GULMARG
What will be one day known as the playground of India, and what is
known to the Kashmiris as the "Meadow of Flowers," is situated
twenty-six miles from Srinagar, half-way up the northward-facing
slopes of the Pir Panjal. There is no other place like Gulmarg.
Originally a mere meadow to which the Kashmiri shepherds used to bring
their sheep, cattle, and ponies for summer grazing, it is now the
resort of six or seven hundred European visitors every summer. The
Maharaja has a palace there. There is a Residency, an hotel, with a
theatre and ball-room, post office, telegraph office, club, and more
than a hundred "huts" built and owned by Europeans. There are also
golf links, two polo grounds, a cricket ground, four tennis courts,
and two croquet grounds. There are level circular roads running all
round it. There is a pipe water-supply, and maybe soon there will be
electric light everywhere. And yet for eight months in the year the
place is entirely deserted and under snow.
Like Kashmir generally, Gulmarg also is said by those who knew it in
the old days to be now "spoilt." With the increasing numbers of
visitors, with the numerous huts springing up year by year in every
direction, with the dinners and dances, it is said to have lost its
former charms, and it is believed that in a few years it will not be
worth living in. My own view is precisely the opposite. I knew Gulmarg
nineteen years ago, and it certainly then had many charms. The walks
and scenery and the fresh bracing air were delightful. Where now are
roads there were then only meandering paths. What is now the polo
ground was then a swamp. The "fore" of the golfer was unknown. All was
then Arcadian simplicity. Nothing more thrilling than a walk in the
woods, or at most a luncheon party, was ever heard of.
And, doubtless, this simplicity of life has its advantages. But it had
also its drawbacks. Man cannot live for ever on walks however charming
and however fascinating his companion may be. His soul yearns for a
ball of some kind whether it be a polo ball, a cricket ball, a tennis
ball, a golf ball, or even a croquet ball. Until he has a ball of some
description to play with he is never really happy.
So now that a sufficient number of visitors come to Gulmarg to supply
subscriptions enough to make and keep up really good golf links, polo
grounds, etc., I for my part think Gulmarg is greatly improved. I
think, further, that it has not yet reached the zenith of its
attractions. It is the Gulmarg of the future that will be the really
attractive Gulmarg, when there is money enough to make the second
links as good as the first, to lay out good rides down and around the
marg, to make a lake at the end, to stock it with trout, and to have
electric light and water in all the "huts," and when a good hotel and
a good club, with quarters for casual bachelor visitors, have been
built.
[Illustration: ON THE CIRCULAR ROAD, GULMARG]
All this is straying far from the original Arcadian simplicity, but
those who wish for simplicity can still have it in many another valley
in Kashmir--at Sonamarg, Pahlgam, or Tragbal, and numerous other
places, and the advantage of Gulmarg is that the visitor can still if
he choose be very fairly simple. He can go about in a suit of
puttoo. He need not go to a single dance, or theatrical performance,
or dinner-party, or play a single game. He need not speak to a soul
unless he wants to. He can pitch his tent in some remote end of the
marg, and he can take his solitary walks in the woods; _but_, if after
a while he finds his own society is not after all so agreeable as he
had thought, if he feels a hankering for the society of his fellows,
male or female, and if he finds the temptation to play with some ball
is irresistible, then just under his nose is every attraction. He can
indulge his misanthropic inclinations at will, and at a turn in those
inclinations he can plunge into games and gaiety to his heart's
content.
The main charm of Gulmarg will, however, always remain the beauty of
its natural scenery and the views of the great peak, Nanga Parbat,
26,260 feet above sea-level, and 80 miles distant across the valley.
The marg or meadow itself is a flowery, saucer-shaped hollow under a
mountain 13,000 feet high, and bounded by a ridge directly overhanging
the main valley of Kashmir. It is 8500 feet above sea-level, open and
covered with flowers and soft green turf, but on all sides it is
surrounded by forests of silver fir interspersed with spruce, blue
pine, maple, and a few horse-chestnuts, and the great attraction is
that through this forest of stately graceful firs the most superb
views may be had, first over the whole length and breadth of the vale
of Kashmir, then along the range of snowy mountains on the north, and
as a culminating pleasure, to the solitary Nanga Parbat, which stands
out clear and distinct above and beyond all the lesser ranges, and
belonging, so it seems, to a separate and purer world of its own. And
there is the further attraction in the Gulmarg scenery that it is ever
changing--now clear and suffused in brilliant sunlight, now the
battle-ground of monsoon storms, and now again streaked with soft
fleecy vapours and bathed in haze and colour. No two days are alike,
and each point of view discloses some new loveliness.
