Above this place the valley closes in
between walls of precipices and crags, which rise almost abruptly
from the Sind to heights of 8,000 and 10,000 feet. The road in many
places is only a series of steep and shelving ledges above the raging
river, natural rock smoothed and polished into riskiness by the
passage for centuries of the trade into Central Asia from Western
India, Kashmir, and Afghanistan. Its precariousness for animals was
emphasised to me by five serious accidents which occurred in the week
of my journey, one of them involving the loss of the money, clothing,
and sporting kit of an English officer bound for Ladakh for three
months. Above this tremendous gorge the mountains open out, and
after crossing to the left bank of the Sind a sharp ascent brought me
to the beautiful alpine meadow of Sonamarg, bright with spring
flowers, gleaming with crystal streams, and fringed on all sides by
deciduous and coniferous trees, above and among which are great
glaciers and the snowy peaks of Tilail. Fashion has deserted
Sonamarg, rough of access, for Gulmarg, a caprice indicated by the
ruins of several huts and of a church.
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