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KASHMIR THE LAND OF STREAMS & SOLITUDES
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tor land of streams nd solitudes::
KASHMIR THE LAND OF STREAMS & SOLITUDES
KASHMIR THE LAND OF STREAMS
:
:
BY
and solitudes
P.
PIRIE
WITH
25
:
:
PLATES IN
COLOUR AND UPWARDS OF 100 BLACK AND WHITE ILLUSTRATIONS «#• mu?
,
II
Mes
en/ants,
Suivi de
dans
ce village,
rois, il passa
:
Voila bien longtemps de (a.
the
ON
first
— B£ranger.
four marches out of
Bhimber you "
desire earnestly, like Falstaff, to be
gentlemen of the shade, minions of But shade is mostly absent, especially for
foresters
the moon." the
first
Diana's
;
few miles, and marching by moonlight
is
some-
A
sun which begins to be fierce almost from the moment it rises a rocky road without times impracticable.
;
shade or beauty, reflecting the heat and glare hillsides black and bare, rising in smooth, round ridges like iron ;
pontoons, and a steady climb over them for five shadeless, 129
KASHMIR
13°
gasping miles; then a descent through a valley, green and cultivated, and pretty enough, but almost equally hot :
that
is
The
the history of the
next day
is
first
much
—
march.
The
better.
bare hills give
place to low, pine-covered spurs, and, in the valley, one
follows the course of a
little
river,
with quantities of
A SHADY BIT
pink oleander growing along that the
Emperor Jehangir wrote
was perhaps here / marched the whole
It
it.
" :
way through
the bed of a river, in which water
then flowing,
and
and of exquisite
my
was
the oleander bushes were in full bloom
colour, like peach blossoms.
.
.
.
I ordered
personal attendants, both horse and foot, to bind
bunches of the flowers in their turbans,
and I
directed
THE ROAD OF THE EMPERORS that the turbans of those selves in this
who would
131
not decorate them-
fashion should be taken off their heads.
I thus got up a
fine garden."
This Emperor was a great lover of Nature, and had
His court may
besides a highly artistic temperament.
have found
on
it
rather trying sometimes
their sacrificing themselves
occasion
but
;
it
itre belle as
on
this
was not then the age of tolerance any-
In Europe they
where.
pour
he often insisted
if
still
burned heretics
at this time.
In his diaries of his journeys to Kabul and Kashmir, in the
midst of accounts of wars and rebellions, he never
forgets to notice specially fine
Nain Sukh Sultan
in
any new flower he comes
group of
trees,
across, or a
or perhaps a river, like the
Badakshan, which, he says, the redoubtable
Mahmoud
of Ghazni
named
"
the eyes repose!'
In the school histories of one's youth the Emperor
Jehangir
is
passed over somewhat hurriedly, and one only
gathers the impression that he
whom
the sort of person of
is
the less one hears the better.
But
his
own memoirs
paint a very interesting and original character.
He
seems
proud consciousness of his own merits which rather disfigures the great Akbar. The calculating to be without that
selfishness
of
Shah Jehan and
Aurangzebe are not his failings. that he never makes any attempt G
the
cruel
It is
bigotry of
rather striking
to conceal the
amount
KASHMIR
132
of wine he drank
many effect
times a day it
;
it
you the exact measure, how was brought to him, and what a bad
he
tells
had on his health
and he
;
is
naively grateful to
—
—
Empress Nur Jehan the Light of the World for persuading him gradually to reduce his allowance till it the
more moderate number of cups a day. Perhaps it was excess of temperament, an unpardon-
came
to a
able fault in a king, that led to his downfall.
had been born poor and
in Italy,
If
he would probably have
been a shining light of the great cinque cento. From other sources one learns that he had qualities as a general
and a
only he
many great
ruler, especially in his
before his fatal vice had developed.
youth,
In the annals of
Akbar's time, by Ferishta and others, one constantly finds that
whenever there was trouble or
Akbar's empire,
"
Prince Selim
was always sent for to settle did it, and successfully.
He was
it,
"
revolt in
any part of
—as he was then
called
—
and Prince Selim usually
also the keenest of sportsmen.
None
of the
other emperors seems to have had such a passion for
shikar as this one, and the Pir Panjal in his day must
have abounded
in
game
of
all sorts.
It is
only compara-
twenty years, that ibex and markhor and barasingh have been practically exterminated
tively recently, within the last
in the Pir Panjal range.
THE ROAD OF THE EMPERORS At
the end of this
march one comes
133
to Naoshera,
a small and pretty village in a bend of the River Tavi.
There
is
here a very fine
preservation
Moghul
than the one
crooked village
street,
serai, in
The
Bhimber.
at
much
better
narrow,
paved with cobble-stone, climbing
past the buttressed walls and deep archways of the old serai,
one would say Vitre' or the domed mosque on the other
has a very mediaeval air
Le Mans, were
it
not for
;
side of the road, and the passers-by in the picturesque
Punjabi dress.
