It is very cold here, though not much above 5,000 feet above the sea.
I write a hurried line to announce my safe arrival in the valley. On the 1st instant we got hold of the rebellious Sheikh, and sent him down to the plains; and yesterday, Colonel Lawrence, Captain Browne, and myself, rode into the valley, amid the acclamations of an admiring population--of beggars! I am writing at sunrise in a little tent, and in spite of two coats and waistcoats, I am nearly "friz." We crossed the Pir Punjal Pass on the 4th, 12,000 feet above the sea, with snow all around us, and slept on this side in an old serai; I say _slept_, because we went to bed; but sleeping was out of the question, from the cold and uproar of all our followers and their horses, crowded into a court-yard thirty feet square, horses and men quarrelling and yelling all night long. The view from the top of the Pass was very fine, but the wind far too high to take more than a peep of it without losing one's eyes; but the road from Thanna to the summit was most lovely the whole way, winding up a glen wooded magnificently, and the rocks towering above us on all sides; the trees were all in their varied autumn dress, surmounted by forests of pine; altogether, I never saw so grand a scene. As the Sheikh's submission has cut the Gordian knot of politics here, we shall only stay a few days to see the valley, and install the Maharaja, (who is following us with his force by slow stages,) and then rush back to Lahore and Subathoo.
This is said to be the largest town but three in the valley. It is a poverty-stricken, scattered hamlet of mud houses with wooden roofs, the upper half being generally rough open lattice-work or railing, with alternate supports of unbaked bricks; low mud inclosures, and open waste spaces between, dedicated to dogs and dunghills. The whole is thickly grown over with fine apple and walnut trees, the staple fruits (with the grape) of the valley, and the food of the people. _They_ are a poor wretched set, only good for beasts of burden,--and certainly they can carry a vast load,--their dress, both men and women, being a loose, wide-sleeved smock-frock of dirty sackcloth-looking woollen. The men wear a dirty skullcap on their shaven "nobs," and the women a crimson machine, like a flower-pot saucer inverted, from which depends a veil or cloth of the same texture as the frock; legs and feet clothed in their native dirt. The women are atrociously ugly, and screech like the witches in _Macbeth_,--so much so, that when the Agent asked me to give them a rupee or two, I felt it my duty to refuse, firmly but respectfully, on the ground that it would be encouraging ugliness! I fancy the climate and the soil are unrivalled, but years of poverty and oppression have reduced to a nation of beggars what ought to be a Paradise. We go hence after breakfast to Islumabad, at the eastern end of the valley; and spend a day or two in looking about us, and floating down the river to Cashmere itself, by which time our "prince" will have arrived. I am the luckiest dog unhung to have actually got into Cashmere. I fancy I am the first officer of our army who has been here, save the few who have come officially. These delightful breezes are most invigorating. I only wish you could all enjoy these travels with me. I expect to be back at Subathoo by the 1st of December.