It was too early in the season, however, for more than
a few enterprising caravans to be on the road.
The last look upon Kashmir was a lingering one. Below, in shadow,
lay the Baltal camping-ground, a lonely deodar-belted flowery meadow,
noisy with the dash of icy torrents tumbling down from the snowfields
and glaciers upborne by the gigantic mountain range into which we had
penetrated by the Zoji Pass. The valley, lying in shadow at their
base, was a dream of beauty, green as an English lawn, starred with
white lilies, and dotted with clumps of trees which were festooned
with red and white roses, clematis, and white jasmine. Above the
hardier deciduous trees appeared the Pinus excelsa, the silver fir,
and the spruce; higher yet the stately grace of the deodar clothed
the hillsides; and above the forests rose the snow mountains of
Tilail, pink in the sunrise. High above the Zoji, itself 11,500 feet
in altitude, a mass of grey and red mountains, snow-slashed and snow-
capped, rose in the dewy rose-flushed atmosphere in peaks, walls,
pinnacles, and jagged ridges, above which towered yet loftier
summits, bearing into the heavenly blue sky fields of unsullied snow
alone.
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