GIFT OF
HORACE Wo CARPENTER
KASHMIR AND KASHGHAR
PRINTED BY BALLANTYNE AND COMPANY EDINBURGH AND LONDON
KASHMIE AND KASHGHAE
A NAEEATIYE
OF
THE JOUENEY OF THE EMBASSY TO KASHGHAE IN 1873-74.
BY
H. W. BELLEW, C.S.I.
SURGEON-MAJOR, BENGAL STAFF CORPS,
Author of " Journal of a Mission to Kandahar in 1857-58?
" Grammar and Dictionary of the Pukkhto Language"
" From the Indus to the Tigris" S*c.
LONDON: TRUBNER & CO., LUDGATE HILL.
1875. [All rights reserved.]
CONTENTS.
INTRODUCTION.
PAGE
Steppe Country — Agricultural Settlements — Natural Productions — Prevalent Diseases — Climatic Influence — Ancient Inhabitants — Early Conquest by China — Conversion to Islam — Invasion by Mughol — Campaigns of Tymur — The Mughol Khans — Expedi- tion into Tibat — The Khoja Usurpation — Tungani Rebellion — AtalikGhazi ....... 1
CHAPTER I.
Preparation for the March — Halt at Murree — Departure from Murree — The Nara or " Cord " Rope Bridge — Manner of Using It — An Incident of Camp Life — The Jhfola or " Swing Bridge " — Valley of the Jhelam River — The " Costum " of the Ancients — Ruins of Ancient Temples — The Kaddal Bridge . . .33
CHAPTER II.
Visit from Diwan Badri Nath — River View of Srinaggar — Character of the Architecture— Scenes on the River Banks — Floating Gardens of the Dall.— The Death of " Jingo "—Visit to the Maharaja- Banquet in the Ranbir Bagh — The Kashmir Bayadere — A Review of the Kashmir Garrison — Departure from Srinaggar Delayed — Story of a Pilgrim . . . . . . .57
CHAPTER III.
Visit to a Silk Filature — The Maharaja visits the Envoy — March away from Srinaggar — The Valley of the Sind River — Mountain Scenery at Sona Marg— Pass from Kashmir to Tibat— Crossing of the Zojila Pass — Winter Quarters in Kashmir — Change of Climate and Scene — The Bhot Gpgly — Abandoned Gold Diggings — Polo at Kargil — Dress of the Bhot Peasant — Buddhist Religious Buildings— Deserted Village . . . . .83
A oo a ,*
vi CONTENTS.
CHAPTER IV.
r PAGE
The Lammas of Lammayuru — Life in a Lammasary — Buddhism and Polyandry — Reception by Bhot Villagers — Avalanche of Stones— The Raven and Rock Martin— Stalk a Herd of Gazelles— Bhotmo Toilette— Arrive at Leh— Warm Clothing for the Passes — A Day at Hemis Gonpa — Interior of Buddhist Temple — Decayed State of Buddhism — Mughol Invaders of Tibat — A Day after Wild Sheep 113
CHAPTER V.
Ascent of Khardong Pass— March in a Fall of Snow— The Nubra Valley— Hot Springs at Panamik— The Carawal Dawan— A lucky Shot— The Glaciers of Saser— Instinct of the Yak— The Kumdan Glaciers— Effects of rarefied atmosphere— Camp at Daulut Beg Uldi— The Effects of Dam— History of Sa'id Khan— His Escape to Kabul— Shares Kashghar with his Brother— The Caracoram pass_The Kanjud Robbers— Frozen Snipe on the Willow Pass —Meet our Yarkand Allies . . . . -144
CHAPTER VI.
Visit to the Shrine — Departure from Shahidulla — Route down the Caracash Valley— The Shrine of Ababakar— Revolt of the Kirghiz
Career of Sayyid Ali — Recovers Government of Kashghar
—Anarchy follows his Death— Ababakar usurps the Govern- ment_Character of Ababakar— Approach to Sanju Pass— Rough Ground and Obstructions— A Block on the Pass— Sudden Snow- storm—Fall of an Avalanche— Benighted in the Snow— Arrival at Sanju. .... • 183
CHAPTER VIL
Reception and Dasturkhwan— Character of the Country— The Mir of Sanju— Receipt of the Atalik's Letter— Character of Rustic Life— Our Rest House at Karghalik— Frequency of Goitre— A Novel Military Salute— Entry into Yarkand— Reception in the City— Visit to the Dadkhwah— His Reception of the Envoy — Turkish Bath in the City— Afghans in Kashghar . . .219
CONTENTS. vii
CHAPTER VIII.
PAGE
History of Yarkand City — Political Factions of the Country — Time of the Chinese Rule — The Tungani Rebellion — Interior of the City — Variety of its Inhabitants — Interior of a Restaurant — Mar- ket-day and Week-day — A Round of the Shops — Cradle Life of Tatar Babies — Russian Covers and English Interiors — The Iron- monger's Shop — Institutions of the City — Relics of Chinese Occu- pation— The Andijan Caravansary — The City Magistrate on Tour — Decline of Prosperity ...... 249
CHAPTER IX.
Departure from Yarkand — The Atalik's Life Guards — Arrival at Yangi Hissar — Approach to Kashghar — Reception by Atalik Ghazi — The Ceremony of His Court — Features of the Atalik — His Character — Our Residency at Kashghar — Appreciation of the Telegraph — Ruins of Ancient Kashghar — Building of the Pre- sent City — Its Mixed Population — Exercise of Chinese Troops — Fate of the Chinese Garrisons — Chinese Converts to Islam — Dress of the Andijan Soldier ..... 285
CHAPTER X.
The Shrine of Hazrat Afac — Account of the Khojas — Revival of Islam — Working of Miracles — Dinner with Haji Tora — Party at the Residency— The Shrine of " Lady Mary "—Legend Connected Therewith — Reception at Artosh — History of Satoc Baghra Khan — His Conversion to Islam— Death of Satoc — Sport with the Hunting Eagle— A Day after Wild Boar— On the Skirts of the Tianshan— Camp Amongst the Kirghiz— Bash Sughun— Islam and the Chinese Rule . . 320
CHAPTER XL
Visit to the Heir Apparent— Tolerant Character of the Natives — De- parture from Kashghar — Departure of the Wakhan Party — Sud- den Change of Season— A Monastery in the Desert— The Sands of the Desert— Cities Buried under Sand— Shrine of Ordain Padshah — History of 'Ali Arslan Khan — His Death and Burial — Sudden Change of Seasons — Benefits of our Stay at Kashghar — Opium Smokers — Experiences of a Panjabi Trader — Prospects of Trade . . 356
viii CONTENTS.
CHAPTER XII.
PAGE
Departure from Yarkand— The Kokyar Route— " The White Mosque" — March up the River Tiznaf — The Pakhpu Highlanders — Peri- odical Floods — Passage of Yangi Dawan — Mountains Spread into Plateaux— View from the Top of the World— Difficult Bit of Road— Return to Civilisation — Reception at Leh — Reflections and Comparisons — Funeral of Dr Stoliczka . . . 388
PREFACE.
THE region lying immediately beyond the northern frontier of our Indian Empire and comprehensively designated Chinese Tartary, has during the last quarter of a century, from time to time, attracted the attention of Europe, owing to the steady extension of the Eussian dominion upon its northern borders. This attention, at no time very fixed upon the mind of the public, received a fresh impetus by the events and issues of that remark- able revolution which in 1862-63 severed the connec- tion of this region from the rest of the Chinese Empire, and in the following years led to the conquest of its southern portion by a successful adventurer from an adjoining principality.
It has now for us acquired a special interest, no less by reason of the intercourse which, in the efforts to develop a trade in that direction, has sprung up between us in India and the ruler of this newly-constituted state of Central Asia, than by that of the peculiar relations in which he stands to his Russian neighbour. And the questions naturally arise — What is the new principality of Kashghar ? And who is its founder Atalik Ghazi ?
It is not my purpose in these pages to enter on the theme of Central Asian politics, nor to attempt an in- vestigation of the causes which have conduced to the
6
vi PREFACE.
successful establishment of a new Muhammadan state on the ruins of the Chinese rule in this part of the Asiatic Continent ; nor yet to inquire into the motives for the revival of a decayed Islam in this extreme limit of the Musalman polity of Central Asia. Neither is it any part of my purpose in these pages to discuss the merits, or question the wisdom of one line -of policy over an- other, in respect to the relations we are by force of neighbourhood involved In with the several states of Central Asia.
These subjects have each and all of them a special interest, but of a nature much too important to be cursorily treated in the course of a popular narrative of travel in the region of their development. It will suffice, for the information of the general reader, simply in this place to review in brief terms some of the principal events which have combined to draw us into friendly relations with the successful usurper, whom fortune has drawn from the obscurity of his own home of discord and dismemberment to figure in the light of a conqueror, and with a fame which has been noised over the world more by the force of fortuitous circumstances, than through any individual merits of his own.
That great Muhammadan revival which, during the past sixteen or eighteen years, has disturbed the peace of the Chinese Empire to the extent of seriously threatening the stability of its ancient regime, and which from time to time has been brought to the notice of the western world under the different names of Tayping rebellion (by some considered a Christian movement), Panthay insurrection, and Tungani revolution, according to the several peoples promoting it in the different parts of the Empire, though resulting in various issues in the several provinces, was of uniform character so far as concerned
PREFACE. vii
the persistent efforts of the rebels to subvert the consti- tuted government in favour of their own advancement to the supreme control of affairs. Or, in other words, to supplant on the soil of China the state religion of Budha by the majesty of Islam — the doctrine of Muhammad.
In this place it concerns us only to trace very briefly the progress and consequences of that widespread move- ment in the westernmost frontier province of the Empire — the province which has been made familiar to Europeans under the name of Eastern or Chinese Tur- kistan — and to describe the origin of our intercourse and relations with the present ruler of that portion of the region comprised in the territory of Kashghar.
Chinese Tartary under the imperial government com- prised the two main divisions of Zunghar, or Mugholistan, and Kashghar, or Eastern Turkistan, on the north and south respectively of the intersecting range of the Tian Shan or "Celestial Mountains." It constituted the pro- vincial government of Ila, which was administered by a viceroy whose seat was at the capital, called Ghulja or Kuldja.
The northern division was called by the Chinese Tian Shan Peh Lu, or "The way north of the Celestial Mountains," and the southern division was similarly called Tian Shan Nan Lu, or "The way south of the Celestial Mountains."
The first of these has lapsed in great part from China to Russia, and the former viceregal capital of Ila is now a Russian garrison town, linked by telegraph to St Petersburg ; whilst the most important part of Zunghar is now an integral portion of the Russian dominion in Asia, the boundary of which in this direction marches directly with that of Kashghar, and is, in fact, immedi- ately in contact with its people through the nomad
x PREFACE.
in the western towns by the Khoja family of Khocand, had raised it to a pitch of prosperity and wealth such as it had not known since the decline of the Chaghtay rule in the fourteenth century, now found themselves without a recognised leader, and with no definite plan of opera- tion, nor any acknowledged object of attainment.
In this state of aimless confusion their chiefs fell to quarrelling amongst themselves, and being men who had always occupied a subordinate position, and who were without the talents requisite for command and organisation, they very soon succumbed to the ambition of more able heads and stronger minds.
First and foremost amongst these last was the chief of a numerous family of Muhammadan divines, which had for several centuries been settled at Kucha as the hereditary custodians of a very sacred shrine in the city suburbs, dedicated to the perpetuation of the memory of some early martyr to the cause of the faith in these distant lands, who had been canonised for his services in the propagation of Islam.
This family of priests had, from the sacred nature of their calling, and the influential position by common consent accorded to them in society, acquired a con- siderable control over the minds of the people through the agency of their spiritual offices ; and, though amply provided for in respect to temporal requirements by very liberal grants of rent free lands, they did not neglect such opportunities as the circumstances of their position offered to increase the stock of their worldly possessions pari passu with that of their spiritual control; and at the time of this revolution they were, in point of wealth and influence, the foremost of the Chinese subjects resi- dents of Kucha, independently of the rank they held in society as Khojas. The term Khoja, it may be here*.
PREFACE'. ;xi
noted, means' ".gentleman," and is applied as a title to I wealthy merchants and divines of a certain recognised \ position, much in the same manner as we employ the terms " esquire" and "reverend." .
The head of this Kucha family was one Eashuddin or Eashiduddin. He took the leading part in the control of affairs immediately after the overthrow of the Chinese authority, and appointing the different members of his family to the several local governments, now deprived of their proper officials, very speedily secured the Tun- gani — a scattered flock of sheep without a shepherd — as his easy tools for the establishment of an independent Khoja kingdom under his own sovereign control as king.
So sudden was the overthrow of the Chinese rule, and so indifferent were the people as to their successors in the government, that Eashuddin, in the course of a few short months, and without any serious opposition, was acknow- ledged king ; and as such received the zakat and 'ushar from all the country between Yarkand and Turfan, the several district governments of which were held by a host of his sons, nephews, and other relations ; though not everywhere with that concord of action and unison of sentiment which is necessary for successful admini- stration.
But whilst Eashuddin in the north was consolidating his authority over the states that had acknowledged his rule, the states of Khutan on the south and Kashghar on the west had already passed into the possession of two other adventurers, whom the circumstances of the time: and locality had brought to the front as leaders, and set at the head of affairs in their respective places.
These were the Mufti Habibulla, an aged priest of Khutan, who had recently returned from a pilgrimage to
xii PREFACE.
Mecca with enlarged ideas of the world beyond the limited horizon of his own secluded home, and Sadie Beg, a barbarous nomad, the freebooter chief of the Kirghiz of Kashghar.