Round the outside of the ridge runs what is known as the circular
road. It has the advantage of being perfectly level, and is fit for
riding as well as walking. Except the road through the tropical
forests near Darjiling, along which I rode on my way to and from
Tibet, and which runs for miles through glorious tropical vegetation,
by immense broad-leaved trees with unknown names, all festooned with
creepers and lighted with orchids; by great tree ferns, wild
bananas, and a host of other treasures of plant life, and through
which glimpses of the mighty Kinchinjanga, 28,250 feet, could be
caught,--except that I know of no other more beautiful road than this
along the ridge of Gulmarg.
[Illustration: IN THE FOREST]
From it one looks down through the wealth of forest on to the valley
below, intersected with streams and water-channels, dotted over with
wooded villages, and covered with rice-fields of emerald green; on to
the great river winding along the length of the valley to the Wular
Lake at its western end; on to the glinting roofs of Srinagar; on to
the snowy range on the far side-valley; and, finally, on to Nanga
Parbat itself.
And never for two days together is this glorious panorama exactly the
same. One day the valley will be filled with a sea of rolling clouds
through which gleams of sunshine light up the brilliant green of the
rice-fields below. Above the billowy sea of clouds long level lines of
mist will float along the opposite mountain-sides. Above these again
will rise the great mountains looking inconceivably high. And above
all will soar Nanga Parbat, looking at sunset like a pearly island
rising from an ocean of ruddy light.
On another day there will be not a cloud in the sky. The whole scene
will be bathed in a bluey haze. Through the many vistas cut in the
forest the eye will be carried to the foot-hills sloping gradually
towards the river, to the little clumps of pine wood, the village
clusters of walnut, pear, and mulberry, the fields of rice and maize,
to the silvery reaches of the Jhelum, winding from the Wular Lake to
Baramula, to the purply blue of the distant mountains, then on to the
bluey white of Nanga Parbat, sharply defined, yet in colour nearly
merging into the azure of the sky, and showing out in all the greater
beauty that we see it framed by the dark and graceful pines in which
we stand.
And this forest has no mean attractions of its own, of which to my
little girl the chief were the white columbines. Here also are found
purple columbines, delphiniums, what are known as white slipper
orchids, yellow violets, balsams, mauve and yellow primulas,
potentillas, anemones, Jacob's ladder, monkshood, salvias, many
graceful ferns, and numerous other flowers of which I do not pretend
to know the name.
[Illustration: FROM THE CIRCULAR ROAD, GULMARG]
The Residency is situated on the summit of the ridge above the
circular road, and from it can be seen not only Nanga Parbat (through
a vista cut in the trees) and the main valley, but also a lovely
little side-valley known as the Ferozepur nulla. Looking straight down
two thousand feet through the pine trees we see a mountain torrent
whose distant rumbling mingles soothingly with the sighing of the
pines. Brilliant green meadows, on which a few detached pine trees
stand gracefully out here and there, line the river banks. Steep
hill-sides, mostly clad in gloomy forest, rise on either hand, but
relieved by many patches of grassy sun-lit slope. The spurs become a
deeper and deeper purple as they recede. The openings in the forests
become wider higher on the mountain-side where the avalanches have
scoured them more frequently. Higher still the forest-line is passed,
and the little stream is seen issuing from its source among the
snow-fields and flowing over enticing grassy meadows. Above the
glistening snow-fields rises a rugged peak of the Pir Panjal which,
when it is not set against a background of intense blue sky, is the
butt of raging storm-clouds.
The most beautiful time in Gulmarg is in September, when the rains are
over and the first fresh autumn nip is in the air. Then from the
summer-house in our garden, in the early morning, to feast my eyes on
Nanga Parbat was a perpetual delight. It was the very emblem of
purity, dignity, and repose. Day after day it would appear as a vision
of soft pure white in a gauze-like haze of delicate blue. Too light
and too ethereal for earth, but seemingly a part of heaven; a vision
which was a religion in itself, which diffused its beauty throughout
one's being, and evoked from it all that was most pure and lovely.
The foreground in this autumn month was also worthy of the supreme
subject of the picture. Through the pines the touches of sunlit
meadow, fresh and green, with long shadows of the trees thrown here
and there across them and intensifying the effect of the sunlight; the
groups of cattle; the horizontal streaks of mist floating on the edge
of the woods; the cheerful twittering of the birds; the soothing hum
of the bees and insects; the crowing of cocks; the rippling sound of
running water; and then, looking towards Aparwat, the brilliant
sunshine brightening the emerald grass of the marg; the patches of
yellow flowers; the little meandering stream; the pretty chalet huts
peeping out from the edge of the trees; the background of dark firs
and pines getting lighter as they merge into the bluey haze of the
distance; the fresh green meadows over the limit of the pines; the
snow-fields; the rocky peaks, and above all the clear blue liquid
sky,--all this gave a setting and an atmosphere which fitly served as
an accompaniment to this most impressive of Nature's works.