storm came on earlier than yesterday.  I have been very lucky hitherto, not having had a drop of rain while marching.  This morning was cloudy till within a mile or two of Kuthin when the sun shone and made the last ascent doubly trying.  This is a very small village (at Kunda there was only one hut) but there is a mud fort with bastions at each corner but no guns.  The walls are loop-holed for musketry, but there does not seem to be any garrison.  On making enquiries, I find there is a garrison of seven men.  It is getting dusk and mosquitoes are coming out by hundreds, they have not annoyed me before, but I think I must use my net to-night.  I lie on my bed after dinner smoking with a lighted candle by my side.  A hornet flies in and settles on my hand, then a large beetle comes with a buzz and a thud against me, making me start.  Sundry moths, small flies, and beetles, are playing innocently round the flame.  In half an hour I shall be able to make a fair entomological collection but as I neither (Ha!  I’ve killed the hornet) desire them in my hat dead, nor in my bed alive, I must put out the light, give up writing, and smoke in darkness.

July 14th.—­To Shadera, twelve miles walked all the way.  The road worse than ever, and for the last mile actually dangerous, as it passed along the edge of a deep precipice, and was only a foot wide and considerably out of the horizontal, so that a single false step would have been fatal.  Road continued same character all the way along, though much above the tortuous and noisy Jhelum, and its ups and downs were the roughest, longest, and most trying, I have yet experienced.  I am pleased to know that the remaining two marches will be, in the words of my Coolies over “uch’-cha rasta,” a good road.  It remained cloudy and threatening the greater part of the way, and a little rain fell, but eventually the sun shone, though great masses of “cumuli” continue to hang about.  This is a small village completely shut in by three huge hills standing very close together.  Between the sides of the two in front, the summit of a fourth is visible, a magnificent towering mountain, covered with a dense pine forest.  I have not seen the snows since I crossed the Doobbullee pass, as we have been ascending the valley of the Jhelum ever since, and the view is confined by its lofty sides.  I have eaten my last loaf for breakfast this morning, and now one of the greatest privations of the journey will begin.  No bread, nothing but flour and water made into a kind of pancake, which the natives call “chepattie.”  I have not tasted fresh meat since I left Abbottabad, but that one can do very well without.  I live upon fowls, eggs, milk, butter and rice, with a tongue or hump, cooked when necessary.  Two or three miles from Kuthai, we passed a very pretty waterfall.  The slender stream fell over a smooth perpendicular rock, of a rich brown colour, 100 feet high, like a thread of silver.  Both sides of the gorge covered with a variety of beautifully green trees, shrubs and ferns, altogether constituting a delightful picture, the tints mingled so harmoniously, yet with strong contrasts.  Stopped at the Barahduree as usual, this one surrounded with wild fig, plum, peach, pomegranate, and mulberry trees.  The mulberries only ripe, and like all wild fruit, small and comparatively tasteless.