Page:Younghusband - Kashmir.pdf/196

 142 THE HISTORY OF KASHMIR

Singh, the powerful Sikh ruler of the Punjab, who, after an unsuccessful attempt, finally in 1819, accompanied by Raja Gulab Singh of Jammu, defeated the Afghan governor and annexed Kashmir to hisdominions. It came then once again under Hindu rulers, though in the meantime nine- tenths of the population had been converted to Mohamedanism.

But the unfortunate country had still to suffer many ills. The Sikhs who succeeded the Afghans were not so barbarically cruel, but they were hard and rough masters, Moorcroft, who visited the country in 1824, says that “everywhere the people were in the most abject condition, exorbitantly taxed by the Sikh Government, and subjected to every kind of extortion and oppression by its officers. . . not one-sixteenth of the cultivable surface is in cultivation, and tl.¢ inhabitants, starv- ing at home, are driven in great numbers to the plains of Hindustan.” The cultivators were “in a condition of extreme wretchedness,” and the Government, instead of taking only one-half of the produce on the threshing-floor, had now advanced its demands to three-quarters. Every shawl was taxed 26 per cent upon the estimated value, besides which there was an import duty on the’