On the third day out from the lamasery
we camped in a romantic Himalayan valley--a narrow, green glen, with a
brawling stream running in white cataracts and rapids down its midst.
We were able to breathe freely now; we could enjoy the great tapering
deodars that rose in ranks on the hillsides, the snow-clad needles of
ramping rock that bounded the view to north and south, the feathery
bamboo-jungle that fringed and half-obscured the mountain torrent, whose
cool music--alas, fallaciously cool--was borne to us through the dense
screen of waving foliage. Lady Meadowcroft was so delighted at having
got clear away from those murderous and saintly Tibetans that for a
while she almost forgot to grumble. She even condescended to admire the
deep-cleft ravine in which we bivouacked for the night, and to admit
that the orchids which hung from the tall trees were as fine as any at
her florist's in Piccadilly. "Though how they can have got them out here
already, in this outlandish place--the most fashionable kinds--when we
in England have to grow them with such care in expensive hot-houses,"
she said, "really passes my comprehension."
She seemed to think that orchids originated in Covent Garden.
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