82 SCENERY AND SEASONS
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And by the end of June every one who can flees to Gulmarg, to Pahlgam in the Lidar valley, to Sonamarg in the Sind, to Gurais and to the numerous other mountain resorts.
But early in September the valley renews its charms and visitors return. The atmosphere has been freshened and cooled by the rains which, though they fal] lightly in the valley itself, are often heavy on the surrounding mountains. The ripe rice-fields show an expanse of green and yellow often two or three miles in extent. The villages, dirty and untidy at close quarters, it is true, but nestling among the chenars, willows, poplars, walnuts, and mulberries, show as entrancing islands amidst the sea of emerald rice. Ponies browse among the marshes up to their knees in water; and groups of cattle graze along the grassy edge of the streams and water-ducts,
‘The sun is still powerful in the daytime, and the sky usually bright and clear. But the monsoon will often make a few final efforts. One such day I note when voluminous masses of cloud rolled up from behind the Pir Panjal to a height of twenty- five or thirty thousand feet, their westward edges aglow from the setting sun, and showing clear and distinct against the background of pinky light blue
