The hall and staircase were decorated with a profusion of skins and horns, somewhat modern and brilliant rugs, and tall glasses full of flowers closely copied from Nature; while the drawing-room was of a type very frequently seen near London.
Like so many British reception-rooms, it shone replete with objets d’art, rather inclining to Oriental luxury than Japanese restraint.
My host, who came in almost immediately, was charming, speaking English with fluency, although he has never been in England.
He is essentially a strong man, and remarkably well posted in everything, both political and social, that occurs in the state, mixing far more freely than his brother with the English, towards whom his courtesy is proverbial.
His elder brother, the Maharajah of Jammu and Kashmir, is in many respects of a different type. Keeping more aloof from the English colony, he spends much of his time in devotion and the privacy of the inner Palace.
On leaving Sir Amar Singh, one of his henchmen conducted me across the iron bridge spanning a cut from the Jhelum, and into the warren-like precincts of the Palace; presently we emerged from an obscure passage, and found ourselves at the “front door,” where, in the visitors’ book, by means of the stumpy pencil attached thereto, I inscribed my name and condition.
April 27.—His Highness the Maharajah having invited us to a luncheon given by him in honour of Colonel Pears, the new Resident, we prepared to cross the famous Dal Lake to the Nishat Bagh, the scene of the present feast, which we fondly hoped might recall the glorious days of the Moguls when Jehangir dallied in the historic Shalimar with the fair Nourmahal.
“Th’ Imperial Selim held a feast
In his magnificent Shalimar:—
In whose saloons …
The valleys’ loveliest all assembled.”
Our shikara, a sort of canoe paddled by four active fellows, with the stern, where we sat on cushions, carefully screened from the sun by an awning, was brought alongside the dounga at about 11.30, as we had some seven or eight miles to accomplish before reaching the Nishat Bagh.
Leaving the main river just above the Club, we paddled down the Sunt-i-kul Canal, which runs between the European quarter and the Takht-i-Suleiman, the rough brown hill which, crowned with its temple, forms a constant background to Srinagar.