AUGUST 21st.—­Marched back to Kunbul, seven miles, and took up my quarters again on board the boat, fifteen or twenty other boats are here, a good many visitors having recently arrived in this part of Kashmir.  I remained at Kunbul all day waiting for the completion of a pair of chuplus which I ordered of a shoemaker ten days ago.  I have occupied the time by reading Marryat’s “Newton Forster” (one of Hewson’s gifts) and I find that when I read I can’t write, so that must be my excuse for the shortness of my notes.  My head is full of ships, sea fights, and love making to the exclusion of everything else.  I heard you—­you said it was a good job, as it prevented me writing more nonsense.

AUGUST 22nd.—­Slowly drifting all day down the stream towards Sreenuggur.  Past Bijbehara with its fine bridge, stopping there a short time to procure milk and eggs for breakfast.  Past Awuntipoor—­the former capital—­but now only a very small village, where stands on the rivers bank the ruins of two ancient Hindoo temples, square blocks, built indeed of enormous stones, but without sufficient architectural embellishment to require a closer inspection than I obtained from the boat.  Another of those charming lazy days on the water, nothing to think about, but the time for meals, nothing to do, but to eat them when prepared.  The eastern part of Kashmir is covered with high isolated mounds called Kuraywahs, composed of Alluvium, presenting perfectly flat summits and precipitous sides.  The top of these was doubtless the original bed of the lake at the time when the whole valley was submerged, and the present channels between them (though now dry land) were cut by the rush of the water, when the Jhelum burst through the opening at Baramula and drained the valley.  This rush then is shown to have been impetuous (and the high banks of the river also bear evidence to it) but it seems to me that the mere breaking through of the stream sixty or seventy miles away is not enough to account for it.  No doubt that occurrence was attended, I may say produced by violent subterranean phenomena; and I imagine that this portion of the vale—­which is much higher than the western half—­then underwent a sudden upheaval, the result of which if only a few feet would be to throw its waters with terrific force into the lower portion and afford an easy explanation of the formation of both the Kuraqwahs and the Jhelum.  I noticed in my course up the Jhelum, that it appeared to have originally consisted of a chain of small lakes, this would be the the natural effect of such a cause as I have supposed.  The bulk of water, at first, would only have been sufficient to produce a few of them, perhaps only the large one between Gingle and Baramula.  But as its quantity and measure continually increased by the flow from the higher level so would lake after lake have been formed among the crowded hills until the plains were reached.  Then the drainage of these small lakes would follow as a matter