On
the next march there are lovely glimpses of the
distant snows of the Pir Panjal,
The way,
ahead. first
if
now
you walk by the
marches
five
only
coolie-road,
is
at
a very rough short cut, through a curious jungle of
cactus
;
it
grows so thick that neither wind nor sun
reaches you as you climb the stony, steep the top of the spur.
After this come
little
little
track to
lanes edged
with flowering pomegranates and white wild roses; a river that begins to have the transparent emerald colour
the verve and dash of a mountain-stream there are pine-woods with,
shrub something
grow
in erect
like
among them,
an American
clusters,
;
a
and, later on, tall,
locust-tree.
lovely, vivid
and
flowering Its flowers
splashes of trans-
parent yellow against the blurred background of the pines.
This march takes you to a place which every one pro-
KASHMIR
134
nounces
differently.
The
old historians write
but the modern pronunciation sounds like
The view from
here
is
lovely.
The
it
Tinguescq,
"
Chingiz." river runs far
below, white with foam in the silver-grey of
bed
on either
;
side, closing in its valley, are
its
pebbly
dark wooded
A PLACE TO DREAM OF
hills
;
and, at the far end, the snows of the Pir Panjal.
The bungalow, cliff
above the
which
is
and
small, river,
but
and breezy,
cool, it
is
is
on a high
the ruined Serai near
by
entirely fascinating.
Here, as the last colours of sunset faded from the sky,
and the snows turned tain
wind
to ashen grey,
fluttered the
gay
silks
and the
chill
moun-
and muslins of the poor
THE ROAD OF THE EMPERORS
i35
shivering ladies of the Empress' suite, they brought the
body of the Emperor Jehangir. should die here, the
down, one sees the
It
was
fitting that
he
camp from which, on the way snows of Kashmir this Emperor, last
;
who, when he was dying, and they asked him if he wanted anything, turned his face to the wall, away from the wearisome sight of
all
those people, time-serving,
grasping and ignoble, insincere and self-interested among whom he must have known that it was im-
cruel, all,
possible for an emperor to find a real friend, turned to close his eyes
and dream of the
he loved, as he answered
I
"
fair,
wild places that
Only Kashmir." N
away
yv'H'Tl
"Illll//-
-iwrtlfl,
**
,
III
Better also
is the
sight of the eyes than the walking of the soul.
— The Preacher.
should leave Chingiz in the cool of dawn,
ONE
before the
moon
has effaced
itself in
brightening sky, while the stars
and
brilliant
before the
still
the slowly linger big
over the sharply pointed peaks of snow, and
first
ray of sunlight
lies
red on the western
gate of the Serai.
For
it is
a hot road to Rajaori and a long one, in spite 137
KASHMIR
138
of the smoothness of the way, with
white wild roses, past fields,
barley
marches. forded
fragrant border of
villages,
and through
paths of the last
a river which has to be
river,
you reach your camping-ground.
before
some one was
on a
is
hill
of the jungle
instead
Rajaori
little
its
inspired to
make a bridge over
it,
Once but he
apparently got discouraged after building one very massive stone pier,
people
and
still
stands there, while the town
wade backwards and forwards
The
done. river
which
is
current
is
very strong, especially
swollen by the melting
also after storms,
as they have always
and the
snow on
river
crossed for two days at a time,
gaudy wedding procession
down
the
the Pir Panjal,
sometimes cannot be
when
all
to a roving
crossed over to graze on the other side,
water goes
when
is
traffic,
from a
cow which has held
up
till
the
again.
The bungalow is a curious little place, "partly Saracenic and the rest ad libitum" made up of a little arched veranda overhanging the river, and four little cells of rooms joined on at the four corners. Through the scalloped arches you look out on one side on the river and the town opposite
on the other
through the vinelike leaves of a small chinar-tree, is a little world of green and shade, an orchard of cherry and peach trees, and It is a their reflections in a tank facing the bungalow. ;
side,
THE BUNGALOW AT RAJAORI
THE ROAD OF THE EMPERORS neglected remnant of an old best part
is
Moghul garden,
outside the bungalow enclosure
under which there
trees
of which the :
a grove of
room
is
fine,
shady
They
are the only trees for miles around,
141
to camp.
and so
all
the
neighbourhood are obliged to live here the morning and at sunset there is a pastoral
birds of the early in
;
symphony, which entirely eclipses the roar of the river, and it would need an orchestra of several hundred violins to
compete with Rajaori
is
it
successfully.
a town of walled forts and turrets and
arched gateways at the end of a promontory between two streams, the larger of which
is
the Tavi.
Rajas of Rajaori
kingdom from the seventh century to the beginning of the nineteenth, when the last was deruled
this
posed by the ruler of
town
Jummu.
A
strong
little
Rajput
up to the line of snow, with, at its feet, the rushing mountain stream. In the old days, before modern war was invented, it must is in
it
its
pretty valley, looking
have been an impregnable position, only to be taken by treachery. Many and bloody were its feuds in those days.
Now the
fort,
still.
prefer
and
it is
profoundly peaceful.
On
Dhanni Dhar, the empty shell of a strong symbol of its last struggle, is even more peace-
above
hill
Sikh ful
are forgotten,
all
it
Its garrison is a solitary sepoy,
who seems
to
masquerading as a peaceful ploughman, though
KASHMIR
142
his
ploughshare shows no
even on the closest
trace,
examination, of ever having been anything so alarming as a sword.
From
Thana Mandi,
here to
the next stage,
it is still
easy marching along level roads following the curve of
DHANNI DHAR
the river, through
more
fields
and
villages.
Just before
the end of the march you have a short climb to the Serai, in front of
which blooms purple
iris,
whose fragrance and
you that at last you are nearing Kashmir. There are two villages, one called Thana and the
rich colour tell
other Mandi, with about half a mile of hillside between
them.
Of
the old
the only one
still
Moghul
inhabited.
serais this It is
one here
is
almost
the winter residence of
THE ROAD OF THE EMPERORS a colony of blacksmiths, who, in summer,
move up
143
to
Poshiana just below the Pass, where they shoe the baggage-ponies which cross during the season.
At Thana Mandi
there
is
always a mythical bear in
seems to prefer to remain, as one never hears of any one getting it. There is also
the offing, where, however,
it
A KASHMIRI TRAVELLER
who was once with General Kinloch and celebrated sportsmen. The passing traveller
an old shikari several other is
now
hand
his only distraction, for he is
is
disabled
—a sahib's bullet that went
The march from Thana real hill
march.
an old
The
air
man and one astray.
Bahramgalla is at last a blows keen from the snows you to
are approaching as you cross the Rattan Pir, a ridge about
KASHMIR
M4
eight thousand feet high, the steps
—
for so far the road has
you cross the mountain
first
of the two high, abrupt
been
fairly level
This
—by which
an easy three-mile climb, up grassy slopes to the ridge, from which there is a fine snow view of Tuta Kuti, the Crystal Mountain, as barrier.
is
OLD LALLA
the local legends call pass,
where the snow
From
it,
and the slopes
still
the top of the ridge
to Bahramgalla, through
reaches far it is
fir
to the west of the
down
into the forest.
a lovely, shaded walk forests
where wild
down
violets
grow, and white peonies are beginning to show themselves,
and the chestnuts are
Bahramgalla
is
in
bloom.
a wild and lonely
little
gorge.
The
THE ROAD OF THE EMPERORS river raves
one
in
and foams
far below,
and
all
145
round, shutting
very close, are the grandeur and silence and peace
of the
hills.
It
is
This
a place of waterfalls.
little
rocky gorge opens into another most lovely one, longer but almost as narrow, its sides covered with forest and threaded by streaks of
where the water hurls
silver,
over rocky ledges or through green
But the most beautiful of
flowers.
arched with
clefts all
itself
the
is
—
first,
the
one nearest Bahramgalla, the Nur-i-Chamb the Marvel of the World. Black and frowning are the rocky walls that frame like
it,
an iron prison
thing that flings
itself
for the white, ethereal, spirit-
from so
far a
height into so
deep a pool below.
Bahramgalla is also a place of storms which the echoes make a long, continuous
;
thunder, roar, wild
tempests of wind and rain which mean fresh snow on the
pantsal (mountain) above. It
is,
the inhabitants say, a
somewhat sukkut
place.
In Kashmir you learn the elastic capacity of this word. It
means
all
that the English
cult" mean, and
roads and sukkut
much more
words
besides.
"
hard
"
and
"
diffi-
There are sukkut
sukkut seasons and sukkut people. Lumbardars may be sukkut and even sahibs, when they threaten to shoot people who disobey them. I have also heard
of
hills,
one sukkut memsahib ;
this
adjective
was
KASHMIR
146
applied to her because she travelled far into the
unknown,
beyond Changchenmo, doing the long marches of twenty miles and more on foot, and with ease. They said she
was French and a was unable
With
princess, but anything
more
definite
I
to discover.
a vocabulary consisting of sukkut, nimmel, and
changa, you
may go
Nimmel
Kashmir.
far in
is
what
you call the radiant days of deep blue skies and purple shadows on the hills, of fresh breezes and a comprehensive and satisfying delightfulness. Changa is nice, the most
nice
possible,
and
it
also
is
used
to
signify
as the French say Men, or the schoolboy says
assent,
righto.
The lumbardar
To
begin with, his
of Bahramgalla
name
is
is
rather a personage.
Shah Jehan, and he
is
also
somewhat of "a mountain of mummy," though not He has read history, it seems, and he unpleasantly so. is
also very
trotter, "
without any other reason for going.
None '
said,
work.
proud of having visited Kashmir en globe-
could understand
What work I
came
it,"
tells
brings you here
to see, like the
Bahramgalla
he
?'
Angrez
"
you.
and
They '
I
said,
in winter is exceedingly
Seventeen yards of snow
No
sahibs.'"
sukkut accord-
ing to him. "
all
last winter,"
he says.
THE ROAD OF THE EMPERORS I
to add,
"
Not
It is true
were
my
suppose
feelings
all at
show
in
my
face, for
147
he hastens
once."
the traveller's
little
rest-house looks as
built for difficult weather, for
a shape and quality
it is
most
if it
and of
solid,
to resist the severest storms.
belongs to the Raja of Poonch,
who
It
hospitably places
it
at the disposal of the passing traveller.
