Tuesday, April 30, 2019

First Paragraph

The pony stepped carefully down the rock-strewn path, the pony boy walking ten paces behind, his long hillman's stride effortlessly keeping pace. Rodney eased his weight forward, loosened the reins, and sighed with content. The sound of the Girwan torrent came muted to him up here, nearly six hundred feet above the gorge, adding a deep undertone to the soughing of the wind in the deodars and the rhythmic crunch of the pony's hoofs. Straight ahead, looking down the V of the valley, the forested hills across the Liddar fell like a dense dark curtain from a pale blue sky, streaked with high, slow-moving cirrus clouds. Behind him a parapet of snow, glittering now in the direct rays of the late morning sun, blocked the upper end of the Girwan. Over his right shoulder, as he turned to look, Kolahoi towered in aloof splendor, veils of snow streaming away from its thrusting pines.

- From The Himalayan Concerto by John Masters

No comments: