The way to Nazri is long and the way to Nazri
is exceedingly rough. Leaving the table-land you plunge down a
trackless gully into the dry bed of a stream. Thence it is an hour's
uneasy walking among stagnant pools and granite boulders to the foot of
another nullah which runs up to the heart of the hills. From this you
pick your way along the precipitous side of a mountain, and if your head
is good and your feet sure, may come eventually to a place like the roof
of the house, beyond which lies a thicket of thorn-bushes and the Nazri
gully. At first sight the thing seems impossible, but by a bold man it
can be crossed either in the untanned Kashmir shoes or with the naked
feet.
Lewis had not gone a mile and had barely reached the dry watercourse,
when the weather broke utterly in a storm of mist and fine rain. At
other times this chill weather would have been a comfort, but here in
these lonely altitudes, with a difficult path before him, its result was
to confound confusion. So long as he stuck to the stream he had some
guidance; it was hard, even when the air was like a damp blanket, to
mistake the chaos of boulder and shingle which meant the channel. But
the mist was close to him and wrapped him in like a quilt, and he looked
in vain for the foot of the nullah he must climb. He tried keeping by
the edge and feeling his way, but it only landed him in a ditch of
stagnant slime.
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