HOUSE-BOATS 45

tain, probably, a couple of sitting-rooms with fire- places, bedrooms, and bathrooms ; and with a cook- boat attached for cooking and servants, the traveller launches forth complete, and either drifts lazily down the river to the many attractive spots along its banks, and to the Wular Lake, or else is towed upwards to Islamabad. The house-boat likewise forms a very convenient base from which short expeditions into the mountains can be made.

Dungas and dunga house-boats are not so luxurious and commodious as the fully developed house-boat; but they are lighter, they travel quicker, and they go up shallow tributaries where the larger boat would stick. They are also less expensive. The former have only loose matting for walls ; the walls of the latter are wooden.

For getting about the river in Srinagar itself the still lighter shikara or ordinary paddle-boat is used, paddled by from two to eight men according to the size. House-boats and dunga house-boats require a crew of from six to twelve men. Dungas carry a family in the stern who work the boat. Paddles, poling, and hauling are the means of progression.

Quite good shops for European stores and articles are now springing up in Srinagar. Cox