Studio: international art (66.1915)

A Sketching Tour in the Kashmir Valley

“ Tsrarr”

he dyes his beard with henna. But he can block
out a design on a bowl or box in blue paint with a
freedom and certainty of touch that I really envy.

A tortuous tumble-down wooden staircase leads
up to his room overhanging the river. I sit on his
matted floor and drink green tea brewed in his

samovar, and eat kulchas
—little breads—trying to
forget the bazaar they came
from.

I once tried to paint him
as he sat in the window, the
light sharply defining the
old turbaned head and
draped shoulders, a bowl
of roses at his side ; but it
was not a success. He
would not sit, but was much
interested in my paints.
When I guessed his inten-
tions, I hid the rose
madder, but he succeeded
in annexing a large tube of
crimson lake, and when he
found I clung relentlessly
to my brushes, he got hope-
lessly bored, and told me
he was much troubled by
“ little fleas,” not the “ big
fleas that jump,” but little
ones ! 1 Then I went home.

Between the first and
second bridges stands the
Maharajah’s Palace,
which cannot be called
“ a thing of beauty,” and above the first bridge is
the European quarter, with its bungalows, church,
club and residency, and its crush of houseboats.
I never stay there till I am obliged to—in the
winter—but turn off down a little canal, and
then through a water-gate into the Dal Lake, and,

Pen Sketch by P. Aberigh-Mackay

“Pints in Shadipnr'1
246

Pen Sketch by P. Aberigh-Mackay