The country was divided between these three self- constituted rulers, when, in the first days of 1865, Khoja Buzurg Khan, the lineal descendant of the Khoja Afac, issuing from his retreat in Khocand, crossed the Tarik Dawan passes to essay the recovery of the throne of his ancestors. At the time he set out on this expedition he was in the camp of the Khocand ruler, 'Alim Culi, who had usurped the government from Khudayar, the rightful Khan, and was at this juncture at the head of his troops and partisans opposing the Eussian advance against Tashkand. The Capchac leader, little reckoning the power of his mighty foe, encouraged the enterprise of the Khoja in the hope of reasserting the Khocand influ- ence in the western states of Kashghar, and dismissed him with best wishes for his success.
'Alim Culi, under the circumstances pressing, could not spare any of his troops for service with the Khoja, but appointed one of his trusty lieutenants and firm ad- herents to accompany Buzurg Khan as military com- mandant of such troops as he might raise at Khocand ; whither the two repaired from Tashkand, in November 1864, to complete the arrangements for their enterprise against Kashghar.
Buzurg Khan set out from Khocand towards the close of the year with a following of only sixty-six men under the command of Ya'cub Beg, Baturlashi, or " Leader of the Braves " (the lieutenant lent by 'Alim Culi), an Uzbak of Piskat near Tashkand, who had successively held the rank of Coslibegi or "Lord of a shire" under the governments of Mallah Khan, Khudayar Khan, and
PREFACE. xiii
'Alim Culi in Khocand. On arrival at Khashghar the Khoja was welcomed by the people as a deliverer — for they were reduced to the extremity of despair under the oppression of the hungry Sadie, and the violent excesses of his lawless Kirghiz — and he was forthwith established in the palace as king. His first act was to appoint his Baturbashi to the restoration of order in the city, and the organisation of an army from amongst the Khocand and Afghan residents found within it.
It is unnecessary here to follow in detail the career of this remarkable character, nor that of his master, the Khoja Buzurg Khan. An account of his life, compiled from such information as I was able to collect during our stay in the country, has been submitted to govern- ment with my " Historical Sketch of Kashghar, and General Description of the Country." Suffice it to say that the latter, true to the character of his fraternity, on the realisation of so readily conceded a throne, at once made over the conduct of affairs to his general, and himself straightway launched out into a course of unre- strained debauchery^and licentiousness; whilst the other — his Baturbashi — prompted by the instincts of his ambitious nature, and fortified by the experience acquired during the vicissitudes of a quarter of a century of usur- pations, discords, strifes, and contentions which had been the lot of his life in his own country, took advan- tage of the opportunity to seize the government for himself, and gradually to extend his authority over the whole country as the " champion of Islam," under the religious title of " Atalik Ghazi" — a career in which he was favoured by the circumstances of the time ; namely, the weakness of the Pekin government on the one side, and the occupation of the Eussians on the other.
It was about this period — the arrival of the Khocand*
xiv PREFACE.
or Andijan party, in' the country — tliat news of the' revolution in Kashghar came dribbling across the passes into India with the caravans of the petty traders of Yarkand and Khutan. For these men now flocked over into Kashmir in greater numbers than before, as those of Kashghar, Acsu, and the other northern cities of the territory resorted to the Russian markets in that direc- tion, to procure the commodities of which they had been deprived so suddenly by the abrupt severance of their communications with China.
The appearance of these foreign traders in the Pan- jab, and their glowing account of the requirements of their country, now cut off from its natural source of supplies by the overthrow of the government of which they had heretofore been the subjects, soon secured for them the interest and support of some commercial friends on the line of their route, with the view of creating a trade with the countries on the north of the Himalaya.
As a result of the representations made on this sub- ject, the government in 1866 established the Palampur fair, with a very liberal outlay, to encourage the develop- ment of trade with Central Asia by the route through Little Tibat. The Yarkand traders appear to have appreciated its advantages, and their professions of good- will and gratitude for the cordial reception accorded them were by some viewed in a hopeful light as sure prognostics of the early development of a really profit- able trade with a region supposed to be of vast extent, and represented as teeming with a population of scores of millions of people who wanted tea, and cottons, and many other stuffs which they could not now procure through the usual channels of supply; and for which they were dependent upon us, if we would but exert ourselves to meet their wants, and reap, by way of reward for
PREFACE. xv
our trouble, clear profits of from fifty to seventy-five per cent., as were already realised by the petty traders —Sikh and Afghan — from the Panjab on the small ventures carried over the passes by them.
For on this route, unlike those through the territories of our western neighbours of Balochistan and Afghanis- tan, there were no claimants of blackmail, whose fellows > robbed and murdered you even after paying the demands of the hungry crew ; but there were risks of another kind. The trader by this route had more to dread from the dangers and difficulties of the country than from the attacks of banditti or the depredations of tax-collectors ; and the loss of a few fingers or toes from frost-bite, with the death of a greater or less number of cattle from the toils of the journey and the inhospitable nature of the region and climate, were the worst of the hazards he had to provide against.
Stimulated, however, by the tempting prospects of so handsome a profit, and encouraged by the free access afforded to the new market, some native traders essayed the journey, and returned satisfied with the success of their operations. In 1868, following this, the trade received a fresh impetus by the journey of an enterpris- ing tea-planter who, emerging from the seclusion of his little plantation in Kangra, took a selected assortment of goods to Yarkand.
Mr E. B. Shaw has given to the world a most in- teresting account of his journey to and experiences in the country, and has pourtrayed the peculiar character- istics of the people — so different from those of India — with a singular fidelity; but he has hardly done justice to the natural obstacles of the country, nor clearly pointed out the impracticable difficulties of the passes as a trade route at any time. And whilst laying stress
xvi PREFACE.
on the very natural anxiety of- Atalik Ghazi (whose family had become Eussian subjects, and whose native country had "for ever" passed within the territories of the Russian Empire, even before he had estab- lished himself in the position he had usurped from the master he was sent to serve; whilst his troops were either Russian subjects, or those of the Khan restored by that Power to his throne in Khocand) for an alliance with, and recognition by the British Govern- ment, he has enlarged on the grand prospects of a commercial intercourse with the country whose markets had been already, in the time of the Chinese rule, stocked by Russian merchants. And he has betrayed, by the com- placent endurance of the rigid restrictions of the close imprisonment imposed upon him during the six months of his stay in the country, an amount of enthusiasm for the cause of his adoption which may serve to explain in some measure the omission to note certain facts as to the population and resources of the country, and the pe- culiar conditions of its political existence, which under more favourable circumstances must have prominently arrested the attention of the traveller.
Mr Shaw and Mr Hayward, the latter of whom ven- tured to explore the country in the cause of geographical science, entered the country together from the south at the very time that Captain Rein thai and some Russian merchants, escorted by a party of Cossacs, entered it from the north. They were detained in their progress to the court of Atalik Ghazi till the Russian officer had concluded the business he had been sent to negotiate, and were then conducted to Kashghar as Mr Shaw has described in his well-known book.
Messrs Shaw and Hayward were not the first Euro- peans who in recent years have penetrated to Kashghar
PREFACE. xvii
from our side of the passes. The interest of the British public in the countries of Tartary was first revived in recent times by the enterprise of that learned scientific traveller, Adolphe Schlagentweit, who, in 1857, pene- trated to Kashghar and, arriving there during the revolt raised by the rebel Khoja Wali Khan, fell an unfor- tunate victim of that bloodthirsty tyrant's madness.
In 1865 Mr W. K. Johnson, of the Great Trigono- metrical Survey, whilst working on the frontier of the territory of the Maharaja of Kashmir, descended the Tibat highlands to the northward, and in September — October of that year visited Khutan as the guest of its new king, Habibulla Padshah, at the time that Atalik Ghazi was yet the Coshbegi Ya'cub Beg in command of the troops of the Khoja Buzurg Khan installed as king at Kashghar, and was on his behalf contesting the possession of Yarkand against the party holding it for Eashuddin of Kucha. Following Mr Shaw's return to India in 1869, came Mirza Shadi, as envoy (the capacity in which he had the year before proceeded to the Kussian capital) from Atalik Ghazi to the Viceroy. He returned in 1870 with Mr Forsyth's mission, of which Dr Geo. Henderson and Mr Shaw were the other members. Dr Henderson has given us an account of this journey, of the difficul- ties they encountered on the road, and the disasters that befell their baggage. Yet notwithstanding these hin- drances he has, much to his credit, with the able aid of his co-author Mr Hume, and other coadjutors, enhanced the interest of his work by a valuable illustration of the ornithology and botany of the regions the party traversed. But he has besides — and this is what interests us here — introduced us to Cazi Ya'cub Khan, the future envoy with whom I shall hope to make my readers better acquainted in the following narrative as Haji Tora.
xviii PREFACE.
The return of Mr Forsyte's party to India after a very brief stay at Yarkand, was followed by the arrival of Ahrar Khan, Tora, as envoy from Atalik Ghazi to the Viceroy; and the reception at Kashghar of the Eussian embassy under Baron Kaulbars for the negotiation of a commercial treaty. A few months after the departure of the Eussians, satisfied with the adjustment of their business, Ahrar Khan returned to Kashghar from his mission to India, and immediately, in November 1872, our friend Sayyid Ya'cub Khan — the Cazi of Dr Hen- derson's narrative — was despatched as the envoy of Atalik Ghazi to the Viceroy of India and the Sultan of Turkey. And this brings us to the despatch of the British Embassy to Kashghar in 1873-74.
With the works of Mr Shaw and Dr Henderson already before the public, it may be considered a presumption on my part to obtrude with a further account of a country already so fully described by them; but being convinced of the importance to us of the latest and freest information regarding the countries beyond our Indian possessions in that direction, the more especially on account of the mag- nitude of the interests involved by the character of the policy — whatever it may be — which our statesmen may adopt towards the yet independent states of Central Asia, I venture to hope that even the smallest item added to the stock of knowledge already made public concerning the state of society and civilisation, the his- tory and resources — natural and industrial — of these states, and especially of the new addition to their num- ber by the establishment of the independent Khanate of Kashghar, may not be unacceptable ; particularly since the affairs of those distant and inaccessible regions, at this time more than ever, claim an unusual interest as much amongst .the Continental nations of Europe as
PREFACE. xix
amongst our insular public, and our Indian subjects who are so close to the theatre of their progress.
"With this intent therefore — eschewing the discussion of politics as being beyond the purpose before me, and avoiding a repetition of what has been already told by my predecessors on this field of travel — I venture to offer a plain account of the journey and experiences of the embassy to Kashghar in 1873-74, with such matters of interest regarding the people and the country as our opportunities enabled us to obtain.
Finally, in committing my book to the notice of the public, I have only to add that, it has been put together at odd hours in the midst of a holiday after three years of continuous hard work of a varied and onerous nature, and under circumstances depriving me of reference to records and authorities.
H. W. B.
ALGIERS, 28th March 1875.
KASHMIR AND KASHGHAR.
INTRODUCTION.
BEFORE taking the reader across the passes, a brief intro- ductory notice of the country beyond them will in this place, for convenience' sake, be advisable in order to avoid digression from the narrative of the journey. We will, therefore, proceed in brief words to remind the reader of the geographical position and physical charac- teristics of that region, and set before him a short notice of its peoples, and the principal events of their past history.
The territory of the Khanate of Kashghar which, in the time of the Arab conquest, was known as Kichik Bukhara or " Little Bukhara," and in that of the Chagh- tay rulers as Mugholistan or " Mughol-land," has been in modern times made familiar to European readers under the names of Eastern or Chinese Turkistan or " Turk-land." It comprehends the basin of the Tarim river in all its extent, and runs east and west between the parallel ranges of the Tianshan and Kuenlun moun- tains on the north and south respectively. On the west it is separated from the corresponding basin of the Oxus — the Khanate of Bukhara — by the range of the Bolor moun- tains and Pamir steppes, which, extending north and south, connect the other two mountain barriers. And on
A
KASHGHAR.
the east, beyond Turfan on the north and Chachan on the south, it is limited by the Great Desert of Gobi.
Within these boundaries the country presents a vast undulating plain of which the slope is very gradual towards the east, and of which the general elevation may be reckoned at from three to four thousand feet above the sea. The aspect of its surface is mostly one of unmi- tigated waste — a vast spread of bare sand and glaring salts, traversed in all directions by dunes and banks of gravel, with the scantiest vegetation, and all but absence of animal life. Such is the view that meets the eye and joins the horizon everywhere on the plain immediately beyond the river courses and the settlements planted on their banks.
The mountain ranges bounding three sides of the territory are amongst the loftiest in the world, and their highest recesses are filled by glacier masses of greater or less magnitude. These last, on the north and south, are the feeders of the principal rivers of the country ; and in the summer season cause their swelled streams to over- flow the low banks of the sandy channels in which they run. The rivers all issue from these mountain barriers at intervals on the three sides of the enclosed area, and, following a more or less easterly course, converge towards the mid plain. And at different spots on its surface they coalesce to form the Tarim river, which becomes lost in a wide stretch of swamps and lagoons known by the name of Lob, and described as covering an area of from three to four months' journey in circuit. Little is known of this vast tract more than that it is the nest of a wild race of outcast people who shun the society of their fellow- men, and contest the shelter of the forests and reed belts with their more natural denizens — the wild hog, panther, tiger, and wolf. Beyond the lagoons is an unexplored
STEPPE COUNTRY. 3
waste of blindingly bright salts, untraversable to all but the wild camel, which, in its solitudes and freedom, breeds and lives and dies a stranger to the toils and slavery of his domesticated brother.
Owing to the nature of the country, and the sterility of its soil, the population is massed at isolated intervals bordering the mountain skirts along the banks of the several rivers where they issue upon the plain. They thus form separate settlements or states, separated each from the other by a greater or less expanse of blank desert, which is composed mostly of sand and gravel, with a varying proportion of salines.
Cut off from each other as their several settlements thus are, they form within themselves, for the purposes of support, government, and defence, independent little societies, which are confederated within the general area of the country into one or more leagues or factions, according as the political interests of the several com- munities are influenced by the vicissitudes of the times, and the disturbing effects of changing dynasties. Each of these separate states or settlements has a central fortified capital, around which spread the suburbs, and beyond these again the rural districts and townships, according to the facilities for irrigation and cultivation.
