34 SCENERY AND SEASONS i
apricots add each their quota of autumnal beauty. The valley and the river edge are resplendent in the gorgeous colouring. And beautiful as is the spring, I was tempted to think that even more exquisitely lovely was the bright autumnal day when we drifted down the river in our house-boat, when the chenars along the river-bank were loaded with the richest and most varied colouring, when the first fresh fall of snow was glistening on the mountains, and there was in the air that restful sense of certainty that this was no hurried pleasure snatched from a stormy season, but that for day after day and week after week one might count on the same brilliant sunshine, the same clear blue sky, and daily increasing crispness in the air.
The great broad reaches in the river were radiant in the sunlight and fringed with the rich autumnal foliage. Shadipur, at the junction of the Sind River, where there is a little temple on an island and hoary old chenars drooping over it to the water’s surface, was a dream of all that is most lovely. And the Manasbal Lake, set like a jewel deep and clear among the mountains, with clumps and avenues of these same red and purple foliaged trees upon its edge, and reflecting in its surface
