the knees, until both muscles and temper became sorely tried. For an hour or so we kept climbing up what was evidently one of the many steep and rugged ranges which, radiating from Haramok, on this side flank the Wular with their lofty bastions. Having apparently attained the height he deemed necessary, and got well above the part of the pine forest in which he expected to find game, Ahmed Bot turned to the left of the ridge, and we were immediately involved in the deep drifts which covered the pine-clad slope of the nullah. Over snow-covered trunks of prostrate trees, over hidden holes and broken rocks, we toiled and scrambled until, emerging breathless on a bare knoll—smooth and white as a great wedding-cake—we obtained a searching view into the neighbouring gullies. Still no sign or track of any “beast,” so we worked back until, tired and hot, I regained the place where Madame lay basking beneath her sunshade. The shikari and his myrmidons departed to “look” another bit of country, while I, nothing loth, remained to await events in the neighbourhood of the refreshment department.