Sixteen

The river the whole 30 miles down to Shigar runs in a sandy plain, and keeps on breaking into branches and joining up again. There are many rapids, especially where the branches join, down which the raft shot at a splendid rate.
After about 10 minutes’ run, we had to land as we got into shallow water, and had to walk some distance, then a run of 25 minutes, when we had to land again for repairs. The next run was an exciting one, as there were several shallow rapids over which the raft could hardly get, the skins grinding along the stony bottom, and at one place there was a sharp corner where we nearly got stranded on a bank. Besides this, there was a good deal of rough water and we shipped some seas. One skin had gone from under, and the rest were knocked about and lost air, so we had to land for them to be blown up again, and everything made ship-shape..
The cook had got hold of some jolly red apples and grapes, which we sat and munched on the way.
We finally landed near a village, Gulabpore by name, where we were to camp - to which place we walked up - it was situated as usual on a fan of moraine, chose an orchard for our camp and had a fire lighted to dry ourselves by.
The lumadar brought us a basket of sort of nectarines. There was soon a crowd of peope round with bad eyes etc to whom Neve attended till darkness and rain stopped him.
The next morning was lovely, 3 near snow peaks of 20,000 ft and over, being splendidily lit up by the morning sun, all the lower mountains on both sides of the valley all the way down being sprinkled with fresh fallen snow. There was a mistiness, like an English September morning.
We had a jolly walk through the fields and water meadows to the river, where we found our raft, which had been enlarged during the night, and the crew increasd to 4.
Starting at 7.50, we had a capital run down stream for about 20 miles, stopping twice for repairs.
As the raft keeps on turning round, we cold enjoy the scenery without trouble. I sat on the tiffin basket in the bow, or part of the raft which was more normally in front. Our baggage was brought on by coolies along the road, which is a very bad one, in many places cut, and includes climbing ladders and going along cliff faces on scaffolding.
We landed a mile or two above Shigar for breakfast. A very smart man in a blue turban who seemed to be expecting us had fire wood brought and gave us a basin full of grapes. Then a sail of half an hour or so brought us to the cultrivated district of Shigar and ½ an hour’s walk to our old quarters at the rest house, where we found Gustaveson. Not long after our arrival, the Rajah called with a present of melons, peaches and grapes; the apricots seem to be over. The fruit in Shigar is simply glorious.