There are altogether thirteen such isolated settlements within the Kashghar territory, exclusive of the highland district of Wakhan and Sarighcul — the Sarikol of the maps — whose Aryan population are of a different stock and language to the Turk and Tartar of the rest of the territory ; and they contain the whole of the settled population of the country. Of these, Yarkand is by far the largest and most populous settlement. It was the seat of government under the Chinese who, for revenue purposes, reckoned its population at 32,000 houses, of
4 KASHMIR AND KASHGHAR.
which about a fourth were allotted to the city and suburbs.
Under the present regime these settlements may be considered as reduced to seven provincial governments, each administered by a Dadkhwah, or "magistrate," who is under the direct orders of the Khan alone. • They are, in the order of their succession from the south round to the north and east, Khutan including Chachan, Yarkand, Kashghar with Yangi Hissar and Maralbashi, Acsu and Uch Turfan, Kucha, Kurla, Ca- rashahar including Lob, and Turfan or Kuhna Turfan, " Old Turfan," as it is called, to distinguish it from the little agricultural settlement of the same name adjoin- ing Acsu.
In general appearance these settlements wear a look of great prosperity and plenty. They are veritable oases in a dreary and arid desert, and produce within their seve- ral areas all the requisites for the independent support, so far as food and clothing are concerned, of their normal populations ; but they are incapable of sustaining the strain of a largely increased demand.
Cultivation is entirely dependent on the water supply. And this, owing to the small calibre of the rivers, is limited in extent. What there is, however, is utilised to the best advantage, and spread over the cultivated tracts in numerous canals and irrigation cuts, whether fed from the rivers or from springs.
The rural population is settled along the courses of these streams in detached farmsteads, usually composed of a cluster of three or four tenements together, which are surrounded by their own fields, vineyards, ,orchards and plantations. These farmsteads radiate from the city suburbs in all directions quite to the verge of the culti- vated tracts, where they end on the edge of the desert ;
AGRICULTURAL SETTLEMENTS. 5
and in some localities they form an unbroken spread of trees, fields, and houses that stretch for a distance of from ten to fifteen miles along the course of the larger canals.
To the traveller approaching from the desert, in the spring season, the first appearance of one of these settle- ments conveys the idea of dense population and profuse abundance ; but on entering within the charming area the reality soon discloses itself to his observation. He finds that the mass of tall foliage, so attractive by reason of its refreshing verdure, is very largely that of unpro- ductive trees — except of fuel, timber, and shade — such as the willow, poplar, and elm ; whilst the other most common trees, such as the mulberry, walnut, and ekeagnus, are not so valuable a source of food — however useful in other respects — as trfe less obtrusive and more carefully tended apple, apricot, plum, and vine. He will find that the houses of the people are widely and sparsely scattered, and dot the surface at such intervals that scarcely fifty are within the range of sight all round, at a radius of from one to two miles. Between them, he will note that the patches of field and garden produce wheat, barley, maize, and rice, cotton, flax, and hemp, as well as tobacco, melons, lucerne, and pulse, and all the vegetables of an English kitchen garden.
The list is long, but the out-turn is not in proportion ; for he will learn, on inquiry, that vegetation in this region only flourishes between April and October, and that the produce of six months has to feed the people for twelve, and that without the aid of external supplies. These circumstances, coupled with the extent and nature of the several settlements, perforce limit the population capable of being supported in each, and reduce the numbers very far below the figures heretofore received as representing the inhabitants of this territory.
6 KASHMIR AND KASHGHAR.
During our stay in the country I made careful inquiry on this subject, and have come to the conclusion that the population of the territory of Kashghar, as before defined, including the nomade Kirghiz subjects of the Khan, and the hill tribes of Muztagh and Sarighcul, taken all together, is considerably less than a million and a half of souls. In fact, the whole region is as waste and uninhabited as it looks upon the map.
It is not, however, devoid of some natural productions of great value, and contains within itself a store of mineral treasures which might be made a source of very considerable wealth. It was the knowledge of this fact that induced the Chinese to cling so perseveringly to this distant and expensive frontier province of their empire. Under their rule the gold mines and jade quarries of Khutan, the copper mines of Khalistan, and the silver and lead mines of Cosharab, gave employment and support to thousands of families of Chinese emigrants and Tartar colonists. The coal of Acsu and Kuhna Turfan was, in their time, the common fuel of every household in those parts of the territory. The iron of Kizili furnished them a supply for the manufacture of domestic utensils ; whilst the sulphur of Kalpin and the alum, sal ammoniac, and zinc of the volcanic region north of Acsu — the Khan Khura Tagh — afforded the materials for the prosecution of several industrial pursuits, and supplied the wants of the dyers, and tanners, and other such native industries.
The animal productions of the country were mostly obtained through the huntsmen of Lob, who bartered stags' horns, swans' down, otter skins, and other furs, including tiger and panther skins, for corn, cottons, tea, and cutlery. The wool of Turfan and the musk of Khutan were exported to Kashmir, the one for the manufacture of its peculiar shawls, the other for the drug
NATURAL PRODUCTIONS. 7
market of India. The sheep, horses, oxen, and camels met the wants of home use and consumption, and were bartered by the Kirghiz for silks, cottons, tea, and cutlery. The wild camel of the Lob desert, the tiger of the Maralbashi forests, and the mardl, or " stag," of the same locality, the wild hog of the reed belts bordering the rivers, the gazelle of the desert, and the antelope of the mountains, the wild horse and wild sheep (ovis Poli) of the lower hills, and the wild yak- or cutds (bos grun- niens) of the snowy ranges were objects of the chase to the hunter in their several vicinities ; whilst, similarly, the pheasant, partridge, and hare, with the sand grouse and wild duck on the plains, and the snow pheasant and francolin on the hills, afforded sport to the falconer and sportsman in those localities.
The silk and cotton — fibre and fabric — of Khutan and Turfan found markets in Khocand and the adjoining provinces of China respectively ; whilst the hemp resin, or bang, of Yarkand formed .the principal item of export in the direction of Kashmir and the Panjab. For the rest, the carpets and felts of Khutan, the boots and furs of Yarkand, and the saddlery and harness gear of Acsu, were exchanged between the several states of the terri- tory for the more special of their productions, such as the cows and mules of Khutan, the walnuts and dried fruits of Yarkand, the linseed of Kashghar, the tobacco of Acsu, and sheep of Turfan, &c.
Such in main are the geographical features of the territory, and such the principal of its productions. Its climate is equally peculiar and varied. Its chief charac- teristics are the extremes of temperature in midsummer and midwinter, the general aridity of the atmosphere and rarity of rainfall, and the periodical winds and sand-storms that sweep its surface. Their intensity and
8 KASHMIR AND KASHGHAR.
duration varies in different parts of the country, and their nature is further modified by the operation of local causes.
Thus, the temperature, which in the western districts falls to 26° Fah. below zero during winter, and rises in the sun's rays to 150° Fah. during summer, is described as of more equable and temperate character in those on the eastern borders of the country, where, as in Lob and Turfan, frosts are mild and of short duration, though the summer heats are more oppressive by reason of the steamy vapour raised by the sun's action upon the swamp tract which covers so wide a surface of the land in that direction.
The steady north-west wind, which blows down the valley in spring, is followed in the autumn by violent storms and whirlwinds,, which reach their maximum intensity on the eastern half of the plain, and raise clouds of sand that fill the air with an impenetrable obscurity over hundreds of square miles of the country. Eain rarely falls on the plain, and only in thin showers during the summer season — a fortunate circumstance for the people, for a good downpour, such as we are accustomed to in India, would sap their mud walls and bring the houses down upon their devoted heads. Snow falls in winter for a few days only, to the aggregate depth of perhaps a foot, and only on the westernmost parts of the plain.
The wide range of atmospheric temperature in the course of succession of the seasons, combined with the effects of the other meteorological phenomena above referred to, are not without their special influence on the health standard of the people ; though what the pre- J cise nature of this may be there are no sufficient data from which to draw a just conclusion.
PRE VALENT DISEASES. 9
During our sojourn in those cities, I opened a chari- table dispensary in Yarkand and Kashghar, and, from the large numbers daily attending, was enabled to acquire a tolerably correct idea of the diseases most prevalent amongst the inhabitants, as well as to form an opinion as to the standard of their physical development and endurance as a people. The result of my experience tends to prove that, of the mass of disease and suffering I saw, less was attributable to the direct influence of climate than might have been expected ; that more was the result of the operation of local agencies, and that most owed its origin to neglect of hygiene coupled with indulgence in vicious habits.
Under the first category, inflammatory affections of the respiratory organs and glands of the throat were common enough, as were rheumatic affections ; but fevers were not so. And of these typhoids and remit- tents w^ere more prevalent than intermittents, which last, indeed, were remarkably unfrequent. On the other hand, scrofula and pulmonary consumption, can- cers and melanotic tumours, appeared with a frequency of recurrence attractive of attention ; whilst diseases of the eye — its membranes and humours, and blindness — cataract and amaurosis, were met at every turn, the result of atmospheric and terrestrial influences combined. . / These last with bronchocele, which, in every form and variety, are of almost universal prevalence in the city and suburbs of Yarkand more than elsewhere, are attri- butable to local agencies originating in the nature of the soil, and afflict the people to a hideous degree. The frequency of blindness is attributable to the intense glare from the snow-white salines that almost everywhere encrust the light sandy soil of the country ; whilst the prevalence of goitre is assigned a cause in the quality of
io KASHMIR AND KASHGHAR.
the water supply which flows over a sandy soil very largely composed of mica.
Of the diseases produced by vicious habits and faulty mode of living, we need here only refer to those resulting from the very general abuse of opium and hemp, as, owing to their frequency and aggravated forms in both sexes, they form an important item in the sum total of the defects that combine to deteriorate the physical standard of the people. They are found in great variety, princi- pally connected with derangement of the digestive func- tions, and may be classed under the comprehensive term dyspepsia — a disease which, in its aggravated forms, unfits the sufferer from the pursuit of his ordinary avo- cation, and too often develops itself into hypochondriasis and mania.
With the above result of my experience of the healthy state of the people in the two principal cities of the country, it would appear that climate is less at fault than society. On our own party, numbering 130 men, the effects of the climate, during a residence of six months in the western districts of the country, was only beneficial. But then, as honoured guests, we were sur- rounded with every comfort and convenience of pro- tection, and the experiences of our mode of life during the most healthy season of the year, afford no criterion whereby to judge those of the resident population living under far less favourable conditions. The rigorous character and prolonged duration of the winter season in this region condemns the people to a life of inactivity during nearly half the year, whilst the powerful action of the sun — intensified by the arid and desert nature of the country — during the remaining portion of the period, operates to render them less capable of enduring physical exertion than the inhabitants of the more tern-
CLIMA TIC I NFL UENCE. 1 1
perate climes, and at the same time — under conditions that claim all the energies of the people for the produc- tion of the means of subsistence — hinder a free develop- ment of the mental faculties in the paths of science or literature, and prevent the cultivation of the arts of civilised life, such as architecture, painting, mechanical skill, and so forth, in any degree beyond that of their simplest and barbarous forms. Such is the conclusion to be drawn from what we saw of the country and its people. We found the latter for the most part suitably clad and well nourished — were they not so they could not exist in such a climate — but at the same time we observed that they were singularly deficient in the power of enduring any sustained physical exertion, par- ticularly in the way of marching, even the poorest doing their journeys astride an ass. Their literature, with the exception of a few works dating from the flourishing epoch of the Chaghtay rule, is very meagre, and consists mostly of theological books introduced by the priesthood of Bukhara and Khocand. Their cities, with the excep- tion of two or three decayed mosques of the Arab period, are devoid of buildings of any architectural merit, whilst the mud-built houses composing their towns and home- steads cannot for a moment compare with the picturesque edifices of an Indian city ; for the substantial structure, elegant style, and convenient design of the latter are altogether unknown in Kashghar — alike in the palaces of the kings or mansions of the nobles, which differ but little, except in size and interior comfort and decoration, from the humble flat-roofed mud-built tenements of the general community.
The country has no manufactures, and produces no works of art of any excellence, or of such quality that it could barter with its neighbours for more requisite com-
12 KASHMIR AND KASHGHAR.
modities. The silk fabrics of Khutan are far inferior to those of Khocand, and find no demand beyond the limits of their own territory; whilst its coarse cottons and felts are sought only for the home market of Khocand. And similarly the boots of Yarkand and the saddles of Acsu go abroad no further than Kirghiz camps on the borders I of the country. The wool of Turfan — the finest in the J world — supports no home manufacture of any excelling merit, though in the hands of the Kashmiri it produces the shawls of which the celebrity is. world wide. The highly prized jade, so greatly in demand amongst the Chinese, was only wrought in the country by the skill of emigrants — artists from the interior of the empire. It is on its raw materials and natural products that the country depends for its external trade, and not on its manufactures or products of skilled industry. Its gold and silk, its musk and jade, its ~bang and its wool, are all that the country can give for the tea, sugar, spices and drugs of which it stands in need ; for the cottons and muslins, the silks and satins, the velvets and bro- cades of which the wealthy are the purchasers ; and for the furs, cutlery, and hardware which are required by every household. But for the development of these natural sources of wealth the country wants a secure and just government and a far more enlightened admini- stration than is to be hoped for from a Muhammadan ruler such as are the ignorant despots of the petty states of Central Asia — those sinks of barbarism, iniquity, fana- ticism and oppression that form the crumbling barrier between the civilised and Christian governments of Great Britain and Eussia. The above facts, cited as illustrative of the deficient energy of the people now inhabiting the territory of Kashghar, are not to be con- sidered as mainly the result of the climate in which they
ANCIENT INHABITANTS. 13
live, though no doubt its effects are not without a certain influence, which, in combination with the other conditions of their position and government, has operated to pro- duce the state of affairs described.
