CH. XVIII.] BEAUTY OF CASHMERE. 467 into a region just like a sponge filled up with mountain torrents, brooks, and rice-fields. We forded the river Arpat, which, rising in the snows to the north-west of the valley, joins the Jhelum near Islamabad, and at last emerged from the slosh at Atchelul, a charming spot, where the ruins of a Mogul palace and pleasure-ground are at the foot of a hill covered with deodars at the top, and at the bottom with various kinds of fruit-trees. Our camp was pitched under plane-trees, and surrounded by cherries, pears, mulberries, and plums, all of course unripe. Thursday, May 25.—It would be difficult to exaggerate the beauty of the walk which we took on the morning of this Ascension Day, and though there was no church for our worship, it would be hard to pass a morning of such entire enjoyment without grateful thoughts of its great Author and of our Blessed Lord, now seated at the right hand of His Majesty on high. We kept on high ground along the base of the hills, and passed through a perfect shrubbery or pleasure-ground, which proved that nature's horticulture and landscape-gardening can sometimes accomplish all the conceptions of the most skilful artist. The green sward was as soft and springy as if it was regularly mown. Trees were planted, sometimes singly, sometimes in groups, exactly in the right places. The roses were in profusion, scenting the air, and sometimes of the brightest colour. Other flowering shrubs, the berbery and the wild indigo, occasionally were found. Glades opened out amidst the trees. Sometimes a group of deodars appeared a little above us on the hill-side. A brook murmured through the lawn, and birds were singing all about-the cuckoo, the skylark, the blackbird, the dove, and the famous bulbul itself. So we went on till we descended into lower ground, very watery, like that of yesterday, crossed one or two branches of the river Bringh, and then began to ascend a low range of hills which divides the upper part of Cashmere into two valleys, one formed by the Bringh and one by the Sandrin, which, uniting at Islamabad, and receiving the Arpat and Lidar, form our friend the Jhelum. From the top of the pass we had a grand view, the snowy mountains to-day being in great beauty, as there was a storm last night to clear the air. We saw Mártand and a good way down the valley, though here the projecting range on which we stood interfered with the extent of the view; but we could see quite up the н н 2 valley to the magnificent mountains, generally about 14,000 feet high, which divide Cashmere from Chumla. The long Pir Punjal range, so to call it, though I believe that the name is properly restricted to the pass, was close to us. From this eminence we again descended to a land of slosh and fertility, to Shahabad on the Sandrin, where we breakfasted and had our tents pitched. . . May 26,-We regained the Jhelum at Islamabad and descended the river to Aventipura. Here we stopped and landed to see what our excavators had done. To our great joy we found about twenty feet of the peristyle uncovered on the opposite side of the quadrangle to the portion already laid bare, displaying a continuation of the trefoiled arches and ornamented pillars, with the detached columns in front. Part of the architecture has fallen down just before the arcade. I have no doubt that the whole peristyle, of course more or less broken and battered, exists below the ground, and there seems no reason why we should not get it all uncovered, under Cowie's superintendence, by which means an interesting addition will be made to the sights and antiquities of Cashmere. We took a general survey of the ruins again, and noticed the human-headed birds within the trefoiled arches of the part previously uncovered, which also form part of the Mártand decorations. On the return from Islamabad the camp at Srinagar was struck and the journey back to Murree commenced. The Maharajah's barge and boats carried the travellers down to Baramula. Here the Jhelum ceases to be navigable, and the marching life was resumed. The homeward route took the right bank instead of the left. In due time the vile paths and unbridged nullahs (brooks) of the Maharajah's territories were exchanged for well-made roads, types of British civilisation, and for the very pretty suspension-bridge thrown across the Nansuck, by which the Hazara district and English territory were gained. A halt at Abbottabad broke the final journey to Murree, where by the end of June the patched-up house supplied repose and an acceptable shelter from the increasing heat. This record of a time of great enjoyment and of many CH. XVIII.] RETURN TO MURREE. 