46 TRAVEL IN KASHMIR
& Co. have a branch there; and Cockburn’s Agency do every kind of agency work, engage boats and servants, and let out tents, camp furniture, ete. There are also many respectable native firms who do the same.
There is a large choice of expeditions from Srinagar to points of interest, which will be described in detail in a later chapter. First in the immediate vicinity there are picnics to be made to the Dal Lake, to the two Moghal gardens, the Nishat Bagh and the Shalimar Bagh, and to the beautiful camping-ground of the Nasim Bagh. These are expeditions which can be made in a single afternoon if necessary.
Of more remote tours the favourites are :—up the river to Islamabad and the beautiful Achibal spring and garden; to the clear crystal springs of Vernag, one of the many sources *of the Jhelum ; to the famous ruins of Martand, which occupy the grandest possible site for a temple; to the Lidar valley, Pahlgam, the Kolahoi glacier, and the caves of Amar Nath. Islamabad is the starting-point for both the Lidar valley and Martand, and here the house-boat may be left. Islamabad, thirty- four miles distant, may also be reached by a road