It is the nature of the society and the character of the rule which obtain amongst them, acting upon the pecu- liar innervation of the stock from whence they are derived, that have been the principal agents in moulding the character of the people to the fashion in which we find it.
We are taught by the records of history that the region now occupied by the people of Kashghar was in remote times the seat of a race whose posterity have peopled far distant and wide-spreading continents, and have risen to the foremost rank in science and civilisation, in industry and enterprise, in power and wealth. From the vast plains between the Himalaya and the Altai, and from the recesses of the mountain chain passing diagonally between them, issued the forefathers of the Saxon race in Europe, and their Aryan kindred in India. But their pristine home knows them no longer, only a few insignificant tribes (as to number) of the prime stock now remaining in the inaccessible fastnesses of the mountains from which they have been assigned a dis- tinctive race designation.
</ It is on the slopes of the Hindu Kush — the real Cau- casus— that we find the pure Caucasian, the representa- tives of the original Saka, Sui or Sacoe, who were pushed up from the plains by kindred tribes of the Yuchi, Getoe, Jatta, or Goth, as they themselves were pressed by vast hordes of a foreign and barbarous stock issuing from the extreme north.
Successive irruptions of these northern barbarians drove the Saka and the Jatta, or the Sui and Yuchi, as
H KASHMIR AND KASHGHAR.
the Chinese call them respectively, out of their primeval seats, and impelled them upon Europe in the one direc- tion, and upon India in the other.
In the west they have transplanted to the soil of their adoption — as in Gothland, Jutland, England, Saxony, &c. — the names of their colonising tribes; and in the south they have repeated the names of the settlements they left behind them, as Kasi or Banaras (Kasighar- Kashghar), Hari or Harat (Arikhand-Yarkand), Kucha or Kuchar (Kachar-Cachar), Kurla (Koela), Katak — now in ruins — (Cuttack). At least, so I venture to conclude from the similarity of names, and the historical record of the emigration. Further, the northern highlands of Kashghar are still known as Jatta Mughol — the names of its former and present inhabitants combined — though in the time of Tymur (Tamerlane) the country was called simply Jatta, notwithstanding the fact of its inhabitants being the Mughol ; and it is probable that the Jatta or Jat, or Jath of the Panjab, who have been identified with the Yuchi, originally dwelt in this locality bearing their name.
The Yuchi were dispossessed of Kashghar, and driven into Kabul and Kashmir, by a tribe of Mughol Tartar pressing forward from the direction of Khamil and Turfan. Their tribal name was Uyghur, but they were called Hiungnu or Hioungnou by the Chinese, and made themselves known in Europe — where they are represented by the Hungarians of the present day — as the Ouighour, Ougre, or Hunigur, Hongre or Hun. These Uyghur are the present inhabitants of Kashghar, but they have lost much of the distinguishing race type of their original stock through Caucasian innervation introduced with the Arab conquest; and the result of the commixture has been, apart from the change of
EARL Y CONQ UEST B Y CHINA. 1 5
physiognomy and growth of beard, an improved standard of physical development and mental capacity.
They share the territory with the Calmac and Kirghiz, who are Tartars of a strongly-marked Mughol or Mongol type, and roam the northern and eastern borders of the territory. The Calmac are Budhists, and the Kirghiz nominally profess Islam, though in reality they are, as the Musalmans style them, mere pagans. Both the tribes have little intercourse with the settled Muhammadan population on the side of Kashghar, whilst on the other — to the north of Tianshan — where they are in force, they are mostly Eussian subjects.
The Uyghur, after expelling the Yuchi — about two hundred years before the Christian era — established an independent kingdom in Kashghar, and waged a succes- sion of wars against China, which ended by their sub- jection to that empire about 60 B.C. They subsequently, however, recovered their independence, but were again attacked by the Chinese who annexed the country to the empire, and in 94 A.D. occupied Kashghar. From this they crossed the mountains into the Oxus valley, and carried their arms as far west as the shores of the Caspian.
From this period up to the time of the Arab conquest of the Bukhara territory, or Transoxiana, in the early part of the eighth century, Kashghar acknowledged a more or less vicarious allegiance to the Chinese govern- ment. So long as the government was strong at the capital, and order reigned in the home provinces, Kashghar remained loyal, and a willing tributary governed by officers appointed from the imperial palace. In times of civil commotion and dismemberment in the interior of the empire, on the contrary, this territory threw off its allegiance, and became divided into a
1 6 KASHMIR AND KASHGHAR.
number of petty states under independent local chiefs, each at war with the other for mastery over the whole.
And such was the divided state of the country at the time that the Arabs appeared on the banks of the Oxus in the beginning of the eighth century. These im- petuous conquerors here received a check in the vic- torious career of their triumphs, and it was not till after a succession of campaigns that they planted their creed and rule on the soil of Bukhara. Yet, even in the first of their onslaughts against this devoted territory, so great was the zeal of their warriors, and so ambitious the enterprise of their generals, that Cutaiba, in 712 A.D., penetrated into Khocand, and, crossing the moun- tains, carried a rapid expedition through the length of Kashghar up to Turfan on the proper China frontier.
The death of the Khalif Walid, however, necessi- tated his hasty retreat from so distant a position, and Kashghar enjoined a temporary reprieve. Meanwhile, the Arabs consolidated their conquest on the west of the passes, and stamping out with impartial ferocity alike the worship of the Magi and the religion of the Chris- tian, brought the whole country under the protection of Islam.
Their inexorable law — the Curan or the sword — was explicit, and left no middle course. Accept the one, and claim the rights of equality, brotherhood, and pro- tection ; reject it, and submit to the decree of God and the edge of the sword were the only alternatives. The Curan triumphed, and found so congenial a soil that its doctrine soon struck root, and flourished with a prosperity which rivalled that of the faith in the cradle of its origin, and in after times, up to our own days, formed a centre of its most fanatic bigotry and exclusive jealousy.
The most important of the early converts was Saman,
CONVERSION TO ISLAM. 17
a Zoroastrian noble of Balkh, who embraced Islam in order to regain possession of the hereditary estates from which, under the new regime, he had been ejected. Whatever his own convictions might have been, his posterity were sincere followers of the prophet, for we find the four sons of his son Asad holding posts of honour and trust, as governors of the four most im- portant provinces of the country — Herat, Samarcand, Farghana and Tashkand — under the special patronage of the Khalif.
Nasar, the son of Ahmad, and governor of Farghana during the revolt of the Sistan princes, became ruler of all Bukhara and Turkistan, and established the Samani dynasty. His brother and successor, Ismail, raised the Samani power to its highest point, and at his death, in 907 A.D., left an empire extending from Ispahan and Shiraz on the west to Turfan and the Gobi on the east, and from Sistan and the Persian Gulf on the south to the Capchac Steppes and Great Desert on the north.
It was during the Samani rule that Islam was first introduced amongst the Uyghur of Kashghar. Here, as in the Oxus valley, it met a determined opposition, and, notwithstanding the conversion of Satoc Bughra Khan, the hereditary chief of Kashghar, and his zeal in the cause of its propagation, the doctrine and law was not enforced in the country until Khutan — the ancient strong- hold of Budhism — was finally subjugated. This was after a warfare of nearly twenty-five years, during w^hich the flower of Persian chivalry withered on an unknown waste, and a host of Arab martyrs sanctified the soil with their blood, and earned for themselves a lasting memorial in the endless calendar of Muhammadan saints.
On the decline of the Samani dynasty after a rule of nearly a hundred and fifty years — during which the Per-
B
1 8 KASHMIR AND KASHGHAR.
sian literature suppressed by the Arabs was revived, and the religion planted by them was established accord- ing to the orthodox Sunni ordinance in triumph over the Shid heresy propagated by the false prophet Muc- cann'a — the Bughra Khan family, whose ruling chief was called lylik Khan and had his capital at Kashghar, rose to power, and the Uyghur Empire spread over the vallies on both sides of the Bolor range — from the Caspian to the Gobi.
lylik Khan was dispossessed of his western conquests by the Saljuk Tatar under Sultan Sanjar; and dissen- sions breaking out in the Bughra Khan family, the Uyghur, divided amongst themselves, soon succumbed to the Cara Khitay, a Mughol or Mongol horde, who were advancing from the direction of Ila in the early part of the twelfth century. Gorkhan or " Sovereign Lord " — the title of the leader of this wandering horde of Chinese outcasts — profiting by the asylum granted to his Budhist following on the Uyghur borders, took advantage of their internal dissensions to seize the country for himself, and very quickly extended his conquests up to Khiva. The Cara Khitay rule, after enduring for eighty-five years, was suddenly overthrown by the treachery of Koshluk Khan, who plotted with Cutubuddin Muhammad Khwarizm Shah for the divi- sion of the Gorkhan Empire between them.
This Koshluk was prince of the Nayman Kirghiz — a tribe which, like some others of those wandering shep- herds, professed Christianity as members of the Nes- torian Church — and fled from his home in Caracoram before the hostility of Changiz, who was pressing for- ward his Mughols from the north-east, to seek asylum with the Gorkhan of kindred race and country. He met a cordial reception from the Cara Khitay leader,
INVASION B Y MUGHOL. 1 9
and received his daughter in marriage, but repaid these favours by the basest ingratitude ; and when the Khwarizm king, flushed by his recent successes against Khurasan and Bukhara, refused the tribute heretofore paid by Khiva, and Gorkhan in his old age personally took the field against him, Koshluk made a diversion in favour of Cutubuddin Muhammad, and brought defeat on the army of his patron, and following the rout of his troops, made a prisoner of his father-in-law, and usurped the reins of government.
He did not, however, long retain his ill-gotten power, and soon paid the penalty of his perfidy with his life. For Changiz, who had at this time mastered the tribes on the eastern and northern borders of Kashghar, now claimed the submission of the Uyghur. The northern division, under Aidy Cut, at once joined his victorious standard ; but Koshluk, ruling the southern division, mindful of their former enmity, refused to do so. Changiz sent a division of his Mughol under two generals to reduce the refractory leader and annex his country. Koshluk now deserted by the Uyghur fled precipitately to Khutan, whilst the Mughol surprising his Nayman troops left at Kashghar, put them all to the sword, and went in pur- suit of the fugitive. Koshluk, on their approach, aban- doned his family and treasures, and with only two or three attendants, fled to the recesses of the mountains in Wakhan. Here he was seized by some shepherds of the country, who handed up his head to propitiate the Mughol pursuers.
And thus Kashghar, about 1220 A.D., passed into the hands of Changiz. Its territory suffered little of those horrors and destructions which mark to the present day the onward progress of this renowned conqueror, for the Uyghur now bodily joined his standard to work the
20 KASHMIR AND KASHGHAR.
havoc they parried from their own country by this happy allegiance. Under the magnificence, protection, and toleration of the Mughol rule, Kashghar enjoyed a degree of prosperity she had never before known ; and her cities, being on the line of route of the great trade caravans between China and Europe, soon rose to a position of wealth and importance.
The Christian, too, equally with the Budhist, both of whom under the ascendancy of Islam had been per- secuted and proscribed, now reappeared in the country, and dwelt on equal terms with their former oppressors. The Muhammadan priest, now deprived of his power of appeal to the sword, rapidly lost the supremacy he had by violence held over the minds of the people, and Christian churches and Budhist temples sprung up where mosques fell to decay. That Christianity here had at this period acquired some considerable footing, may be concluded from the fact of Yarkand being a bishop's see at the time Marco Polo visited the country in the middle of the thirteenth century.
On the death of Changiz, his vast empire was divided between his sons, and the Kashghar territory formed part of the kingdom assigned to Chaghtay. But on his death, which occurred a few years later, the kingdom fell to pieces, and Kashghar became the bone of conten- tion between rival princes of the Chaghtay line and that of his brother Aoktay, the Khacan of China, and passed in whole or in part alternately from one to the other till, finally, about the middle of the fourteenth century, it was brought together as an independent kingdom under Toghluc Tymur of Chaghtay descent, who moved his capital from Acsu to Kashghar; and had his summer quarters on the borders of the lake Isigh Kol on the
CAMPAIGNS OF TYMUR, 21
north of the Tianshan, in the territory called Mugho- listan, or Jatta Mughol, or Ulus Jatta.
Toghluc Tynrnr restored peace and order in the country, appointed his court after the model of the Mughol Em- pire, and re-established Islam which, since the downfall of the Mughol Empire, had become the dominant creed in these regions. Towards the close of his reign, taking advantage of the troubles distracting that country, he invaded Bukhara, and left his son Ilyas Khoja in the government of Samarcand. But a few years later, on the death of Toghluc Tymur in 1363 A.D., he was driven out of the country by the Amirs Husen and Tymur (afterwards Tamerlane), and on reaching Mugholistan was killed by Camaruddin Doghlat, his father's gover- nor of the province, who then seized all Kashghar, and killed all the children of Toghluc Tymur except an infant son — Khizr Khoja — who was carried away and secreted in the hills about Sarighcul and Khutan by Amir Khudadad, the governor of Kashghar. Amir Tymur, on becoming master of Bukhara, carried four successive expeditions into Mugholistan against Camaruddin and the Jatta. In the last of these Camaruddin was killed, and then, in 1383 A.IX, Khizr Khoja was recalled from his exile and set on the throne at Kashghar by the governor — Amir Khudadad, son of Bolaji and nephew of Camaruddin. He was unable to restrain his nomads from their wonted raids upon the Tashkand frontier, and consequently Tymur, in 1389 A.D., undertook his fifth and last campaign against the country with a vast army, which, advancing in four divisions — two on the south and two on the north of Tianshan — swept the whole country and reunited in the Yuldoz valley, driv- ing half the population, together with their spoil of captives and cattle and plunder, before them.
22 KASHMIR AND KASHGHAR.
Tymur here divided the immense booty in slaves, cattle, and merchandise amongst his victorious troops, and then restoring Khizr Khoja, whose allegiance he accepted, and whose daughter he married, to the govern- ment, returned to his capital, leaving the country so beggared and depopulated that it has never recovered the shock. After Khizr Khoja the government de- scended through a succession of Mughol Khans, his descendants, whose reigns are characterised by an end- less variety of disorders, strifes, and bloodshed — more or less connected with the state of affairs in Bukhara, and the Uzbak ascendancy in Khocand and northern Turk- istan — till, after a duration of two hundred years, the power passed into the hands of the Khojas.