469 blessings may close with one entry from the Bishop's journal-a simple and spontaneous outburst of feeling, which, with the writer, always found a vent more readily through his pen than through words: June 2.-As I devote much of my journal to recording scenes of physical beauty, I shall to-day note one of moral beauty. As I was passing leisurely along the road above the strange bridge of a single rope at Uri, by which the natives sling themselves across the river, Hardy, who had gone on ahead to see to the breakfast arrangements, suddenly met me, breathless and hot with fast walking. 'Hurrah!' he exclaimed, 'I have caught you in the nick of time. I thought that you would like to look at the bridge through my binoculars, so I have brought them back to you.' It appeared that for this purpose he had returned two miles, so that, merely to give another person a moment's pleasure, he added to the day's march a long hot walk. CHAPTER XIX. FURTHER PROGRESS OF EDUCATIONAL PLANS-CAINVILLE HOUSE SCHOOL -TRANSFER OF ST. PAUL'S SCHOOL-PURCHASE OF MR. MADDOCK'S SCHOOL-LETTER TO THE SECRETARY OF THE BOARD OF EDUCATIONFRESH APPEAL FOR SUBSCRIPTIONS-FINAL EDUCATIONAL PASTORALLIFE AT MURREE-JOURNAL RECORD OF WORK-COLD WEATHER VISITATION OF 1865-6-DISTURBED STATE OF HAZARA DISTRICT-DESCENT OF THE INDUS-HISSAR-DELHI-AGRA-CORRESPONDENCE. movement. THE leading occupation during a four months' residence at Murree was a further prosecution of the hill-schools' An earlier chapter in this Memoir brought the movement down to the birth of the Simla school and of the Diocesan Board of Education in 1863. For some months afterwards the Bishop was comparatively resting on his oars, and was waiting until time and events should ripen for further personal efforts. There was, however, no lull in the educational activity of the diocese. The Board of Education was giving much aid in the establishment of boys' and girls' schools in the chief cities of the Presidency, thus supplementing the hill education by that corresponding education in the plains which those most friendly to the Bishop's special scheme desired should not be lost sight of. A girls' school in the hills, rivalling in efficiency and stability the schools projected for boys, was established solely by the energy of Archdeacon Pratt. He had co-operated from the first most actively and heartily in all the educational measures that were on hand, and in 1863, when the Bishop suspended for awhile his personal exertions, and declared that 'he was really ashamed to ask the public for money for Cu. XIX.] ST. PAUL'S SCHOOL, CALCUTTA. 471 any fresh object,' the Archdeacon seized a favourable opportunity for planting a girls' school at Mussourie. He set on foot a subscription throughout the diocese which, when doubled by Government and aided by a grant of 1007. from the Christian Knowledge Society, and another of 400l. from the Board of Education, amounted in eighteen months to 60,000 rupees (6,000l.). With this sum a property was bought, and a small reserve fund secured. The school when once opened was made over by deed to the Bishop and Archdeacon as ex officio trustees of the Board of Education. Thus Cainville House, Mussourie, was added to the trusts attached to the see of Calcutta, and a very important step was taken towards rolling away the reproach that in a great Protestant diocese a large share of the female Christian education beyond the limits of Calcutta was carried on in convents. As 1864 advanced the Bishop began again to take the initiative, and concentrated much of his time and attention upon what may be called the second part in this educational enterprise, with a view to the establishment of Himalayan schools, standing in the same relation to the North-West Provinces, Eastern Bengal and Assam, as the Simla school did to the Punjâb. Circumstances had arisen to facilitate this further expansion of the work. St. Paul's School, in Calcutta, had long been in an unsatisfactory state. From various causes it had become unpopular, and was ceasing to pay its way. The remedy suggested for this state of decadence was either to amalgamate it with some more flourishing school in Calcutta, or to transplant it to the hills. The Bishop wavered long about this latter alternative. The temptation was great to take a step which might renovate a sickly institution and be at the same time subservient to his own plans. On the other hand, St. Paul's School was bound up with the memory of Archdeacon Corrie, who had founded it for the inhabitants of Calcutta, |