The valley at some time must have been a vast sheet of water. The whole formation leads one to think this most probable, and the exit and drain of this vast lake must have occurred when the mass of water made itself an issue near Naoshera, and, tearing through the rocks, rushed madly on, leaving behind it the gently flowing river. The trees in the Happy Valley are the plane, the walnut, the poplar, the mulberry, and the willow; while, higher up, the mountain sides are covered with forests of deodar and pine. Fruit is very plentiful, growing wild, and consists of mulberries, peaches, apples, pears, cherries, grapes, walnuts, and melons. Vegetables are also in great abundance. The soil is very rich, and during the summer there is no climate to be compared with that of Cashmere. If the country were fairly governed, and the population unoppressed by tyrannical laws and injustice--in short, if we had retained possession of it when it once was ours, what a paradise it would now be! At present the flowers and fruit grow wild and untended, and the poor peasants are miserable specimens of humanity. Many a better class farmer has said to me, ‘Would that the English were our masters!’ When the traveller reaches Barramula, he is in the actual Vale of Cashmere. ‘Who has not heard of the Vale of Cashmere, With its roses, the brightest that earth ever gave?’[3] And now we were to change our mode of travelling--to have a rest from break-neck rides, and to travel luxuriously in boats. The horses were to go on by easy marches to Srinagur, there to meet us. They had carried us well over the hundred miles of difficult road we had come from Murree. The rocks they had scrambled over had been very hard on their feet, and repeatedly they had lost shoes; but I had come prepared for such contingencies, each syce carrying with him four strong leather boots, and whenever a shoe came off, a boot was slipped on to save the hoof; at the halting-places a blacksmith could always be found to put a shoe on, and we had our own with us. The natives keep only one size, very small, and they have been known to give lockjaw to travellers’ horses from paring away the hoof to fit them. The Jhellum at Barramula is smooth and broad.