These proved no better rulers than those from whom they usurped the government, and the country knew no peace until it passed under the rule of the Chinese.
Khizr Khoja was succeeded in the rule of the Mughol by his son Muhammad Khan, who was the cotemporary of Ulugh Beg in Mawaranahar, and of Shahrukh in Khurasan, and was the last of the Khacan or "Em- perors " who governed with the style and pomp of the Chaghtay court. He was a wealthy prince and a bigoted Musalman. During his reign the Muhammadan shara' was firmly established as the law of the land, and the country enjoyed a season of peace and prosperity.
During the succeeding reign of his son Sher Muham- mad Khan, however, the country was plunged into dis- order by the rebellion of Wais Khan, the son of his brother Sher 'Ali Oghlan who, collecting a lawless band of Kirghiz and Cazzac, raided the country in all direc- tions and carried his incursions across the border into the territories of Tashkand and Khocand. In the midst of these disorders Sher Muhammad Khan died, and was
THE MUGHOL KHANS. 23
succeeded on the throne by his nephew, the rebellious Wais Khan. He was now powerless to restrain the unruly bands of adventurers he had gathered together about him, and his own inclinations drawing him to the excitements of the camp, he abandoned the cares of the government to prosecute a succession of fruitless cam- paigns for the conversion of the Calmac.
Amir Khudadad, the hereditary governor of Kashghar —who had rescued the infant Khizr Khoja from the clutches of his uncle Camaruddin and thus preserved the family from extinction, and who for three quarters of a century had served the Mughol Khans with loyal devotion, and endeared himself to the people by his pro- bity and just government — now in his old age, hopeless of restoring order in the country, determined to abandon it. He invited Ulugh Beg to Chui, and there making over the Mughol to him, left the country to close his eventful life in the hallowed and peaceful precincts of the Prophet's shrine.
The Mughol, averse to so summary a transfer, dis- persed to their steppes, and Ulugh sent an army to reduce them. Wais was killed in action on the banks of the Chui, and Kashghar was occupied by the troops from Samarcand. The succession was now contested between his two youthful sons, Yunus and Eshanbogha. The partizans of the former took him to Ulugh with the ob- ject of securing his support, but he sent the wild young Mughol out of the way to his father Shahrukh at Herat ; and he put him in charge of the celebrated Maulana Sharifuddin 'All Yazdi to be educated and polished.
Meanwhile Eshanbogha, who was a mere puppet in the hands of the Mughol chiefs, themselves divided by jea- lousy and discord, was finally set on the throne at Acsu by Mir Sayyid 'All, who had recovered his hereditary govern-
24 KASHMIR AND KASHGHAR.
ment of Kashghar from the nominees of Ulugh, after an estrangement of fourteen years. He was obliged, however, to abandon Acsu for the more secure retreat of his steppes, and here varied the monotony of his life by a succession of raids on Syram and Tashkand, and an invasion of Khocand or Andijan. These hostilities in- duced Abu Sa'ld, the successor of Ulugh Beg, to summon Yunus from his retreat in Shiraz, and to restore him to the government of the Mughol. His polished education in Persia, however, quite unfitted him to cope with the rough barbarity of his nomads, from whom he had be- come estranged by an absence of twenty-four years, and his first essay to recover the rule proved a disastrous failure. With the aid of his patron, however, and matrimonial alliances with his successor at Bukhara, and with the ruler of Khocand, he ultimately succeeded in establishing an insecure government at Tashkand, and a doubtful authority over Kashghar which had become divided between Eshanbogha in the east and Mir Sayyid 'Ali in the west, and their children respectively. On the death of Yunus the Uzbak power, which had been rapidly progressing under Shaiban Khan during his reign, acquired a complete mastery all over the states of Bukhara and Khocand. Tashkand soon fell to them, and Mahmud, the son and successor of Yunus, was driven back upon his steppes ; but unable to control the discords and contentions amongst the Mughol, he left their camps and repaired for asylum to Tashkand, and was there, with all his family, executed by the Uzbak chief. His brother Ahmad Khan, surnamed A laja " the slayer," during the life of Yunus, had retired to rule over his steppes, and, after subduing his enemies amongst the nomads with a severity and recklessness of life which gained him the name by which he is known in history,
EXPEDITION INTO TIB AT. 25
contested the possession of KasLghar against Ababakar, a grandson of Mir Sayyid ' Ali, who had seized the western half of the territory, and fixed his capital at Yarkand. He captured the cities of Kashghar and Yangi Hissar, and laid siege to Yarkand, but was ultimately driven back to his steppes by Ababakar.
It was on his return from this campaign that, hear- ing of the fate of Mahmud, he went to avenge his death. He was, however, repulsed with loss, and retiring to Acsu died there in the winter following. His numerous sons now contested the rule of the Mughol amongst themselves and Ababakar. After several years of civil war, Mansur secured the eastern government up to Acsu, whilst his brother Sultan Sa'id who, after a variety of adventures, had found refuge at Kabul, returned thence as a parti- zan of Babur, and seized the western half of the terri- tory from Ababakar ; and thus the two brothers enjoyed a divided government over the states of Kashghar.
Sultan Sa'id was the last of the Mughol Khans who exercised any real authority in the country. He sub- dued the nomad camps on the northern borders, and secured the conquests made by Ababakar in the direction of Badakhshan and Kashmir. In 1531-2 A.D. he in- vaded Tib at with an army of 5000 men, but becoming very ill in the passage of the mountains, and finding the country incapable of supporting his troops during the winter, he seized upon Balti with a thousand men, and sent the rest under his son Iskandar to winter in Kashmir.
In the following summer he was rejoined by these troops, and sending them forward to the conquest of Lhassa, or Aorsang, himself set out to return to his capital. He died in the passage of the mountains, not far from the Caracoram pass, from the effects of the rarified atmos-
26 KASHMIR AND KASHGHAR.
pliere. His eldest son, Rashid, now set out from his government at Acsu and seized the capital. He executed and banished all his father's faithful servants, and dis- persed his family, and allied with the Uzbaks. On the death of Mansur, he brought all the country up to Turfan under one united government, but on his death, owing to dissensions amongst his sons, the several states fell asunder under different members of the family, all more or less at feud with each other.
In this state of disorder and weakness Khoja Hida- yatulla, surnamed Hazrat Afac, the head of a family of priests, descendants of the celebrated Makhdumi ui'azim \/ of Bukhara, who had only in recent years acquired a position at Kashghar, usurped the government amidst a perfect maze of intrigues, plots, and contentions. Being ousted by a combination of his opponents, the Khoja — about the middle of the seventeenth century — called to his aid the Calmac ruler of Ila or Zunghar ; but he seized the country for himself, merely reinstating the Khoja for the purpose of administering the government under officers appointed by himself.
This, however, did not restore peace to the country, and on the death of Afac a fresh war broke out amongst the Khojas, his sons and successors, for the mastery; and it continued, under varying phases, for more than a cen- tury, when the anarchy in Zunghar led to the occupation of Ila by the Chinese, and their subsequent conquest of Kashghar — as successors of the Calmac possessors — about 1760 A.D.
The Chinese, on taking possession of the country, in no way interfered with the internal administration of the government, which was carried on as heretofore by Musalman agents, supervised by Chinese officers who were all under the control of a provincial governor ap-
THE KHOJA USURPATION. 27
pointed from Pekin ; but they planted a strong garrison in the capital of each of the states, and held other strategic points and frontier posts for the defence of the country, maintenance of order, protection of trade, and the realisation of the revenue.
The advance of the Chinese so far to the west alarmed all the petty states of Central Asia, and the priesthood, stimulated by the appeals of the expatriated Khojas, who had found an asylum in Khocand, called upon the princes and people to unite under the green banner of Islam to repel the infidel foe. But then, as now, the anarchy, rivalries, and jealousies dividing the several independent governments of that seat of Muhammadan bigotry and ignorance prevented any coalition or unity of action, though the self-made monarch of the newly raised Afghan kingdom, in the arrogance of his sudden rise to power, sent a force to protect the frontier at Tashkand, whilst his envoys went to Pekin with a haughty demand for the restoration of Kashghar to its Musalman rulers.
His embassy met with no further mishap than a sum- mary dismissal, and Ahmad Shah was content to avenge himself by overruning Badakhshan and leaving Islam in Kashghar to take care of itself, whilst he more profitably employed his arms in the Panjab. The dispossessed Khojas, however, never ceased to agitate their claims, and seized every promising opportunity to invade the country and attempt the recovery of their patrimonial rights.
In these endeavours they were encouraged to per- severe, by the facilities afforded for intrigue through the intimate relations permitted to subsist under the Chinese rule between the western states of Kashghar and the Khanate of Khocand, by reason of the trade
28 KASHMIR AND KASHGHAR.
privileges granted by the Pekin Government in favour of the Khan of Khocand, whose territory, paripassu with the establishment of the Chinese rule in Kashghar, had grown into an independent principality.
No less than four times during the present century did the Khojas invade Kashghar from Khocand and raise the three western states of Khutan, Yarkand, and Kashghar in revolt against the Chinese authority. In each instance were they welcomed with acclamations of joy as deliverers from the infidel yoke, and in each in- stance, after only a few brief weeks of authority, were they loathed as shameless libertines, and execrated as merciless tyrants. In each instance they fled before the Chinese reinforcements without a party to stand by them in the hour of need, or to follow them in their turn of misfortune. And in each instance was the restoration of the infidel rule, despite its accompanying reprisals, exe- cutions, and tortures, hailed with satisfaction as the lesser of the two evils ; for in its train came protection, law, trade, and prosperity, neither one or other of which was known under the riot and plunder of the Khoja bands of needy adventurers.
Yet notwithstanding these experiences, so strong is the inherent fanaticism of Islamite bigotry, however lax may be the observance of its ordinances, that there is little doubt had another invasion under the former con- ditions occurred, it would have run a similar course to its predecessors. And this opinion is supported by the facts of the successful career of the present ruler of the territory — a career prosecuted under circumstances so different from those attending previous invasions from the same principality of Khocand.
The last revolt in Kashghar, inaugurated from the side of Khocand, was that under Khoja Wali Khan in 1857.
TUNGANI REBELLION. 29
At this time a new power had established itself upon the borders, and with the appearance of the Eussians on the Jaxartes and on the shores of Isigh Kol, the influence of the Khan of Khocand on the one side, and of the Chinese in Kashghar on the other, relatively and substantively underwent a change more or less in subservience to the ambition of their more powerful neighbour ; and both alike, though from the action of different causes, before long became distracted by anarchy and revolt, much to the advantage of their mutual enemy hovering upon their borders.
During the intestine feuds and disorders at this period convulsing the principality of Khocand, the Russians, through the exigency of the position in which they found themselves, were forced to advance and annex the most important part of the territory. Following this, the re- volt in Kashghar, surging on from the Chinese provinces to the East, necessitated their interference and assump- tion of authority over Zunghar ; and this at a moment far from convenient to themselves, with the progress of the annexation of the country down to Samarcand still upon their hands.
It was whilst the Russians were thus occupied that Khoja Buzurg Khan, doubtless much to their satisfac- tion, quitted the trenches of Tashkand with the permis- sion of Alim Culi, and with his small band of adventurers under Baturbashi Yacub Beg set out from Khocand to recover the rule of his ancestors over the divided states of Kashghar, now completely severed from their connec- tion with the Chinese Empire by the insurrection of the Tungani.
It is not necessary here to trace in detail the brief and inglorious career of the Khoja, nor that of his more successful general, Yacub Beg, in the conquest of Kash-
30 KASHMIR AND KASHGHAR.
ghar. Suffice it for our purpose to say that the latter, after deposing his master, was indebted for his success to the aid of the Andijan or Khocand emigrants and mer- chants he found in the country, as well as, like all Muhammadan usurpers under similar conditions of education and circumstances, to the free use of the irre- sponsible despot's privileges, exercised solely for the advancement of his personal interest.
Consequently, we find that the history of the six years during which he gradually brought into his sole and undisputed possession the six principal states of the territory — Turfan, Kucha, Acsu, Kashghar, Yarkand, and Khutan, each of which has a melancholy record of its own wrongs and sufferings — is a fearful picture of the miseries and ruin worked upon the country in the pro- cess of reconverting it into a Muhammadan government on the model of the intolerant and fanatic courts of the, let us hope, happily doomed Bukhara and Khocand.
The events of this period, as we were in a measure enabled to ascertain during our stay in the country, differed little in point of reality from the accounts which, from time to time, floated about the frontier bazars of the Panjab, and now and again received a fresh interest from the exciting details brought down by the traders returning from the north, though, strange to say, they at the time hardly attracted the notice of the Indian press in any degree commensurate with their importance.
Yet, during this eventful time were enacted in the states of Kashghar a succession of mean intrigues and base treacheries, a role of wholesale assassinations and summary imprisonments, and a course of confiscations, executions, and tortures, the detail of which is horrify- ing, though by itself incomplete without the addition of the tyranny of Islam — its merciless massacres and
ATALIK GHAZL 31
forcible conversions, its intolerance of the unbeliever and destruction of every trace of his religion, its lawful plunder of his property and its equally legal enslave- ment of his person and his family.
Through an ordeal, such as is portrayed above, did the states of Kashghar pass before Yacub Beg, as Atalik Ghazi or "Champion of the Faith," established his autho- rity over the country, and revived its decayed Islam on the model of the orthodox Sunni doctrine by the strict enforcement of the Shara and the restoration of Muhammadan relics all over the country.
