Catharine Grace Loch, Royal Red Cross, Senior Lady Superintendent Queen Alexandra's Military Nursing Service for India : a memoir / edited by A.F. Bradshaw.

  • Loch, Catharine Grace, 1854-1904.
Date:
1905
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Licence: In copyright

Credit: Catharine Grace Loch, Royal Red Cross, Senior Lady Superintendent Queen Alexandra's Military Nursing Service for India : a memoir / edited by A.F. Bradshaw. Source: Wellcome Collection.

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    1890] CBOSSTNG THE MOUNTAINS far, or rather it is not walking but real climbing over endless I’ock or broken rock« or little narrow paths with not an inch to spare, and the most ghastly precipices below and often slippery with waterfalls. When on the top of the Pir Panjal Pass, about 11,500 feet, we were above the tree level and the wind was unbearably cold. At the extreme end and highest point of the pass it is like standing on the edge of the world, and the mountain there drops sheer down about 3,000 feet. Before we had descended twenty yards we were below the misty caj) of the mountain and the view down a great valley was too wonderful for vv'ords j the depth seemed endless with rolls of mountains crossing and recrossing each other, and far below us the endless pine forest and the birches and the growths of the rocks all getting autumn colours, and down and down the roatl looking like a frightful zigzag ladder of rock. IIow ponies can get down without going head over heels I cannot imagine. After crossing a river, we im- mediately began a climb of over 2,000 feet up a succes- sion of big rocky steps with deep mud between them. At top we reached a second pass the Hutton Pir, which is I believe about 8 or 9,000 feet. From the summit of this, looking back we got a glorious view of the Pir Panjal range, and looking forwards was again a new world. Oct. 10.—Eaical Phidi.—Ne have been here two days now and it seems years. Oct. 18.—I hear from Dr. Bradshaw, the P.M.O., that I shall have to visit during the cold weather the stations where the Nursing Sisters are. It will be vei'y delightful for me, for any visits ev'cn fleeting ones