On
march you pass the place where the
the next
Emperor Jehangir died.
It is
side goes
a very steep place indeed. several
up
day before he The cliff on one
fired his last shot, the
hundred
feet sheer
from the
river,
and on the opposite side is a little flat place, where they say he was carried to. The game was driven on the the opposite side he fired at a deer and wounded it ;
;
animal went a
little
beaters went after falling to the
it,
way and
This march
this as
One
dead.
of the
missed his footing, and was
bottom of the
Emperor took
fell
terrible
killed,
It is said
cliff.
an omen, foretelling his
own
the
death.
up the gorge of waterfalls, like'a Highland glen on a somewhat larger scale. It is a short march is
but a steep climb, especially
While you
are
still
you go by the
coolie-road.
on the pony-road beside the
have constantly to cross
and twigs, kept
if
in place
little
bridges
by stones
looking like very untidy hawks' nests. H
made
laid
river
you
of branches
on] them, and
One
feels
a slight
KASHMIR
148
hesitation at
some of them
;
but to see them rocking but
Later on there
under the passers-by is reassuring. are snow-bridges, a welcome change. safe
You camp
[Tat
Poshiana, after which comes the real ascent to the pass.
The Poshiana "season" does till
rather
late
in
the year
;
not begin apparently
perhaps with Ostend,
it
WHEN THE BRIDGES ARE DOWN
is
at
May
early
summer which "
height in July.
its
it
is
visitors
it is
This
At any
rate,
in
April
and
and the empty huts of the are a welcome shelter from a wind in deserted,
impossible to pitch a tent. is
the
wind of the Pass" say
the coolies with
you turn a corner and are nearly taken off your Poshiana is an eerie little place, feet by a chilling blast. with an end-of-the-world air about it a little group of pride, as
—
huts built into the hillside on the edge of a precipice.
The
below you. You have climbed past the edge of them and all round you are bare, friendly,
sheltering forests
are
THE ROAD OF THE EMPERORS grassy, or stony slopes.
It is
149
very cold and the huts have
very dark interiors, with an atmosphere vaguely reminiscent of flocks
many
generations of
and herds.
But a
fire
summer
visitors
and tea and,
a lamp are cheering, and, after
all,
in
and
their
due course,
there are not
many
POSHIANA
hours to be spent here, for the coolies are very firm about starting early next morning,
and
it
needs
all
one's powers
of persuasion to arrive at a compromise of four o'clock for the start.
They seem
soon after midnight as possible the proper time, but this appears to us as unnecessary as
it
to think as
would be uncomfortable.
After a few hours of dark and cold in the hut one
is
KASHMIR
i5o
very glad to get up and start by the light of a
and round and near that
moon
so
seems to be standing at your door, half of which was accidentally burned in the large
kitchen
fire last
night.
a long climb up to the top of the " Pir."
It is
one does not morning. toiled
it
feel
And
it
up a steep
Also
tremendously energetic at four in the is rather aggravating when you have ascent, which,
to
your sleepy brain, seems to have lasted untold hours, to find you have to go
down
to the level of a stream further than
you have come
—
up and then begin your climb all over again the real ascent this time. At this place and hour one cannot help feeling that a little modern engineering would be worth a good deal of historic
The
past.
"
"
open and still under snow, does not present any insurmountable difficulties even to the amateur in climbing, and the Alpine clubbist Pir Panjal, though not yet
would probably disdain
it
altogether.
The only
real
and long, and some people might be affected by the height which is about eleven thousand five hundred feet and find a little
difficulty is fatigue, for the ascent is steep
—
—
difficulty in breathing.
In one place there
perhaps, five hundred feet or a
little
is
a climb
of,
more, up a rather
perpendicular snow-drift, where your coolies look like little
black ants crawling up a whitewashed wall, but with
THE ROAD OF THE EMPERORS
151
grass shoes this has no terrors, though you have to go
Near the top you cross
very slowly.
several snow-slopes,
where there are stones slipping down from above with an exceedingly high velocity, and here you have to follow the example, to watch your chance and run across, so
coolies'
snowy abyss below a you somewhat collapsed and
as to avoid being hurled into the
proceeding which leaves breathless, for
it
comes
at the
climb of three thousand It is
;
end of an excessively steep
feet.
hard to believe there
some one points
is
anything very dangerous
below and says, " Down there a man and three ponies were buried by an avalanche a few weeks ago." And this is why you have about
to get
it,
till
up so early
to the drift
in the
morning, that you may get to the top before the sun has had time to melt the snow on these steep slopes
But
down.
enough
to
make them ready
to slip
your weather, and height does not affect your breathing, the radiance of sun and sky and snow and the quality of the air up here make if
you are fortunate
in
tragedy seem impossible, one of those "old, unhappy, far-off "
which do not belong to your world at all, this world of wonderful air and a white winding plain, which things
snow
and the top of even a minor pass seems the only place worth living in. But there is not much time for loitering, for the snow is
the Pass, bordered by hills of
;
KASHMIR
152
gets
more
difficult to
their usual
morbid
brilliant of days,
walk on
later,
and the
fear of storms,
coolies,
with
even on the most
have hurried on to get out of the pass as
quickly as possible, and your tents are far ahead.
