CASHMERE AND ITS PEOPLE.*

[SECOND NOTICE.]

TILE country of Cashmere is unique in position and form. It is a plain embedded among the mountains, lying at such a height above the sea as, on the one hand, to be of a climate entirely different from that of India, being saved from the heat that parches its plains, and on the other hand, to be free from the severity of cold that visits the lofty plateaus and wide valleys in the centre of the mass of mountains. In this high valley there is a city of strange, rarely picturesque aspect. It is Sirin- agar, the Maharaja's second capital, and we may see a panoramic view of it on the staircase in the South Kensington Museum,—

not of its colouring—Cashmere "has yet to be painted," says Mr. Drew—but of the long line of steep snowy peaks which guard the valley, the forest-slopes and bare ground of the high "karewas," as plateaus are called in Cashmere; the rich valley and the winding curves of the Jhelum river, edged at its last reach short of the city by the orchard-hidden houses of English visitors, then concealed by the mass of buildings on its banks, spanned by seven bridges. The Jhelum is the main artery of traffic, and always alive with boats. The city is totally unlike Jummoo, but its river-front is highly picturesque, for there is neither quay nor embankment, and the houses stand detached, in endless variety of form and capricious proportion of stone and wood in material. Cashmere is an earthquake country, and the houses are built with regard to the terribly uncertain tyranny of the fire-forces :—

" The view of these buildings, uneven, irregular, but for that very reason giving in the sunlight varied lights and depths of shadow ; of the lino of them broken with numerous stone gliiits or stairs, thronged with people, that lead from the river up to the streets and lanes of the city ; of the mountain-ridges showing above, in form varying as one follows the turns of the river ; of the stream flowing steadily below, with boats of all kinds coming and going on it, is one of remarkable beauty. From a height that will command a bird's-eye-view, the sight is still more curious, because of the great expanse of earth-covered roofs, which at some time of the year are covered with a growth of long grass, that makes the city look as green as the country."

Beyond the city lies a blissful region, on the edges of a lake called the Dal, framed on three sides by an amphitheatre of mountains from 3,000 to 4,000 feet high, at whose base cluster orchard-surrounded villages, and the famous gardens con- structed by the Delhi Emperors, the Gardens of Delight, whose buildings, indeed, are decayed, but whose magnificent plane-trees had hardly reached their prime when the rule of their imperial planters ceased to be known in Cashmere. It must be a strange experience for a European to take his puny notions of, say, the Versailles terraces, to the Shalimar Garden's uppermost pavilion, with its columns of black and grey fossiliferous marble, its fountain-filled tank overhung with plane - trees, and its canal, which alternately level, and falling in cascades, runs past the great gates far into Ihe mountain-framed lake, with its five miles' length, and two miles breadth of clearest water. Or to the Garden of Breezes, where the great buildings on the plateau above the lake lie in ruins, amid the cross-avenues of splendid plane-trees, which throw their broad shade over grassy walks, whence- one may gaze over the glassy surface of the lake, in which are reflected the great mountains that encircle it ; with, if the time be morning, their details softened and their colours harmonised by the delicate brightness of the intervening haze. Thirty miles beyond the city, on the slopes, with a great forest intervening, is the valley called Gulmarz, a " plain of flowers," three miles long by a mile wide, with a girdle of low hills around it, spurs from the mountains, crowned so thickly with forests of lofty pine trees that all other objects are shut out from view, and the seclusion is complete. What a silent nest of loveliness, in the heart of the great moun- tains, 8,000 feet above the sea! Solitary, too, for the most part of the year; only in the summer the Gujars, a migratory, pastoral tribe, handsome, surly people, Mohammedans, living by the pro- duce of their cattle, and keeping as much apart as possible from other tribes, come there, with their herds of buffaloes. These Gujars have their home—their winter settlement is so called—in the outer mountains, and speak the dialects of those regions. They are found scattered at intervals over the country between Delhi and the Indus, sometimes occupying a village by themselves, sometimes sharing it with others, but always remaining a distinct

* The Jummoo and Kashmir Territories: a Geographical Account. By Frederick Drew, F.R.O.S., F.O.S. London: Edward Stanford.

body. No greater enjoyment surely could be had in the way of travel than the lingering in the beautiful Valley of Cashmere, with its facilities for hunting out the varieties of delightful scenery and getting at every kind of information ; and beyond it the awful passes, through which the traveller is to go into an utterly oppo- site land. The ,delicious climate, with its sudden spring—"it comes with a burst," says Mr. Drew "—keeps health and spirits up to pleasure-mark, and there is little visible in the condition of the native population to sadden the observer. And yet, for all the wondrous beauty of the Valley of Cashmere, its people bold their lives on the uncertain tenure which always seems to us so contradictory of the Eastern wealth of sunshine. "I think, in- deed," says Mr. Drew, "that they get a fair meal, but they can afford little beyond their simple daily food, and are unable to provide against a rainy day; so when a bad year comes, as, though not often, does sometimes happen, they are put to great straits, and will perhaps leave the country in numbers, for the isolation of the place is such that it is exceedingly difficult for any great importation of corn to be made to redress the failure of a har- vest." Thus famines have in former times been the occasion of migrations of Cashmerees,—the origin of settlements of them in the Outer Hills and in the Punjaub itself. Mr. Drew gives a very interesting description of the peasantry, whose race is un- mixed; while of the whole people of Cashmere, he says "they are physically the finest that inhabit the territories we are dealing with, and in size and feature they are the finest race on the whole continent of India." Their faces are of the pure high-Aryan type, their physique, their character, and their language are as distinct from those of their neighbours as the geographical separation of their country:— "They have a wide, straight-up, and high forehead, and a well- shaped head, a well-cut, square brow, and eyes of a not very dark brown.

