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migrating to parts where food could be had. In addition, the communications were so bad that the food, so plentiful in the neighbouring province, could be imported only with the greatest difficulty.

As a result two-thirds of the population died; a number of the chief valleys were entirely deserted; whole villages lay in ruins, as beams, doors, etc., had been extracted for sale; some suburbs of Srinagar were tenantless, and the city itself was half-destroyed; trade came almost to a standstill, and consequently employment was difficult to obtain.

The test of this great calamity showed bare the glaring defects of the system the present dynasty had taken over from their uncultured predecessors, and which in their thirty years’ possession of the valley they had not been able to eradicate.

During the five years which remained of the late Maharaja's reign the first steps were taken to remedy this terrible state of affairs; the assessment of the land revenue was revised, and the cart-road into the valley was commenced. But it has been