&&*?
—A
THE PIR PANJAL
MINOR PASS
After three miles of an almost
level,
snowy
plain
come
wet and spongy from the newly melted snow, and gay with tiny flowers no higher than the turf, patches of pure and brilliant colour, the richest purple-
grassy slopes
still
blue to match the sky, bright rose-pink and pale mauve,
THE ROAD OF THE EMPERORS
153
most dainty of carpets, with a delicate, aromatic fragrance which seems to belong to grass and flowers
the
alike at this height.
At
the end of this gently sloping plain
Serai, a deserted ruin,
Aliabad
is
emphasising the loneliness of the
WAITING FOR ORDERS
place where
it
stands.
this time of year, as
storms, and there
is
it is
It is
impossible to
camp
here at
too unsheltered from winds and
no firewood
near.
After the Serai,
the road descends in long zigzags along bare slopes with
tremendous
cliffs
going down to the
Once upon a time there Golam. He was a cannibal
—and he lived
river.
lived here a Giant called Lai
—
in a cave just
like all giants in those
above the road.
days
You had
KASHMIR
i54 to be very careful in
going past his cave indeed, the wonder is that any one ever got past at all, for his favourite amusement was to throw the largest rocks he ;
could find at the passing traveller, and
wounded
when he had
him up to his larder in the cave. Perhaps the giant was not a marksman, or, and I think this is more likely, there may have been in or killed him, he took
those days a good fairy at the very top of the Pir,
who
would show you how to get past him if you asked her nicely, and if you were the sort of person the fairies take
What happened
to.
knows,
or, if
not to
tell.
see
it
Giant afterwards no one
the
any one does know, he must have promised Anyway, the cave is empty, and you can
but the
;
to
new
road, very wisely, goes above
in case of accidents, for with giants
it,
you can never be
too careful.
After
many
miles of winding
down along
a narrow,
slippery path, which looks like a thread laid along the
middle of vast bare
hillsides, the
a place called Doobjee.
you
will
Serai
—
But,
if
proper
you
camp
bank of the
—
Moghul lady on the left and somewhat off the road, to which
they say, by a river,
own way, called Sukh
prefer your
choose instead a most lovely spot
built,
will be at
you return afterwards by a rather sukkut short cut along a cliff overhanging the river, where even the sure-footed
JZ
If!
o < PL,
< B
THE ROAD OF THE EMPERORS coolies crawl
Sukh
on hands and knees.
157
Serai is a
little
green glade of the forest, shut in by dark fir trees, with a background of snow. The river, whose tiny beginning
you saw far up on the Pass, is here too deep and strong to be forded, a resistless rush of green and silver breaking in
snowy foam over the rocks
From
here you may,
the valley next day.
It
if
is,
in its way.
you
like,
march down towards
at this time of year,
and on such
a day, a march of dream-like beauty. There are clouds, not dark nor heavy, but only just enough to show you in rapidly changing
moments how
lovely
a grey day can be;
there is sunlight of every varying degree of brilliance
down
to the soft, silvery tones beloved of
which would be the despair of a painter, moments are alike, and all are exquisite.
And
before
you
is
A day
Corot
—a haze of
the valley
for
no two
delicate,
misty
blues and greens, ending in the abrupt walls of the Lidar
and Wardwan
But there
is
valleys, still white
no need
to look forward to
Promise on the horizon, for
whose charm
is
any Land of
round you is a country much more powerful than the too ordered
and serene beauty of the slopes, is
with the winter snow.
all
valley.
Here, on the mountain
an enchanted land of forests of
fir
and
silver
and maple, of green stretches of moorland dappled with all the flowers of an English spring, including birch
KASHMIR
158
the golden gorse of Scotland
—the
"whins" whose
faint,
sweet scent makes a shy apology for their excessive prickliness in
bloom.
—besides And
apple and pear and cherry trees
after the flowers are gone, there will
all
still
remain the true Kashmir, the land of mountain streams, of forests and snow, of solitudes lonely, of
too exquisite to be
Nature untroubled by human meddling.
slip I, till
Kill/
,,»(/ < Q a X H
O Q Z w w a H
THE RETURN late
clear,
autumn
;
while,
185
dividing the seasons, came
the massed clouds and mist and pealing thunder of the rains.
Karima
along the road at the bottom of was going back to his own village. He
toiled slowly
the valley.
He
had walked
all
burning with
day
— how long ago
Sahib had sent to
— to
all
days,
and he was
help the
village he alone
it
seemed!
— the Maharaja
the villages in the valley for
They were
for the begar.
Cheen
many weary
fever.
