Ladak Leh to Rawal Pindi 135
but it gave us a hard struggle through a new-fallen snow. It is an ugly spot, claiming native victims almost every winter and stopping for several months of each year the thin stream of official or sporting travel which sets toward Leh. There were twenty-five Europeans up and down during the summer which had just ended as we, the last birds of the season, made our escape from the Himalayan mountain-cage, to spread an easy wing over India's open plains.
We haltingly trudged the steepest slopes ; the ponies rolled and lunged heavily in the belly-deep snow, losing the trail on dangerous side-hills, and finally we had once more the joy-killing experience of discharging the animals and man-handling the loads. But night found us under smoky shelter—we rejoiced in our success—and the morrow ! Are there not a few days in your memory which are garlanded for their beauty and are perfumed by their happiness?—the day you learned to swim, the day you went to college, the day you left it, the day you were engaged, your wedding-day, the day you won your first case, the day your underwriting was complete, the day you were elected to the office that sought you, the day your story was accepted ? Such a day comes to him who, breasting still the Himalayan snows, out from the Himalayan nakedness, rides down from Zoji Pass, viewing the glorious vestments of the Sind, where it rushes to sink on the fair bosom of the vale of Kashmir. Hindoo, Afghan, Persian, and Arab have seen and sung this Eden, whose riches of spreading branch, clinging vine, brilliant flower, and sparkling stream have for
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