\ AUTUMN 33
sky, while the great main volume remained heavy and sombre, with now and then a spit of lightning flashing out, and on the far side, away from the setting sun, throwing out threatening tentacles across the valley in unavailing effort to reach the mountains on the northern side. These mighty monsoon masses, compared with which even the great mountains for once looked puny, represented the great and final effort of that stupendous move- ment which bears the waters of the Indian Ocean to beat upon the Himalaya. And as an omen that the monsoon was now over, the sky behind the storm-clouds was intensely clear and tranquil, and the moon slowly ascended the heavens in un- disturbed serenity.
And the rainy season being finished, there now “commenced almost the most charming time of all. It did not, indeed, possess the freshness of spring, but it had mere certainty of continual brightness and light, and more vigour and strength in the air, and above all, that warmth and richness of colour in the foliage which makes an autumn in Kashmir a thing unique. Towards the end of October the green of the immense masses of chenar slowly turns to purple, red, and yellow, and every inter-
vening shade. The poplars, mulberries, and 8