In the spring
it
for
to
go
Angrez
to Tibet in
— Karima
They had met
had gone.
at
called
From
the war.
men his
Islamabad,
the starting-point for their long journey, two hundred and fifty
men from
down
the tahsil.
to the plains
There had been the march
and then a
day, beginning with the
tale of fresh
wonders every
railway and ending with the
building of the bridge across the great river in far Tibet,
where the guns of the Angrez had to cross. Then the fever had taken him, so that the sahibs had sent him back. There had been many days in the the hills, he was walking home.
train,
and now, through
would not have seemed long forty miles a day, unladen, would have been nothing to him, starting in the star-lit dawn and walking till night If
he had been well
overtook him.
it
But with
;
this fever, this endless
aching in
KASHMIR
186
had grown more toilsome than the count of the days he had been upon the
his bones, each step last,
and he
lost
way. But now,
yearned
for,
at last, the end, so
by every
long looked forward
fibre of his
to,
so
weary frame, by every
throb of his home-sick heart, was near.
How
often in
those interminable marches, over the high desolate plains of Tibet, those unending stretches of barrenness and solitude, a fierce
sun by day and a biting cold
at night,
he
COOLIE TRANSPORT
had thought of and beauty.
As
this valley
—
its
rich verdure,
its
bloom
grew on him the idea of it had possessed him more and more and he had walked silent, uncomthe fever
;
plaining, seemingly stupid intelligences
who used
and brutish
to the superior
him, while his brain steeped
itself
home, and his unseeing eyes, heedless of what surrounded him, had been turned always to this in
memories of
beloved valley.
his
So he had walked,
ground, in a long line of laden cally the footsteps of the
man
his eyes glued to the
coolies, following
before him.
mechani-
Now
all
that
THE RETURN
187
and he was going home. How cool the waters of the little mountain streams he crossed were to his
was
over,
burning the road
feet
— the
had taken
He
!
did not go by the
little
sahibs might use them
off putties
if
stream he crossed he sat down where its
He
they liked.
and chuplies and slung them, with
his thick puttoo coat, over his shoulder.
a great rock in
log-bridges on
way.
The
it
Beside the
dashed
itself
last
over
muffled roar of the water
soothed him, and he watched the hurrying, sparkling drops of spray hurl themselves into the deep pool below,
a bewildering multitude. all
those shining drops
;
They had come a long way too, this nala how well he knew its
—
course through the shadow of the that
fir
trees
—came
snowy peak closing the eastern end of the
from
valley.
He
had been there only last season with the sahib, who shot the ibex and the bear. How the water hurried His !
tired eyes
watched
it
till
they closed and he slept beside
the stream, in the flickering
he woke
shadow of the willows.
When
was afternoon, and, on the vivid green of the sloping meadows, there were long, blue shadows from pine and walnut and apple trees.
He
it
rose to his
on.
The road
sun.
He dragged
feet,
aching
in
every limb, and wandered
climbed through the grassy pasture-land, was bare and treeless, hot in the afternoon here, as
it
himself along, feeling strangely inclined
KASHMIR
188
weeping from sheer weakness,
to burst into hysterical
move
while his legs seemed to
automatically, as
if
they
The road might have been one
did not belong to him.
the dreary roads of Tibet for
all
absorbed was he in the mere
of
he cared or heeded, so
effort of getting
on
;
till
a grateful sense of cool and shade roused him to notice
where he was. The path was climbing through the silvery grey of little willow trees and a tangled hedge of wild
He was
flowers beside a tiny stream.
very near
home
now, and his dulled eyes noted each well-remembered turn of the road. Those maize-fields to the left were
Wahaba's, and a
no famine
this
was
over.
floods
winter fodder
;
looked
fine crop they
—even
They had
he could
see,
there
would be
Srinagar the time for
in
year
;
already begun to collect the
above the
heads of the
tall
maize, great bundles of grass in the forked branches of the pollarded willows drying in the sun.
He was
nearly spent now, the pain in his back
growing
intolerable.
careful of
how he
at last,
with
He
he must be increasingly
felt
raised each foot
was Wahaba's house, the
its
was
and put
first
it
house
down. Here,
in the village,
hedge of woven willow branches, looking some-
thing like coarse basket-work.
Then
the road
passed
through the camping-ground where the sahibs stayed
were going to shoot
in
Maru
or Kishtwar.
who
Next came
THE RETURN
189
a bridge, and, to the right, two great walnut trees, the finest in all the valley except those at
shadow stood the red-brown
logs.
little
He
Nowboog
ziarat (shrine) with
had not
the fields of sdg with their
its
;
in their
walls of
go now. Here were wooden palings, which marked far to
the centre of the village, and opposite, across the stream,
was the lumbardar's house.
To-morrow he would go
& -I."
A CAMPING-GROUND
there
for
;
to-morrow he would be
reach his father's house
warm
!
well.
He would
If only lie
down on
blankets in that long upper room, with
windows
level
with the
watch the road and see
floor,
he could
its
soft, little
so that as you lay you could
who went
by.
Perhaps she would
pass, Dzunia, the lumbardar's youngest daughter.
He
looked again with longing towards the house across the
Was
stream.
K
it
not for her that he had gone on the
KASHMIR
190
long begar to distant Cheen, so that he might have
enough "double" rupees to satisfy her win Dzunia? To-day he would be content see
her
be well
pass
;
—ah
to-morrow
!
father if
and
he could
to-morrow he would
!