In this course the ruling families of the newly estab- lished principalities of Khutan and Acsu cum Kucha were cleared away root and branch. The aged chief of Orumchi, who, on the destruction of the Acsu family, temporarily became prince of Turfan as an integral por- tion of his dominion, passed away during the storm which, presently following its capture by Yacub Beg, swept over his capital, and left his populous and flourish- ing territory a depopulated and beggared waste ; whilst of the Tungani leaders and governors in these eastern towns not one survived the transfer of the rule.
With the establishment of the new regime, however, and the disappearance of all supposed to be in any way capable of obstructing its endurance, the country has become consolidated under a single ruler whose aim is to assimilate the whole to one uniform standard under the banner of Islam. With the conflicting element of the Budhist Calmac who preponderate, or did so, on the borders of the Eastern States as pagan tributaries paying the jaziya, and the large number of enslaved captives of war, and forced converts — both Chinese and Calmac — mixed up with the Muhammadan population generally throughout the country, the task is of itself one of no
32 KASHMIR AND KASHGHAR.
small difficulty, without considering the nature of the material on which the ruler has to rely for the mainten- ance of his authority in the country of his conquest. Let us hope, in the interests of philanthropy and civi- lisation, that the conquering chief — now that he has the field clear to himself — may prove himself worthy of the charge he has assumed ; and that the intercourse he has for other purposes initiated with the governments of Europe most powerful in Asia, may in due time be the means of introducing an enlightened, just, and tolerant government into a region where their fruits promise a more abundant harvest than in any other part of the Central Asian area.
With this necessarily very brief and summary review of the country and its people, we may now proceed with the narrative of the journey of the Embassy to Kashghar in 1873-4.
CHAPTEK I.
IN the first days of the year 1873 there arrived in Kashmir, after a hazardous passage of the mountains, a party of eight or ten Andijan or Khocand horsemen headed by one who, in the summer of 1870, had'made the journey northward from Srinaggar in company with Mr Forsyth's Mission to Yarkand in that year. Their appearance at so late a period of the season was unex- pected, but, the nature of their errand being explained, they were welcomed and expedited on their way by the officials of the Maharaja.
Sayyid Yacub Khan, Torah, the Envoy of Atalik Ghazi to the Viceroy of India and the Sultan of Turkey, in the first instance repaired to the camp of the Lieu- tenant Governor of the Panjab, which was at that time pitched at Hasan abdal during the manoeuvres of an army of exercise assembled in that locality, and present- ing himself before Sir Henry Davies made known the purpose of his visit.
After a brief rest there, during which he enjoyed a hearty hospitality and witnessed a military spectacle such as, in point of magnificence and splendour, and I may add efficiency, is not to be seen out of India, he proceeded to Calcutta; and having satisfactorily adjusted his business with the Government of India there, he set out on his mission to Constantinople.
In the interval of his absence was organised the Embassy to Kashghar for the purpose of concluding a
34 KASHMIR AND KASHGHAR.
treaty of commerce with that state, a treaty for which Atalik Ghazi, through his envoy, had expressed his earnest desire as a means of improving the friendly relations which had recently sprung up between the two governments.
Mr T. D. Forsyth, C.B. (now Sir Douglas Forsyth, K. C.S.I.), whose identification from the first with the measures exerted for the development of our trade with Yarkand at once pointed him out as above all others the most fitted, by his intimate knowledge of the country and people, for the conduct of such an enterprise, was selected for this important duty, and appointed on the part of the Viceroy of India his Envoy and Plenipoten- tiary for the purpose stated.
With him was associated an efficient staff of scientific and military officers to profit by the occasion thus offered of increasing our meagre information regarding those most interesting and almost unknown countries which lie immediately to the north of the Himalaya, and which it was hoped the embassy would visit before returning to India ; for the programme of its march included a visit to Khutan and Acsu, and a journey through Badakhshan and Balkh to Kabul.
The enterprise attracted no small amount of attention at the time, and awakened an interest hardly less sus- tained in England than in India itself ; whilst, writh less of publicity, it claimed the more close scrutiny of other countries more directly affected by the scope of its operations.
The press in India was full of the movement, and viewed the subject under various aspects of its bearing. And even before the departure of the embassy discussed its objects — whether commercial, scientific, or political — with as little of discretion as of propriety, and questioned
PREPARING FOR THE MARCH. 35
the individual merits of its several members with more of candour than of compliment. The dangers that were ahead of us, the troubles that would beset our course, and the horrible fate that was to cut short the triumph of our labours were vividly portrayed by a very well in- formed writer in the Pioneer, and reached us in time only to add a zest to the spirit of the enterprise.
With due deference to the general accuracy of the writer above referred to, I may here note, in reference to his moral warnings and doleful forebodings, that if, in the following pages, I am silent in regard to those dan- gerous ordeals prognosticated by him, the reader may certainly conclude that we benedicts had no cause to fear the prophesied assaults against the sanctity of our hymeneal vows, whilst as to the bachelors of our party — they can speai for themselves. Of the perils foretold by him from the capricious temper and uncontrolled violence of Atalik Ghazi we fortunately had no ex- perience— not a single member of our party lost his head to satisfy the whim of a despot's wrath, neither did any one of us find lodging in a Eussian prison !
What our real experiences were the narrative will in due course unfold. Meanwhile let us return to the arrangements for our journey.
Much preparation and careful attention to details were necessary for the proper equipment of the party on a scale commensurate with the requirements of the expedition, and in a style befitting the importance of the occasion.
To be independent in our movements, and have the means of transport under our own control, it was de- cided to purchase a baggage train of a hundred mules for the express use of the embassy. The gear of these as well as the mule trunks were all made in the govern- ment manufactory at Kanhpur, or more familiarly
36 KASHMIR AND KASHGHAR.
Cawnpore, and were turned out in the best style of workmanship and of the most improved pattern. The packsaddles were of the New Zealand pattern, and adapted to riding or loading according to necessity, and the mule trunks were of sheet leather, sewn with copper wire, and looked very much more serviceable than they proved under the test of experience.
The tents were made to order at the manufactory of the Lahore Central Jail, on a pattern devised by Mr Forsyth, and, despite the many poles (three upright poles of two pieces each, and two folding ridge poles), and sockets and ropes, proved roomy and comfortable, and an efficient protection against the weather. They were something in the style of the " Swiss cottage " tent, with a double roof ; the outer one projecting all round to form a spacious verandah in front, to cover a closed boot on each side and a bath-room behind. They stood us in excellent stead on the journey, and were brought back in better condition than any other portion of the camp equipage.
These preliminaries amongst other camp requisites settled, the establishment of tent pitchers, mule drivers, &c., engaged, the mess stores and servants provided, the military escort appointed, and — the last though by no means the least in point of importance or latest in the order of adjustment — the arrangements with the Maha- raja of Kashmir for the laying out of provisions and stores at the several camp stages across the uninhabited highlands of Tibat by both the Caracoram and Chang- chanmo routes, as well as for carriage and supplies on the route through Kashmir completed, the camp was ordered to assemble at Eawal Pindi on the 1st July, and on that date Lieut. -Colonel T. E. Gordon (now C.S.I.) arrived there and took command of the whole.
HAL T AT MURREE. 3 7
From Eawal Pindi the party marched in two divisions to Murree, and camped there on the Flats, where, since some days previously, the Kashmir officials, agreeably to requisition, had collected a string of eighty or ninety riding and baggage ponies for the use of the embassy. Here I joined the embassy, made the acquaintance of its members, and learned the arrangements for the order of our journey. Each of us was provided with a tent, table, and chair, and three pairs of mule trunks (to which extent our personal luggage was limited), all of uniform pattern, and brand new. Each of us was restricted to two personal servants and two riding horses with their grooms, whilst all in common shared the benefits pro- vided by the mess establishment. The whole of the carriage, the pitching and striking of the tents, and, in fact, the entire camp arrangements were organised with military precision ; and from first to last, as our subse- quent very grateful experience testified, were most admirably conducted under the able supervision of Captain E. F. Chapman, E.H.A., of the Quarter-Master General's Department, to whom this arduous duty was committed.
On the 15th July, after a couple of days' halt at Murree, the advance party marched en route for Srin- aggar, under command of Captain J. Biddulph, 19th Hussars, A.D.C. to the Viceroy. His party consisted of Captain H. Trotter, E.E., and his native surveyor Abdus- Subhan and assistants; Dr Ferdinand Stoliczka, Ph.D., of the Geological Survey of India, and his native taxi- dermist; Kasaidar Afzal Khan, llth B.C., A.D.C. to Mr Forsyth ; Hospital Assistant Asmat Ali and the escort of Infantry, Corps of Guides — ten men with a non-com- missioned officer — in charge of the tosliakhana or " pre- sents"— with camp servants.
38 KASHMIR AND KASHGHAR.
Four days later, the head-quarters' camp with Colonel T. E. Gordon, of the Adjutant General's Department, in command, followed on the same route. His party comprised Captain Chapman and myself ; Corporal A. Ehind, 92d Highlanders, Camp Sergeant ; Munshi Fyz Bakhsh, Persian Secretary to Mr Forsyth ; Tara Sing, Treasurer and Accountant ; the Mess Establish- ment; Hospital Dispenser; Jamadar Siffat Khan with ten troopers Cavalry Corps of Guides, and camp servants, and stores, and the reception tents and establishment of the Envoy and Plenipotentiary.
Such was the composition of the head-quarters' camp of the Kashghar Embassy as it set out from Murree on the morning of the 19th July 1873. The rainy season had already set in, and we were prepared to encounter some storms and showers on the few inarches that would carry us beyond the limits of the monsoon ; but we did hope to make our start in one of those breaks in the heavy charged mass of clouds which so frequently occur on the hills to mitigate the oppressive gloom of the season, and enliven into activity for a short interval the suppressed energies of their animal life, to exhibit in full grandeur the magnificence of their forests and glorious panorama of mountain scenery, and to call forth from all sides a chorus of praise and joy from bird and beast and man.
No such enjoyable respite was our lot. On the con- trary, our party started on the march before us in a down-pour of rain such as I have rarely witnessed, and which did a good deal to wash off the bright polish of our new camp equipage, and test the mettle of our men and cattle. Some little delay occurred in loading and starting the 105 mules and ponies, and the three or four score coolies which composed our caravan of transport,
DEPARTURE FROM MURREE. 39
but a little temper and patience soon saw all fairly off the ground, and in as good order and more cheerful spirits than were to be expected under the circumstances. Fortunately the march to Dewal was a short one, and a halt there the next day enabled us to dry our tents and the contents of our boxes. On the 21st we marched ten miles down to Kohala, and there halted the next day. We found a grateful shelter from the stifling heat in this deep and narrow passage of the Jhelam in the dak- bungalow, whilst our camp filled the compound, and spread along the river bank above its causeway, which we found obstructed in some places by landslips from the slope above.
On the 23rd we resumed our march, and, crossing the swift-surging torrent of the river by a neat little chain suspension bridge a little way beyond the bungalow and its bazar, entered Kashmir territory. From the bridge — where, previous to its construction in 1870, the passage was effected by ferry boat, with at all times more or less of hazard, and too often of loss — there are two routes to the Happy Valley, as the basin of Kashmir is appropriately designated, and both unite at Chikar, where the rise out of the low valley of the Jhelam com- mences. The shortest, but the most difficult, is that directly over the Danna hill ; the other winds round it to the northward through the valley of the Jhelam.
We followed the latter, and, by the successive stages of Chattar, Kara, Thandali, Hattyan, and Chikar, arrived at Chakoti, where we halted a day, and breathed again freely the cool mountain air, which after the simmering heats and worrying mosquitos of the lower hollows was most refreshing to men and cattle alike.
The heat in these little hollows— full as they are with terraced rice cultivation, and shut in on all sides by lofty
40 KASHMIR AND KASHGHAR.
mountains — is at this season insupportable, and severely tried our cattle and followers. I felt it much more exhausting than anything I have experienced at the same time of year in the open plains of India — in the Pan jab at least. There the heat is high enough, but the air is light and moving, and there is ample breath- ing room. Here, on the contrary, the sun's rays shine through a stratum of dense vapour, which floats about the mountain tops, and loads the limited atmosphere in the deep shut-in hollows between them with a heavy, stagnant, steamy air which bears one down by the very weight of its oppression.
The route, however, is a well frequented one, and is doubtless familiar to many a Kashmir tourist. I need not, therefore, tarry over its description more than to note that at each stage — which is usually fixed on a small flat of some talus as it shelves down to the channel of the river — is a rest house of primitive con- struction, but none the less of welcome shelter. These bungalows have been built by the Kashmir government for the convenience of travellers and tourists, and their accommodation is free ; but attendance and supplies are not provided, though the latter are usually obtainable in the vicinity.
On this occasion of our journey, however, we at each stage found an abundant supply of all sorts of provisions for ourselves and followers, with cattle, coolies, and all sorts of camp forage which the Kashmir officials had collected for the use of the embassy. But this super- abundance and assiduous attention was quite exceptional, and only called forth by the special occasion.
On our march along this portion of the route — which is, compared with the hills on the British side of the river, very sparsely peopled — we witnessed the different
A SINGLE CORD ROPE BRIDGE. 41
modes by which the natives are in the habit of crossing the river.
Owing to its rapids, and the huge boulders obstruct- ing its channel, the stream is neither fordable nor pass- able by boat, and the means adopted for crossing it depend on the nature of the locality selected for the passage. Thus the Nynsukh, just above its junction with the Jhelam (or, as it is here called, the Bedasta) at Kara, is crossed by a rope bridge of the kind called ndra. It is a single cord stretched across from bank to bank, and secured on either side to some projecting rock or firmly set tree. The banks here overhang the river in high vertical precipices, and appeared to me at least 150 feet apart. The cord is furnished with a loop cradle which is slung on to it by a forked piece of wood. This last forms the upper part of the cradle which, when once adjusted, is irremovable from the cord, though it slides freely backwards and forwards on it by shaking the cord.
