BOOKS.
THE VALLEY OF KASHMIR.*
" WRITTEN at odd hours in the midst of much interruption," this is " a report " of the entire condition of Kashmir by the man who knows most about it among living Englishmen. For six years Mr. Lawrence has been " boss "—there is no academic word so nearly adequate—of the Kashmiris ; has had the task entrusted to him of " settling " them, of modifying custom, of introducing changes, of deciding law- suits "removed from the ordinary courts and brought to him for decision ;" has stood between the conflicting interests of the official classes, the headmen of villages, and the city of Srinegar—parties at daggers drawn ; has superintended every sort of economic question ; has been King and Judge—with the compliance of his Highness the Maharaja—like Ulysses in Ithaca, or Saul in Israel, or the King in Alice in Wonder- land. This steward now renders an account of his steward- ship. He explains the old administration and the new settle- ment; the trade, the industries, the occupations of his people. More, he acquaints us with the arch mology, the natural as well as the political history, the social life, the very religion, language, and philology of the Kashmiris. A map of Kashmir and two charts, with an excellent index and a glossary of the language, complete Mr. Lawrence's scheme. Of these charts, one shows the rise and fall of the River Jhelum at Shersavhi Palace, 1893-94; the other, the sections of the chief mountain-passes which lead from the valley. Briefly, Mr. Lawrence's " report " is the most thorough encyclopedia a student could desire.
The Valley of Kashmir—the inhabitants call it Kashir, Mr. Lawrence tells us—is an oval plain of infinite beauty and variety of beauty ; of an exquisite climate excellently tem- pered. " From an English point of view, the valley contains nearly everything which would make life enjoyable." There is sport, there is scenery ; there are mountains, flowers, magnificent ruins for the archaeologist ; there is cheap delicious fruit ; there are cheap nutritious vegetables; foods, in short, of all (essential) kinds. "I'll sing thee tales of Araby !" says a too familiar ditty, " and tales of fair Kashmir." Plainly the amorous singer knew what he was about when he reserved his mention of this Eden as his trump-card till the last. Some notes made by Mr. Eliot (see p. 27), " based on observations made at Srinegar during '92 and '93," go some way to give the world assurance of an unexampled climate.
Mr. Lawrence's minute chronicle of the geological aspect of Kashmir and of its flora will be read with interest by the amateurs of either science. If the unpractised eye is not deceived by his array of names and figures, then that ..hronicle is remarkable. Meanwhile we are beguiled by considerations of space and of mere " mansuetude " to his anthropology, and have time only for a rapid glance, first of all, at his account of the " fauna" of Kashmir. Big-game,
• The Valley of Kashmir. By Walter R. Lawrence, I.O.S., 0.I.E.. Settlement rommissioner. Kashmir, Jammu State. London : Henry Frowde, Oxford Usavernty Press.
we gather, are not what they were. There has been too much indiscriminate slaughter in late years, and now the State has had to reintroduce certain game-laws which had fallen into abeyance since the days of Ranbis Singh to protect the barasingh, ibex, and musk-deer. One reads with disgust of mere battues of stags, and things are in a bad way, as Mr. Lawrence thinks, with the stag, and even with the partridge, unless sportsmen will bind themselves together to control one smothers' guns. The new Shikdri seems to be a nuisance; he keeps up no head of game, and has got generally out of hand. Mr. Lawrence gives a long list of mammals ; the leopard is king, but there are only two instances given of his eating men in the author's experience. This is to the credit of the leopard, for Mr. Lawrence is nothing if not observant. Snakes are pretty common. There is a saying that no poisonous snake exists in parts of the valley from which the peak of Hainmak can be seen. The gunas is poisonous how- ever, and Mr. Lawrence lost a surveyor whom a gunas bit at Sonamarg. Fish are plentiful and do not seem to be de- creasing. The author notes a suggestion that " the fecundity of the Kashmiri women is due to the fish and oil diet," and suggests himself that the rainbow-trout of Canada might do very well in Kashmir; these are used to snow-water.