WINTER FODDER
In his father's house they would give him
tea,
the
good Kashmiri tea, hot and thick, in a little pale green bowl, and he would lie in great content and watch all the pleasant,
well-known
life
around him
in the ray of late sunlight that
would
;
his lie
mother
sitting
across the floor
from the westernmost window, spinning the grey wool
"THE LUMBARDAR" (The headman of a
village
is
called the
Lumbardat)
THE RETURN
193
into puttoo for winter wear, while his eldest brother's wife
ground the kunak (wheat) into flour, and his little sisters went and came with laugh and chatter, fetching water or for the
washing the sdg
evening meal, or playing with his
brother's baby.
Only a few steps further. On the right of the road was the bunnia's shop, looking like a toy house of wood, very clean and new, with
carved lattices and deeply
its
There were several men
sloping roof.
sitting
narrow veranda behind the low, carved
knew them
all
He
railing.
they greeted him and asked
;
answered vaguely and
in
the
He
him many
at
random, hardly hearing their words, so possessed was he with the desire of reaching his father's house. They shook their heads
questions.
as he passed on. "
he will not
The end trees
made a
his father's
"
It is fever,"
;
live."
at last
!
On
the
natural gateway,
left
of the road two apple
and a
little
path led through
maize-fields to his home, a typical village
dwelling of Kashmir.
summer
they said to each other
The
family were
quarters, the long upper
in
still
room with
its
their
walls of
rough logs with many spaces for light and air. He heard the drone of the spinning-wheel, and some one was singThen, from a window, he was seen, and they all ing. poured
out,
running down to welcome him.
Somehow
KASHMIR
194
he climbed the steep outside
stair,
he could never remem-
ber how, then he fainted.
When
he awoke to
lying by the
window
full
consciousness again he was
of his dreams.
ing outside, just below the window. voices
;
Some one was
talk-
There were several
one was foreign, talking broken Hindustani with
A VILLAGE HOME
a curious accent
must be a
sahib,
That
and using many strange words. for it was thus the sahibs talked.
a voice translated
into
Kashmiri.
"
He
will
Then
live,"
it
said.
Who
would
live ?
thought might die? sobbing.
he wondered.
Who
was
There was the sound of a
it
they
woman
Again came the stumbling words, the foreign
accent, and, after
it,
the shikari translating
:
HIS SISTER
THE RETURN "The weep.
wakes.
sahib says to
Give him of
tell
this
you he will live. Do not dewai (medicine) when he
Afterwards give him
If the fever returns give
197
this,
so
much every
him the white dewai,
day.
here, in
these papers."
THE INTERPRETER
What
could
it all
be about
downstairs to find out.
on
his blankets.
?
He
tried to rise, to
But, to his surprise, he
He must
fell
have been even more
go
back tired
than he had thought. Presently some of them
opened his eyes.
How
came back
strangely
weak
upstairs.
his
own
He voice
KASHMIR
198
sounded as he asked,
It is to thee,
"
by him.
sit
What
is
this
To whom
?
does the
"
sahib give dewai ? "
"
my
It
is
son," said his old father,
to
coming
as the sahib said," he continued,
seeing with joy that his son was awake and restored to
"Thou
consciousness.
God
of
wilt soon be well.
came
this sahib
to Deuss,
three days that he could not
immediately.
The
well,
is
my
since "
lie
;
I
came
" ?
"
question.
Now
But thou
art
How many days
is
•
matters one day or two days
?
But
I
will not
to-day the fourth day." the medicine his mother brought
him, and lay back content.
With
Kishtwar to shoot
to
over and he goes to-morrow.
Then Karima drank had said
for
son."
What it is
fell
showing great kindness, cared
sahib,
Karima had one more it
and such rain
days and gave thee his medicine.
for thee all these
the rain
go on
the will
By
He would
get well, the sahib
so.
the curious childlikeness in
many
things of the
hill-men of Kashmir, he had implicit faith in the powers of the sahibs.
His own
belief in his recovery
no doubt
helped greatly the medicine given him by the Doctor Sahib,
who had been weather-bound below
had found absorbing occupation
the pass, and
for the long, dreary
hours
THE RETURN in
199
nursing his patient through a bad spell of
Karima's
fine constitution, too,
had played
its
fever.
part,
and
though still very weak, he could venture down the steps, and very slowly, with many halts, along in a fortnight,
the road. It
was evening,
all
his people
were out
in the fields,
*
'**('
FOOTSORE
or gossiping in the village (basket)
of
fruit
camping here
much
for
;
his brother
had taken a dali
and vegetables to a sahib who was the night, and would doubtless give him
bakshish.
Lying by his window he had seen Dzunia pass. She was hurrying along as she always did a slim slip ;
of
a
girl,
in
a
ragged garment of coarse puttoo, a
KASHMIR
2oo
folded white cloth on her head above a
little
cap, a head-
dress with something of the air of that once
worn by the
Roman
She had glanced up
peasantry.
moment and he had
for a
since he
came back, the
at his
seen again, for the
face for
house
first
time
which he had gone to
distant Cheen. It
was a somewhat
Her
brown
eyes.
many
small braids,
wistful face, with great, shy, light-
was
hair, too, all
caught
brown, braided in
light
at
together
the
ends,
reaching below her waist, and finished off with a large tassel of black wool, according to the decree of fashion in
these parts. curls,
cap.