From our camp, on the opposite side of the Jhelam, I watched this very frail-looking arrangement with much interest, in the hope of seeing it used, for on the steep slopes of either bank I could detect no path leading to or from it ; but after a while, not finding my curiosity so speedily gratified, I stationed my servant outside the tent with directions to warn me so soon as he saw any- body approach the spot I indicated. Presently he reported a man coming down the hill side. His colour was so much that of the ground that I did not readily distinguish his form until a pair of lank legs caught my eye overtopping a projecting rock, and picking a way along what now appeared as a mere goat track. I fol- lowed the course of their owner over the short inter- vening space to the bridge, and as he approached found I had been watching a nearly naked mountaineer as
42 KASHMIR AND KASHGHAR.
thin and poor as the coolies in our camp, his brethren— and our own too in the light of our common Aryan descent. He had a small bundle tied on his back. It looked like a kid-skin of flour on which was placed a folded blanket — signs which betokened that our friend was bound on a journey, for amongst these people of few wants, and not more intellect, the wallet of parched barley meal and the coverlet of coarse wool are the humble representatives of those varied luxuries and multifarious requisites that constitute the travelling ac- companiments of civilised man.
Arrived at the bridge our interesting subject hitched up his bundle by a jerk of the tattered scarf that held it, and tightening the ends over one shoulder and under the other arm secured the knot across the chest. He then cast a hasty and timid glance all round, and, without any direct examination of the thread on which he was about to trust his life, cautiously stepped down to the edge of the rock, pulled the cradle to him, seated him- self in the loop, the sides of its single cord passing between his flank and arm on each side, and pushing off from the bank shot at once half way across. And now commenced the exciting part of the passage.
In the outset the cradle with its freight slid down the slope of the cord with rapidity and ease, but mid- way was brought to a stand in the sag produced by its weight, and our venturesome traveller was seen sus- pended in mid-air over a rushing, roaring, and foaming torrent below. He rested a moment to allow the vibra- tion of the cord to cease, and then commenced to finish the transit. This he did by seizing the cord with both hands and propelling himself forward by a sudden jerk of the legs, grabbing it a foot or two in advance ; and so on by a repetition of this process he worked his way
MANNER OF USING IT. 43
up the slope to the other bank. At each move forward he held firm hold for a moment or two to time the jerk with the vibration of the cord and ease the wooden sling working upon it by that act of propulsion.
The process must be quite as laborious and hazardous as it appeared to my unaccustomed eye, though the people about assured me it was very simple and safe, and that accidents rarely happened though the bridge was in constant use. The cord, I was informed, is nothing but a close, thick, and strong twist of a long climbing plant mixed with the straight twigs of a species of indigo- fera, both of which grow in plenty on the slopes of all these hills ; but the cradle and shore fastenings are of raw hide in addition. These bridges are only used where the banks are very steep and the stretch across not very wide. They require repair every year, but are very strong and capable of crossing horses and sheep, which are for the purpose slung in the cradle as usual, and let gently down one slope by paying out a rope attached to it, and hauled up the other by a similar arrangement.
On the following day at Thandali, the next stage beyond Kara, we saw the river crossed in quite a diffe- rent manner, and the only one the locality admitted of. Here the ground forms a low flat semicircular reach but little raised above the channel of the river, whilst the opposite bank shelves precipitously to the water's edge ; thus affording no points of holdfast for the ndra or " cord bridge," nor presenting suitable spots for the piers of ihQJhula or " swing bridge "which we saw further on.
Heavy rain fell during our night's stay at Kara, and amongst other accidents brought my tent down upon me by the snapping short at the joint of two of the three poles that supported it so inefficiently. I was fast asleep
44 KASHMIR AND KASHGHAR.
at the time, but the tremendous weight that overpressed me — worse than any nightmare — soon roused me to a sense of impending suffocation. By an instinctive effort my arms raised up the load of weighted canvass enough to allow of my slipping out of bed, but only to find my feet pressing a sodden carpet, spongy as a bog, on the water-logged turf beneath it. Crouching under the prop of my boxes I extricated myself from the ruins in miserable plight, and passed two of the longest hours of my life, coiled up in some damp and musty horse clothing on the top of a mule trunk in one corner of the veran- dah till daylight dispersed the darkness and revealed the only sound pole already arrived at an angle of forty- five in its desertion of the perpendicular. My erstwhile vainly repeated summons — unheard in the pattering of the rain and the roaring of the Jhelam whose clamour, in the hush of night, reigned supreme and sole, with an intensity magnified by the absence of that hum of activity which enlivens the day with the varied sounds of animal life — now brought my servants to my aid. A few minutes sufficed to set matters right, and then, in a more comfortable mood of body and mind, looking around the scene of my troubles I congratulated myself on the better judgment that resisted the promptings of the moment to essay the shelter of the dak-bungalow hard by. The house, I knew, was already fully occupied by the tourist families we found in it on arrival, but its verandah would have afforded a dry corner could it be reached. This was just the difficulty I felt in the dark- ness, and its nature was now apparent, for the space between us, though hardly more than a hundred yards, if as much, was covered with a variety of harmful obstructions. The faggots of firewood, bundles of hay, sacks of barley, and piles of mule gear, with coiled-up
AN INCIDENT OF CAMP LIFE. 45
knots of benumbed coolies and shivering ponies which the Kashmir officials had collected here for our use, blocked the way everywhere in the picturesque disorder characteristic of the ways of native camp life.
This heavy rain somewhat delayed our departure, and it was ten o'clock before our camp got away from Kara. The mid-day heat and the heavy stifling atmosphere of Thandali proved very trying to our cattle and men, and justify the numbering of this march amongst the list of those the most memorable for hardship on our long journey.
At Thandali we found the river in full flood, its bois- terous current rushing away with quantities of drift, and presenting an appearance far from inviting a swim across its stream'. Yet it was here we saw it crossed on the sliindz, which I was about to describe just now when I digressed to the record of the above personal incident as illustrative of the mishaps of camp life.
The shindz, which is commonly used on the Indus, and other rivers of the Panjab, is merely an inflated hide either of the ox or goat. Those we saw here were of the latter animal, and were formed of two separate skins lashed together. Each was separately inflated by blow- ing through a wooden vent fixed in one of the fore-legs of the hide, and closed by a plug of the same material. The little float thus formed was then held on the edge of the stream till the rider, striding across it, passed each leg through a loop of strapping hanging like a stirrup leather on each side, and, holding each vent plug in either hand, lay his chest upon the hides, and plunged out into the foaming torrent, paddling with arms and legs as in the act of swimming. Much dexterity and skill are required in the proper management of these wonderful little floats to prevent a sudden capsize. We
46 KASHMIR AND KASHGHAR.
saw several men out on the shindz in quest of the drift borne down by the flood, and to judge from the ease and confidence with which each guided his awkward little craft, they must be practically familiar with its use in this place. The courage with which they buffetted the breakers, and the dexterity with which they avoided the whirl of the rapids, were no less astonishing than the skill with which they secured a passing waif, and the firmness with which they rode as their buoyant supports were borne bounding over the wave tops.
On this occasion we saw the river crossed under excep- tionally difficult conditions. In the ordinary state of the current the passage is a simpler matter, and admits of a bundle being carried on the back of the passenger who, if he cannot paddle himself over, may be towed across by another who can.
In the times of the Mughol and Afghan the shindz was in much more frequent use than it has been under the more settled government that has succeeded their turbulent rule in this country. It was then the means by wrhich robber bands crossed either to harry their neigh- bour's territory, or to escape the pursuit of their enemies, as from its portability and ready adjustment it proved a safe and expeditious mode of overcoming the water obstructions of the country. About midway between Eara and Thandali, and on the opposite side of the river, a little above the junction of the Kishanganga with the Jhelam, is the town of Muzaffarabad, where are the ruins of a large sarae of the Mughol period. The Afghans, when they held Kashmir, kept a garrison here for the protection of the road, which was in their time infested by robber bands. This road which, from Muzaffarabad onwards to Baramulla, runs parallel to the route we fol- lowed on the opposite side of the river, is known as the
THE JH&LA OR "SWING BRIDGE." 47
Durrani road of Pakli and Damtaur, and is the easiest and most practicable of all the routes leading to Kash- mir, being open all the year round.
At Hattyan, the next stage beyond Thandali, we saw the " swing bridge," or jhula, which I have before men- tioned. There were two of them, within sight of each other, between Hatty an and Garhi. The latter is a con- siderable village on the opposite side of the river, which here flows in a wide channel flanked by high banks, the stream itself varying in breadth from fifty or sixty to a hundred and fifty or more yards.
The jhula consists of three ropes stretched across the stream, at a height of eight or ten feet, between two buttress piers, built up of loose boulders and brush- wood faggots, at the edges of the current. Each pier slopes as a causeway on the land side, and drops as a wall towards the water, whilst in its substance are im- bedded several strong upright posts as supports for the bridge ropes. These ropes are disposed across from side to side in a triangular form,, so that a cross section would mark the points of a capital V, thus V — two parallel ropes forming the upper plane, and a central one the lower plane. This disposition is maintained throughout the stretch by large V shaped prongs of wood, which, at inter- vals of four or five yards, are secured in position above and below by thongs of raw hide, and further strength- ened above by a cording which is passed across between the two upper points where they are fixed to those ropes.
The stretch of the bridge was about eighty yards, and it hung with a considerable bend by its own weight, whilst the wind swayed it from side to side in an alarming manner. It is crossed by the passenger walking on the lower of the ropes, which is sometimes of double or treble strand, and holding his balance with the hands on the upper
48 KASHMIR AND KASHGHAR.
ropes, which run at each side on a level with his shoulders. I saw four men cross this bridge at the same 'time, and two of them carried bundles on their backs. They followed each other at intervals of four or five paces, and were careful to walk "out of step" so as to prevent the dangerous undu- lation which would have jerked them off their narrow foot- ing had they kept "in step." As they arrived at the prongs in succession they cautiously "ducked" under the cross cords, and I noticed that only one man at a time passed between any two of the prongs. The weight of these four men bore down the bridge, in the middle of its span, quite to the surface of the water, and, indeed, I saw one man's feet immersed in the crest of a wave. The shock of this "catch" did not, as I expected it would, throw him off his footing, but it set the whole loop a swinging and vibrating in a manner most uncomfortable to witness. The commotion, however, did not for a moment stop the progress of the passengers, and I saw them land on the other side, and take their several ways without ever a glance back at the awkward path they had trodden so skilfully, or, most probably, a thought of the peril they had escaped.
At this place the charger of one of our guide's cavalry escort, whilst being led along by the groom, fell over the bank, a sheer drop of sixty to eighty feet, into the river, and was borne by the current to a small island flat in its mid-stream, a little way lower down. The unfortunate creature was there found to have broken a thigh bone, and was consequently put out of suffering by a bullet through the head. Captain Chapman crossed over on a shindz for this merciful duty. This accident at the outset of our march was the only loss that befell the troop horses of our little escort in all our journey. From Hattyan our next stage was to Chikar, where the
VALLEY OF THE JHELAM RIVER. 49
Danna road from Kohala joins the main route. At this place we quitted the low, hot valley of the Jhelam, and beyond it rose up to the cool forest tracts, which on this side of the river extend on to the entrance of the Wolar basin — the renowned Vale of Kashmir (Kashi Merii ?) — at Baramulla.
The change was no less agreeable on account of the improved climate than on that of the finer scenery. At Dewal and Kohala we left behind us the forests that give the Murree hills their charm, and, crossing the river at the latter place, entered quite a different climate and country.
From Kohala to Chikar our route lay through the narrow winding pass of the river Jhelam, over an in- terrupted talus strip, cut at intervals by vdeep ravines, through which pour the torrent feeders of the main stream below. On its shelving slopes are terraced flats of rice and maize cultivation, and the homesteads of its peasantry, surrounded by their orchards and hedges. Between these occupied plots the general surface of the uneven tract is set with a more or less abundant brush- wood jungal, of which the dodonsea, carissa, wild olive, barberry, jujube, adhatoda, &c., with the wild fig, rottlera, and other such trees, are the chief components.
Above this river-bank tract the hills slope away to lofty peaks, presenting, in infinite variety of surface, a vast extent of uniformly verdant pasture, which (broken by neither rock nor forest) spreads up their sides to the highest summits.
At Chikar we left this tame scene, and passed on to a wooded region, the pine and cedar forests of which vie in magnificence with the majestic heights they clothe, and afford many a prospect — alone well worth the jour- ney— to gaze upon.
50 KASHMIR AND KASHGHAR.
Our next stage on was to Chakoti, where we halted a day. On this march we passed some small camps of Gipsies, generically styled kanjar, on the tramp to the Happy Valley. They were as ragged, conservative, and happy in their dirt and poverty, as they are found to be elsewhere, and to judge from their naked forms were as indifferent to the cool breezes of the mountains as they are to the hot blasts of the plains. We also met some large caravans of Mt — the " costum" of the ancients — bound to Eawal Pindi. We had met several of these convoys on the three or four preceding marches, during which we also overtook some Peshawar traders driving their small convoys of twelve and fifteen mules, laden with asafoetida and snuff respectively, to the Srinaggar market ; but on this occasion I noticed three convoys, said to consist of eighty bullocks each. I learned from one of the drivers that the- root was collected on the hills near the Zojila pass, and when we arrived there I got some specimens of the plant by sending a man off into the hills to fetch them. The driver told me that each bullock carried two maunds of Jcut, and that the drug was bought by the merchants at Eawal Pindi, at the rate of a rupee per ser of two pounds. Some idea of the quantity of this root which is annually carried out of Kashmir may be formed from the approximate data I got from this man. The 240 loads of this drug which we met on this day — and its peculiar odour loaded the air around — represent, at eighty pounds per maund, a total of 38,400 pounds of fcut, worth at Kawal Pindi 19,200 rupees. We had already, in the previous stages, passed nearly as large a quantity,, and my informant assured me that several similar convoys would follow during the next three weeks.
