Seared and blasted by a thousand storms, they stand stern and
silent, ghostlike and immoveable, scorning the elements. No wind murmurs
pleasantly through their dead and shrunken branches, the howling tempest
alone can make them speak, and then with wild straining shriek and harsh
rattle, they do battle with the whirlwind. It was getting hot and I was
thinking of my dandy, when a storm passed over with heavy rain. This was
a mitigated evil (if an evil at all for my bed remained dry, and a wet
bed is the worst result of a shower) as it rendered walking cool and
pleasant. It cleared up again, and I rode the last half mile. The
cleanest and best bungalow here I have been in since I left Ghuri. The
view down the valley is extremely pretty, hills rising one above the
other, but shut in on all other sides by high mountains. Gingle, which
is only one or two huts, stands on a small plateau a quarter of a mile
long by one hundred and fifty yards wide, fifty feet above the Jhelum.
The ground is laid out in paddy fields irrigated by a stream of the
coolest and purest water. It is a great satisfaction to be able to drink
water freely without fear. In the plains of India the water is so
contaminated as to be almost poisonous, and I do not think that previous
to this march I had drank a gallon of it since I landed in Calcutta.
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