All round her forehead,
light-brown
blown by the wind, escaped from under her little Her skin was very fair, and showed a delicate colour
in her cheeks.
mouth.
There was a rebellious
Dzunia was going
fields, to sit in
a quaint
to keep
little
keep a look out for other not come to relieve her at least three
in her father's
and dried
away the birds and Her brother would
late in the evening,
hours of lonely
by running home presently was dull work. it
about the pretty
erection of straw
pilferers.
till
air
watch
branches, like a huge nest, to scare
had
soft,
vigil.
for a
and she
She would break
bowl of
tea,
but
it
Besides, only last evening, and not later than eight o'clock, a black bear
had come and eaten much before he
S3
J
< a
THE RETURN was driven away.
It
was easy
afraid, like girls, to drive
she did not like
might come
it
at
all,
for
203
men, who were not
away black bears but and who could tell ? ;
—
for her,
—the bear
earlier to-day.
Karima had heard of the black bear
;
he knew,
too,
^40F^fftn^,
dzunia's
that
window
Dzunia always had the afternoon watch, with the
few minutes' break when she hurried home for
tea.
If
he walked up the road towards the Sinthan Nar he might
meet her coming back. Then he could tell her that soon she would not need to watch any more in the maize-fields.
So he went up
the road.
KASHMIR
2o 4 It
was a golden evening,
after a perfect
September
day the sky a dome of turquoise, unflecked by any cloud. There was a faintly aromatic scent in the air from the ;
hedgerows where grew many a flowering weed of autumn, and from the feathery grasses nodding in the wind. Here
and there
tall
sprays of larkspur
so deeply exquisitely blue.
lifted their delicate
In the
heads,
meadows below
road the creamy flowers of the scabious, with their
the
faint,
sweet scent, stood like pale stars amid the deeper yellow of the wild asters. The plumed heads of the maize were a lovely shade of pink, the colour which the afterglow of sunset would soon paint on the grey crags above the lofty eastern boundary of the nullah.
In the road lay a
done by the bear off into
come
A
;
this
was
He
last night.
He
cold
sat
down on a
stone by the roadside
wind blew down the gorge from the high
powdered with newly fallen drew his warm blanket closer round him.
peaks shutting
snow.
of stripped cobs
Near by the path branched the lumbardar's fields. By this Dzunia would
presently.
to wait.
little pile
it in,
lightly
There, to his right, was the
Mar Thar
Nala.
How
often
he had longed to see that range of towering summits, sharply pointed and rugged, fairy-like pinnacles of
from early
in the winter to late in June.
Now
snow
the evening
was laying deep shadows of sapphire and amethyst along
THE RETURN their lower slopes, while their crests
205
were golden
in the
setting sun.
Ah own
!
it
hills.
was good
And
was Dzunia.
to be in his
there,
own
country,
among
his
on the path, coming towards him,
=
5 "=
"'JlMlii,,
J'""""""".,,
w
IN
CHAMBA
town of Chamba
THE
state of
Chamba
is
scenery
the capital of the hill-
situated to the north-east of
the Panjab, between
The
is
it,
Kashmir, and Ladakh.
wild and beautiful, there
is
good shoot-
ing to be had, and the kindness and courtesy of the
Raja of Chamba to those who travel well
known
in the north.
above 18,000
feet in this
in his
country are
There are several peaks rising State, and it is bordered to the
north and east by the huge peaks of the districts of Pangyi 209
KASHMIR
2io
and Lahoul, which are over 20,000
feet
and make a back-
for the nearer snows.
ground
The
history of this State
is
very interesting, and
is
well authenticated from the time of the great Sahilla-
Varman who one of
its
Chamba
greatest chiefs,
The
word.
ruled
early in the tenth century
whose name
present town of
is still
;
a household
Chamba was founded by him,
who accompanied him on some of expeditions, and he made it the capital of the
to please his daughter,
his warlike
After a career of conquest which extended from
State.
the hill-states of the Sutlej to the fierce Tartar invaders
of the north beyond Kabul, after building his
new
capital
and many great temples, he abdicated in favour of his son, and ended his life as an ascetic among the hills beloved of his childhood, the sterner beauty of his early capital,
same
Brahmaur.
For about fourteen centuries the
race has ruled in
family
still
Chamba, a branch of the Rajput
reigning at Oodeypur in Meywar, the oldest
of the Rajput dynasties of India.
During
all
these cen-
wanting an heir of the royal race to succeed to the throne and to rule, on the whole, turies there has never been
good of his people. Anarchy has therefore been unknown and invasion practically so. for the
The town than 3000
of
feet,
Chamba
itself is in
a valley not higher
bordered on one side by snow-capped
IN
CHAMBA
211
mountains nearly as high as Mont Blanc.
The
the town
polo ground.
Round
is
a large,
flat,
open space
this runs a road bordered
nicely built bazaar
;
—the
centre of
by a very neat and
climbing up the hillside behind the