The Vale of Kashmir is too well known to require description. It is
the 'happy hunting-ground' of the Anglo-Indian sportsman and tourist,
the resort of artists and invalids, the home of pashm shawls and
exquisitely embroidered fabrics, and the land of Lalla Rookh. Its
inhabitants, chiefly Moslems, infamously governed by Hindus, are a
feeble race, attracting little interest, valuable to travellers as
'coolies' or porters, and repulsive to them from the mingled cunning
and obsequiousness which have been fostered by ages of oppression.
But even for them there is the dawn of hope, for the Church
Missionary Society has a strong medical and educational mission at
the capital, a hospital and dispensary under the charge of a lady
M.D. have been opened for women, and a capable and upright
'settlement officer,' lent by the Indian Government, is investigating
the iniquitous land arrangements with a view to a just settlement.
I left the Panjab railroad system at Rawul Pindi, bought my camp
equipage, and travelled through the grand ravines which lead to
Kashmir or the Jhelum Valley by hill-cart, on horseback, and by
house-boat, reaching Srinagar at the end of April, when the velvet
lawns were at their greenest, and the foliage was at its freshest,
and the deodar-skirted mountains which enclose this fairest gem of
the Himalayas still wore their winter mantle of unsullied snow.
Making Srinagar my headquarters, I spent two months in travelling in
Kashmir, half the time in a native house-boat on the Jhelum and Pohru
rivers, and the other half on horseback, camping wherever the scenery
was most attractive.
By the middle of June mosquitos were rampant, the grass was tawny, a
brown dust haze hung over the valley, the camp-fires of a multitude
glared through the hot nights and misty moonlight of the Munshibagh,
English tents dotted the landscape, there was no mountain, valley, or
plateau, however remote, free from the clatter of English voices and
the trained servility of Hindu servants, and even Sonamarg, at an
altitude of 8,000 feet and rough of access, had capitulated to lawn-
tennis. To a traveller this Anglo-Indian hubbub was intolerable, and
I left Srinagar and many kind friends on June 20 for the uplifted
plateaux of Lesser Tibet. My party consisted of myself, a thoroughly
competent servant and passable interpreter, Hassan Khan, a Panjabi; a
seis, of whom the less that is said the better; and Mando, a Kashmiri
lad, a common coolie, who, under Hassan Khan's training, developed
into an efficient travelling servant, and later into a smart
khitmatgar.
Gyalpo, my horse, must not be forgotten - indeed, he cannot be, for he
left the marks of his heels or teeth on every one. He was a
beautiful creature, Badakshani bred, of Arab blood, a silver-grey, as
light as a greyhound and as strong as a cart-horse. He was higher in
the scale of intellect than any horse of my acquaintance. His
cleverness at times suggested reasoning power, and his
mischievousness a sense of humour. He walked five miles an hour,
jumped like a deer, climbed like a yak, was strong and steady in
perilous fords, tireless, hardy, hungry, frolicked along ledges of
precipices and over crevassed glaciers, was absolutely fearless, and
his slender legs and the use he made of them were the marvel of all.
He was an enigma to the end. He was quite untamable, rejected all
dainties with indignation, swung his heels into people's faces when
they went near him, ran at them with his teeth, seized unwary
passers-by by their kamar bands, and shook them as a dog shakes a
rat, would let no one go near him but Mando, for whom he formed at
first sight a most singular attachment, but kicked and struck with
his forefeet, his eyes all the time dancing with fun, so that one
could never decide whether his ceaseless pranks were play or vice.
He was always tethered in front of my tent with a rope twenty feet
long, which left him practically free; he was as good as a watchdog,
and his antics and enigmatical savagery were the life and terror of
the camp. I was never weary of watching him, the curves of his form
were so exquisite, his movements so lithe and rapid, his small head
and restless little ears so full of life and expression, the
variations in his manner so frequent, one moment savagely attacking
some unwary stranger with a scream of rage, the next laying his
lovely head against Mando's cheek with a soft cooing sound and a
childlike gentleness. When he was attacking anybody or frolicking,
his movements and beauty can only be described by a phrase of the
Apostle James, 'the grace of the fashion of it.' Colonel Durand, of
Gilgit celebrity, to whom I am indebted for many other kindnesses,
gave him to me in exchange for a cowardly, heavy Yarkand horse, and
had previously vainly tried to tame him. His wild eyes were like
those of a seagull. He had no kinship with humanity.
In addition, I had as escort an Afghan or Pathan, a soldier of the
Maharajah's irregular force of foreign mercenaries, who had been sent
to meet me when I entered Kashmir. This man, Usman Shah, was a stage
ruffian in appearance. He wore a turban of prodigious height
ornamented with poppies or birds' feathers, loved fantastic colours
and ceaseless change of raiment, walked in front of me carrying a big
sword over his shoulder, plundered and beat the people, terrified the
women, and was eventually recognised at Leh as a murderer, and as
great a ruffian in reality as he was in appearance. An attendant of
this kind is a mistake. The brutality and rapacity he exercises
naturally make the people cowardly or surly, and disinclined to trust
a traveller so accompanied.
Finally, I had a Cabul tent, 7 ft.
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