Page:The Dial vol. 15 (July 1 - December 16, 1893).djvu/22

 10 natural resources, etc., is highly favorable. The whole of the state is practically independent of rain, a fairly hard winter storing a sufficiency of snow on the mountain-tops, so that the gradual thaw of the summer, which keeps the irrigating canals constantly brimming, is all that is needed to insure a harvest. The famines in Kashmir have been caused, not by summer drought, but by a too mild winter, or by heavy rains in the hot season which have flooded the plains and drowned out the crops. The climate of this Asiatic paradise seems to be well adapted to Europeans, the few English children who have been born and brought up there being as strong and rosy-cheeked as if they had been bred at home. The great drawback to an Indian career, the necessary separation between parents and children, is thus quite avoidable in Kashmir; and Mr. Knight regretfully observes, "Had we not sold this magnificent country, a great military cantonment would no doubt have been long since established here."

The resources of Kashmir have never been exploited, though Mr. Knight makes it evident that should British capital ever be admitted into the country there will be ample scope for it. According to some authorities, only one-third of the available land is under cultivation, and even that does not produce nearly what it might. Valuable minerals undoubtedly exist, and it is probable that should the long-projected more-than-once-surveyed railway be made, Kashmir will become a large exporter of agricultural produce and of the delicious fruits for which it is famed. At present the industrial enterprise of the country is centred,—that is to say is strangled,—in the hands of the Maharaja. His, for instance, are the sawmills, his the wine and brandy monopoly. French experts conduct the latter branch for him, producing wine, both red and white, of excellent quality; and our author thinks it is not too much to say that the vineyards of Kashmir should some day make India independent of France, at least for claret of the ordinary description.

In point of scenery and natural charm Kashmir seems to be all that the author of "Lalla Rookh" (which poem our author makes it a point of honor not to quote) has taught the northern fancy to paint her. It is a land of running water, of fruits and flowers and birds (not omitting, one hopes, the bulbul, though Mr. Knight does not mention it), and sweet odors and sparkling cascades,—a land, in short, that assures the traveller that the beauties of far-famed Kashmir have not been exaggerated by Oriental poets. Mr. Knight—who is a capital hand at description, terse, vigorous, and sparing of the finical details of the "word-painter"—writes as follows of the scenery along the road to Baramoula:

The nominal masters of this favored land seem to be utterly unworthy of their good fortune, as a rule, says our author. An Englishman coming to the country for the first time takes a great fancy to the handsome, cheery, outwardly civil and obliging Kashmiris, and it is not until he has been some time in the country that he discovers them to be among the most despicable of creatures, incorrigible cheats and liars, and cowardly to an inconceivable degree. Tartars, Tibetans, Moguls, Afghans, Sikhs, have in turn overrun the Happy Valley, whose inhabitants have always meekly submitted to each new tyranny, their very abjectness proving their salvation. Says Mr. Knight:

A Kashmiri will unresistingly take a blow from anyone, even from a Kashmiri; the people—who, however, wrangle among themselves like the proverbial washerwomen—having achieved such a depth of cowardice that they actually fear one another. To understand the Kashmiri thoroughly,—which is to dislike him,—one must have seen, for instance, a great bearded man meekly submitting to having his ears boxed by a Punjabi half his size, whom he could crush with one hand, weeping and shrieking like a naughty child under the maternal slipper, "and finally rolling on the ground and howling at the feet of this lad of a more plucky race." On the other hand, "one must have observed his covert insolence to some griffin globe-trotter, who does not understand the 