I innocently inquired, ‘How?’ ‘Because,’ said Nat, ‘I can hear you say to your servant, on your return from one of those festive parties, “_Schnopkins_, pull off my boots!”’ We had great difficulties in procuring any food, and at length I had to send in to Srinagur, to Baboo Mohas Chander, requesting him to give me a Sepoy orderly, to get us supplies. After his arrival, we did better; for we got what there was to be had--small, half-fed sheep--but we had to pay double for everything, owing to our new attendant. I do not believe the peasants gained by the change; for our ‘Gascon captain,’ as we named him, was a great swaggerer, and pocketed most of the money himself. We had to cross the Scind river twice, on our return journey, to enable us to get to a better path than the one we came by, and we met with no mishaps till we reached a tributary of the river. It came brawling down from the mountains, a goodly sized stream. My wife was walking, and Silver Tail, with the side-saddle on, was being led by the syce. They came to a rickety bridge, where the impetuous pony, as usual, made a rush. The syce checked him, but down went Silver Tail into the water, and rolled twice over in the flood! The knowing rascal seemed rather to enjoy it, and swam to a shallow place, where he coolly began to drink, allowing the alarmed syce to catch him. Not a scratch was on him, nor was the little demon strained in the least. My wife’s saddle was, of course, very wet, but uninjured. We arrived early at our camping-ground at Mannur, and M’Kay started off on an expedition up a mountain at the back of our tents. It towered up many thousand feet, and from its summit a view could be obtained over the ridge on the other side of the Scind Valley, right away to Srinagur, Gulmurg, and Baramoula. It was some hours before M’Kay rejoined us. We had seen her, through my glasses, climbing steadily on; and, when she returned, her account of the splendour of the panorama she must have gazed on was short and pithy. ‘There was nothing to be seen at the top but more mountains, and villages. As to the wonderful height, there was not a mountain of the lot to be compared in size, or anything else, with the mountains at the back of my father’s house in Sutherlandshire.’