Of the Kashmiris themselves most of us at home know little more than that they are beautiful and not heroic. " The Kashmiri bears an evil reputation in the Punjab, and indeed throughout Asia," says Mr. Lawrence, and quotes evidence to that effect. But he also quotes this concession by Moorcroft, who did not love the Kashmiris :—" The vices of the Kash- miri I cannot help considering as the effect of his political condition rather than his nature, and conceive that it would not be difficult to transform him into a very different being." Let us turn from Mr. Lawrence's account of the Kashmiri's ways and habits, interesting as that is, and look at the old Administration which Moorcroft condemns. We can contrast it then with the New Settlement which it is Mr. Lawrence's honour to have made.
"In Kashmir," says Mr. Lawrence, "as in other native States where civilisation is not so far advanced as it is in British India, the happiness and welfare of the people depend almost entirely on the revenue system and the methods of taxation." The nature of the officials there was a matter of the first importance, and they were almost always dishonest, robbing the Maharaja and his people indifferently. " The Pandit class," which furnishes the patwari or village accountant, " does not value a post for its pay, but for its perquisites, and every post in the valley was quickly made a source of perquisites. When taxes must be collected, the official goes to work, gets one purse for the State and another for himself, and repeats that process in the matter of any arrears there may be to gather. In land, in food, in forced labour, the unhappy villager had to pay through the nose. An iniquitous system of farming col- lectorships prevailed ; the tahsildur, or head official, had his tahsil or district divided into blocks; village records simply were not, and chaos was the state of things. The object of the settlement wss to define and regulate the duties of officials, to re-establish tables of revenue liabilities, to limit these liabilities, and to "make the title in the land valuable, and an object of desire." Mr. Wingate began the work of settlement in 1887, Mr. Lawrence following as his locum tenens in 1889. " Two &lulls had then been surveyed, an excellent system of accounts had been introduced, and rulings on all important points had been carefully recorded." Mr. Lawrence began by inspecting the lal tahsil, "in order to frame assessments," and the tahsildurs kept away themselves, and also prevented the villagers from communicating with the Commissioners. This was a specimen of official chicanery, and the villagers themselves were disturbed. By November, 1889, Mr. Lawrence's new assessment was " out," and the astonished villagers recognised their friend. The State Council now gave Mr. Lawrence the allotment of waste land, and pre- sently " it was decided that all suits in any way connected with land should be removed from the ordinary Revenue Courts and handed over to the Settlement Department." It was the most intricate, exacting work, exacting even to follow in one's mind as one reads of it at one's ease in England. Mr. Lawrence had to examine the resources of every village, almost of every individual in it ; to settle what each should pay to him in money or in kind, and if the latter, then in what kind ; to grapple with the subtlest and most elusive details of arrears. But the issue has proved triumphant. Agricul- turists who used to wander up and down looking for justice and not finding it, are now at home in their native soil. The revenue is paid punctually,—the revenue which in 1884 it took a force of over seven thousand soldiers to exact. The publican, the worst form of middleman in existence, has gone, and officials have taken his place. The official does not need to extort, for he is decently paid ; on the other hand, the villager will not staffer extortion, for he knows from his revenue book what he justly owes. Kashmir, in short, flourishes. It needs but a continuance of firm policy and an increase of population.
This is a report, and not an essay in fiction. It is written modestly by the man who is, though he would probably dis- dain the title, the hero of his story; but we think the story one of the most satisfactory which a Briton can find to revive his spirits withal in these days of pessimism and a prevailing spirit as of Lilliput. On such a quiet, sober record of heroic effort should a nation like ours rejoice to " renew its mighty growth." Mr. Lawrence, so modest about himself, warmly praises his predecessor in the work, and his assistants, Mr. H. L. Ridett, a man of promise, Narsingh Das, Larqua Alum Shah, Amir Singh, and Gursuhi Mai, who died worn out by hard work, in harness. We could wish that the Government of India may be as ready to recognise the services of Mr. Lawrence.
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