In figure they are of middle height, our English standard ; a robust race, broad-shouldered, large-framed, and of great muscular power.

In character the Cashmerees have many failings, but they have also qualities which make one to be interested in and like them. They are false-tongued, and given to various forms of deceit. This character is more pronounced with them than with most of the races of India They are noisy and quarrelsome, ready to wrangle, but not to fight ;

on the least exercise or threat of force, they cry like children In intellect they are superior to their neighbours ; they are keener than the Punjaubees, and in perception, clearness of mind, and ingenuity far outvie their masters, the Dogris. In disposition they are talkative, cheerful, and huniorous. Their language is so different from Punjaubee and Dogree that it is incomprehensible to those nations, and difficult to learn; the officials of the Maharaja's Government rarely master it."

Their villages, untidy in details, are very picturesque, with their two-storied, gable-roofed, and thatched cottages, with cosy rooms for winter use, and balconies sheltered by overhanging eaves for the summer, that lingers long in their lovely valley. There are no ugly clumps of huts, as in the Punjaub villages, but the picturesque dwellings are detached, and every village has its uuenclosed grove of apple, cherry, mulberry, and walnut trees. " Looking from a commanding height," says Mr. Drew, " we see the vale all studded with such village groves. In the early summer, when the fields are flooded for rice cultivation, there is the appearance of a chain of lakes and straits, the parts occupied by the villages themselves being the only dry land. In all such prospects, when the eye has scanned the inhabited plain, it reaches beyond to the dark forests and shining snowfields of the stately mountains."

The only Cashmeree Hindus are Brahmans, the remainder of the ancient nation were converted to El Islam. They live in Sirinagar, and are called "Pundits," no matter what may be their occupation, although in other parts of India the title is confined to Brahmans learned in theology or law. They are fine-looking men, who follow some trades, but are not cultivators, nor do they practise any calling which requires muscular exertion. Their chief occupation is writing ; numbers of them are employed in the Government service as Persian writers. The caste divisions among the Mohammedans are lessening ; those of the Hindus of course remain unchanged. Here is a rather dismal account of the shawl-weavers, of whose handicraft all the world knows great marvels :—

" These men spend long days in the low, crowded factories, where the air 'is very impure, especially in winter; they keep the place close for warmth, and in the absence of ventilation the air becomes highly vitiated. 'This, and the constancy of the sedentary employment, has acted on the physique of the shawl-weavers; they are a class whose sallow complexion and weak frames contrast strongly with the robust- ness of most other Cashmerees. The other ornamental arts of Sirinagar are silverwork and papier-mache painting. Their work in these materials displays the same taste, the same artistic feeling—whether shown in simple beauty of form, or in harmonious brilliancy of colour—which has

made the Cashmere shawl, when of the best, a thing inimitable by other manufacturers."

The boatmen, or Banjees, are necessarily an important class—

the river, navigable for two days' journey above, and two days' journey below the city, being the great highway of the country —and with them Englishmen come into the closest contact. They are greedy, cowardly, and mendacious, but energetic, versatile, good-humoured, and strong. Their dinghees form their homes, for the most part. Last on the list come the Batals, an outcast tribe, like the Dunes of the Outer Hills. Even of these, the re. fuse of humanity, there are two divisions. Their tasks are the tasks of the outcasts all over India ; to do the dirtiest work, especially to remove and skin carcases, and to cure leather. The higher Betels are allowed into some fellowship with the other Mohammedans, and follow their rules as to eating ; but the lower Batals would not be given the name, and eat carrion. They are probably a remnant of a race earlier than the Aryan. This tribe, outcast from the outcast, furnish musicians, and the nautch-girls who dance at the durbars and festivals when the Maharaja comes in summer-time from his Hindu to his Mohammedan city. The women—of whom the traveller sees very few—are good-looking, but they have not the delicacy and elegance of form or the finely- turned arms and small hands of the women of India. We must not judge of them from photographs of Cashmeree women, Mr. Drew tells us, for only the Betels, who are decidedly inferior in looks, are photographed.

Coming out of the Valley of Cashmere on the stupendous road to Ladakh, the traveller reaches a gap in the mountains, which is the lowest passage along a length of 300 miles. This is commonly called the Dras Pass ; it is a high, level valley, reached after a steep ascent on the Cashmere side, a grassy valley not more than a quar- ter of a mile in width, bounded by rugged and rocky mountains, with peaks towering 2,000 and 3,000 feet above the easy road. But these are only the ends of ridges which are 5,000 and 6,000 feet above it, or 15,000 and 17,000 feet above the sea. Beyond, there is a slight fall, and the traveller is in the Ladakh country, where there is no ground even in the valleys so low as 10,000 feet, where 14 miles distant from the Pass rise the enormous mountains Nun and Run, each more than 23,000 feet high ; and from whence the rich and smiling Valley of Cashmere is to the traveller like a vision of paradise dreamed from outside the ada- mant barriers.

In his journey along the backbone of the world we cannot farther follow Mr. Drew. Every chapter of his book is deeply interesting, the sections which we have not touched upon perhaps more interesting than those on which we have dwelt. The im- portance and value of the work in a scientific point of view are very great, and the five maps, which are arranged respectively as the general, the snow, the political, the faith, and the race maps, are the most complete within our knowledge.