26 SCENERY AND SEASONS

young leaf, Then in the valley bottom were clumps of willows in the freshest yellowy greén; light green wheat-fields; bunches of chenar trees not yet in leaf; broad reaches of the placid river glistening in the sunshine, with numerous boats gliding gracefully on its surface; and away over the valley were little clusters of villages, with the land gradually rising to that range of snowy mountains which forms the culminating touch of beauty in every Kashmir scene.

Looking in the opposite direction from the Gap towards the Dal Lake was a less extensive, but scarcely less attractive scene. On the foreground of the gentle slopes towards the lake were tall pear trees in fresh white bloom dotted prettily among the fields of new green wheat. Away to the left was an orchard of peach in the purest and lightest of pink. Little hamlets nestled among the fruit trees; and immediately beyond them stretthed the still, clear lake reflecting in its mirror surface the graceful willows and chenar trees by its edge, and the moun- tain ranges by which it was encircled. As it seemed, floating in its midst lay the famous Isle of Chenars mirrored again in its glassy surface. By its shore stretched the renowned Moghal gardens—the Nishat Bagh and the Shalimar Bagh—with their