It appears that anybody can go and collect the roots
THE " CO STUM" OF THE ANCIENTS. 51
where they grow, but the peasantry of the vicinity are usually employed to do so. The plant grows wild and in great abundance in certain localities, and I could learn of no restrictions or regulations concerning its collection. The root is largely consumed in India in the service of the Hindu temples, and is exported from Bombay to China, where it is used as incense.
In the umbrageous gullies and ravines about Chakoti, I added several specimens to the collection of little birds I had been shooting on the march up, but none so beau- tiful as a white bird of paradise with a long, graceful tail, and a bright purple green beak ; and the male of the same species, but of a russet colour. On arrival at Srinaggar, I despatched a tin-lined case of these birds to India, whence, in the following year, they were sent home. On opening the cases — for two others of the five I filled shared a like fate by spending a rainy season in Calcutta — the tin was found honeycombed with rust, and the contents utterly destroyed by the ravages of the weevil. Fortunately the birds collected north of Leh escaped this exposure, and arrived in sound condition.
The march from Chakoti to Uri is picturesque, but trying to laden cattle, owing to the steep ascents and descents across the succession of deep ravines that cut the road, which is otherwise good, and shaded. There is a good deal of cultivation on the route, fields of rice, maize, cotton, and pulse, of the kind called mdh, occupy- ing the terraced flats on each side of the way. In the intervals between these productive patches the road is hedged about by the filbert and jujube, the pomegranate and mulberry, the fig and apricot, the diospyrus (called amluJc), and pear, with the grape vine twining in intricate leafy coils amongst them ; all in the wild state — excelling in foliage, failing in fruit.
52 KASHMIR AND KASHGHAR.
Our camp at Uri was pitched, between the fort and the stage bungalow, on a high shelf of turf land backed by hills of charming aspect, rich in the variety of their forest foliage, and glad in their pastures of brightest green. This is the prettiest spot we have yet camped on, and the clear, sunny sky spread above the fleecy vapours floating about the hill-tops favoured us with a view of the scenery in its full beauty ; whilst the mea- sure of its enjoyment, in the calm that comes with the fading light of a setting sun, was filled by the grateful notes of the bagpipe — the music, of all others, in har- mony with the occasion. It was the first time our camp sergeant, Corporal Ehind, a piper of the 92nd High- landers, tuned his pipes on the march ; and he could not have selected a more fit opportunity for the essay of those performances with which he so often enlivened the dull hours of our subsequent experience.
The fort is a mud structure, capable of accommodating a garrison of 200 men, and looks up and down the river from the edge of a high cliff which here projects into one of its many bends. Below it is a jh-fila, or " swing bridge," by which the Muzaffarabad road, on the opposite side, is reached.
The march from Uri to Urihan Boin (the n of the last word is nasal) is through a most interesting tract by a good road, which now runs across the face of precipitous hills that overtop lofty cliffs dropping straight to the river — itself a foaming rapid, surging with ceaseless tumult down the gorge — and anon winds through shady forests of the stately cedar and umbrageous plane, of the comely sycamore and the bounteous walnut, with the familiar hawthorn and favourite hazel amongst a host of others, each with its special uses or peculiar beauties.
About midway on the march we passed the ruins of a
JtUINS OF ANCIENT TEMPLES. 53
temple of the early Hindu period. The massive blocks of its carefully chiselled limestone, in the confusion of their heap, revealed only the basement of the central temple and the portal of the quadrangle which once en- closed it ; and there was nobody to tell the history of those who in the solitude of its cloisters worshipped the Supreme Essence in the midst of surroundings eminently favouring the attainment of their desire — the final ab- sorption into the object of their devotion, the Supreme Essence, the Universal Creator, the Author of all Nature.
On the next march we passed a similar ruin in a more perfect state of preservation. It is built of great blocks of amygdaloid trap, and is called Banihar (or Ban Vihara — " The forest monastery "). In the centre of the space enclosed by the quadrangle of cloisters stood the temple, on the top of a solid basement which was as- cended by a flight of steps facing the gateway. The upper part had evidently been renewed, and when we passed was occupied by a poor Brahmin who attended to the service of the two emblems that stood on the altar — a small stone lingam set in the yuni, anointed with oil and garlanded with flowers — the worship of a degraded Brahmanism in the place of a departed mystic Budhism. At Baramulla there are side by side other relics of both religious systems, and amongst them a lingam or priapus cut out of a solid block of sandstone, about four feet in diameter and sixteen feet high, and set on a masonry platform little above the level of the encroaching turf.
The last miles of this march are singularly interesting, and mark the spot at which the basin beyond burst its bounds and drained its contents through the gorge now occupied by the Bedasta or Jhelam. The road lies at the foot of stupendous cliffs of slate, the vertical strata of
54 KASHMIR AND KASHGHAR.
which correspond exactly with the formation of the rock on the opposite bank just below Uri, a distance of ten miles down the gorge.
From the similarity of geological phenomena at these spots of similar appellation I was curious to ascertain whether there was any connection between them to account for the coincidence, but my inquiries failed to elicit any reason for such supposition, though they afforded a clue to the designations of the two localities.
In the Kashmiri language, or, as it is here called, Kashuri, uri is the name of a tree — a species of the coesalpinia — which abounds in the forests of the vicinity ; and boin is also the name of a tree — the oriental plane, the cliinar of the vernacular dialect — which forms so prominent a feature in the landscape of the valley. Uri, therefore, may be rendered Anglice — "The coesalpinia trees," and Urihan Boin (the first word is the oblique plural of uri) as " The casalpinia and plane trees," though — if my memory serves aright — I saw no repre- sentative of the first named at either place. There is another tree, however, of very similar name, which is common in both the localities. It is the wurri or " fil- bert," and may with as much propriety as the first be taken as the derivative of the topographical name.
Leaving Urihan Boin we marched to Baramulla, and camped — on the 1st of August — a little above the fort on the river bank, and just within the area of the Kash- mir basin whose wide plain, encircled by a glorious panorama of hills, spread out before us a charming land- scape and most inviting picture, with the option of pro- ceeding by land or water ; for from this point up to Islamabad at the opposite side of the valley the Bedasta, or Behut, as it is here called, is navigated.
Our last march into the valley partook of the delightfully
THE « KADDAL" BRIDGE. 55
refreshing character of the two preceding stages, but on emerging from the hills we parted from the grand scenery of their majestic heights for the soft champaign of the plain ; which, however, possesses peculiar attractions of its own, no less grateful to the senses it lulls to repose with a calm pleasure than are healthful the exhilarat- ing air and inspiriting scenery of the mountain tracts around.
At three or four miles out from camp we passed the ruins of Banihar, an ancient Hindu monastery of the flourishing period of Budhism, which I have already mentioned. On the opposite side of the road are a few suttlers' huts, at which the traveller can refresh himself and beast.
At Baramulla we saw the first of those extraordinary constructions which form so peculiar a feature of the river scene at Srinaggar — a new form of bridge, in the variety of which structures this country seems so prolific.
It spans the river just above the town on a succession of six piers, and is composed entirely of undressed logs of pine and cedar timber. The whole tree trunk, in fact, lopped of its branches. The strongest and longest of them, laid side by side, are stretched across from pier to pier to form the roadway, and merely rest, with- out any further security, by two or three feet of their length at either end upon the tops of the opposite piers, which may be from twenty to twenty-five feet apart.
The piers are built up of similar logs arranged side by side in layers of a square shape, the logs of each succes- sive layer crossing those of the other at right angles, and lodging in notches cut in the logs below. The lowest layers are the broadest and diminish gradually as they ascend to the centre, above which they again expand
56 KASHMIR AND KASHGHAR.
successively up to the top, where the logs equal in length those at the bottom, thus giving the pier an hourglass sort of contraction. The piers rest on a foundation of stones embedded in the muddy bottom of the river, and are protected against its current by a cut-water pointing up the stream, and built of loose stones filled into a frame of logs. Above they are furnished with upright posts, which support the railing that runs on each side of the roadway span.
This kind of bridge is called Jcaddal, which appears to be the Kashuri form of the- Hindi kathan — "made of wood," and is very strong and durable despite its ricketty construction and very dilapidated appearance. There are six or eight of them on the river at Srinaggar, which bear the traffic of the two halves of the city, and some of them are further weighted with a row of shops on each side the way ; most perilous looking abodes projecting in all degrees of obliquity above the main structure, and from its sides over the stream.
The timber being cedar is very durable, and accidents rarely occur, owing to the elasticity of the construction, and the outlet afforded to sudden floods through the many passages in the substance of the piers. I wit- nessed the behaviour of these bridges in the inundation of 1869, and though they were nearly swamped by the flood, none of them gave way, whilst many of the houses on the river's bank — the one I occupied amongst the first — were completely destroyed.
CHAPTEK II.
FROM Baramulla our camp marched to Pattan, and halted a day under the shade of some magnificent plane trees, from the high - spreading boughs of which the golden oriole whistled out his plaintive cry, and the starling chattered in convivial company. I measured the girth of the two trees beneath whose shade my tent was pitched ; and, taking them at about five feet from the ground, found the one to be twenty feet round the clear trunk, and the other twenty-one feet two inches.
At this place there are the ruins of two ancient temples, built of blue limestone, carefully chiselled and carved, in the same massive and enduring style as those before mentioned, and like those of Martand, at the further end of the valley, supposed to be dedicated to the sun. There is also in course of erection, almost within a stone-throw of them, but of just the opposite characters, one of those hideous-looking constructions— those rambling blocks of mud and stone and raw brick, whose patchwork walls are kept together in their erratic lines by a lumbering frame of rough logs and undressed planks — which are making their appearance in all parts of the valley for the rearing of silkworms ; an industry recently introduced by the Maharaja as a government monopoly.
"Whilst wandering, gun in hand, amongst these elo- quent witnesses of the civilisation of the past and of the present in this historic land, I shot some specimens of
53 KASHMIR AND KASHGHAR.
the Kashmir cuckoo, and a beautifully coloured bee-eater ; and then mounting the high clay banks to the right got a wide view of the valley and its lake-basin lying ahead of our position.
After the scenery we had just come through, the view spread before us was in its immediate objects not alto- gether so pleasing. The wide stretch of reed swamp belting the Wolar lake, and the scattered farmsteads and hamlets marking the accessible borders of this pes- tiferous tract, from their dead level and unvaried repe- tition of the same elements wherever the eye turned in the survey of the landscape, proved if not disappointing, at least unattracting. But the coup d'ceil beyond — the tout ensemble of the valley and its surroundings — presented a prospect worthy of admiration, unique of its kind, and exceeding in extent of scope, as it excels in point of beauty, anything that is to be found elsewhere within the range of vision from a single point of view. Projecting on to the plain from various points of its circumference are those strange banks of lacustrine deposit — here called karewa — which mark a former coast line, and interpose their bare promontories to break the even spread of grove and field, and to improve the land- scape by variety in the form of its unchanging elements. Between them are the wide sweeping gulfs and bays, and the tributary valleys that shelter the rural popula- lation and reward their toil with the fruits of a grateful soil. Whilst above them all rises that glorious circle of mountains which constitute the natural limit of the region and the most remarkable feature of its scenery — their belts of black forest and slopes of green pasture showing in vivid contrast with the snowy summits and glistening peaks that form the crowning beauty of the whole.
VISIT FROM DIWAN BADRI NA TH. 5 9
Soon after our arrival at Pattan we received a visit from Diwan Badri Nath, a high official of the Kashmir court, who, on the part of his Highness the Maharaja, welcomed us to Srinaggar, and delivered the friendly messages he was charged with with an innate suavity and politeness of manner quite charming in themselves, and the more appreciable, because they were not mere empty words, as the arrangements for the comfort of our march thus far abundantly proved.
In the afternoon I accompanied Colonel Gordon to return his visit, and next morning they rode off to- gether in advance to select a site for our camp, which is to halt some days at Srinaggar to equip our men and cattle with warm clothing for the journey across the passes. We followed with the camp next morning, and on arrival at the river-bank below the city were met by Pandit Hira Nand, chief of the city police, who was awaiting us with one of the Maharaja's state barges to convey us by water to the Nasim Bagh, where Captain Biddulph's party was camped.
Captain Chapman and I accordingly took our seats on the chairs set for us under the canopy of the pinnace, and were paddled up to our destination by thirty boat- men, whilst the camp, crossing at the first bridge, fol- lowed the land route, and joined the advance party under Captain Biddulph, whose camp we found pitched on the shore of the Ball lake, under the shade of the plane trees of the celebrated park here laid out by the Emperor Akbar — the Nasim Bagh.
The trip up the river was a very agreeable change, particularly in the gorgeous and swift conveyance which had been so very thoughtfully provided for us, for the march was a long one, and the sun nearing the meridian was growing uncomfortably strong. And it
60 KASHMIR AND KASHGHAR.
was no less interesting on account of the excellent river- view of this remarkable city which we were enabled to enjoy from the shelter of the open pavilion in which we were seated. It was an oblong chamber built up in the centre of the boat, and highly decorated in that intricate pattern peculiar to the artists of Kashmir, and so well- known for that marvellous blending of colour which, without disturbance of harmony amongst all, presents a groundwork of either according to the light in which it is viewed. The shallow vaulted roof was supported midway by pillars which divided the chamber into two compartments, and at the sides by others which were fitted for shutters to close the whole when necessary. The weather being fine we found these last had been removed, and consequently, the roof, supported on its pillars alone, formed a canopy or pavilion open on all sides above the panel of the basement.
The scene on either bank, as one is borne along through the midst of the city, is bewildering by the variety and the novelty of the sights that catch the eye at every turn ; yet there is a sameness that pervades the whole, and characterises it as essentially local.
The succession of bridges, under whose spans of creak- ing and trembling logs — for arches they are not to be called — our boat was shot with a speed against stream hardly less than that of the more humble craft coming down with it, are all members of one family; each a singular repetition of the other, and all alike in their tumbledown look, and peculiar structure, and decayed appearance. The boats, too, which float amongst them, our own not excepted, in all their different sizes and various fittings, are of one shape and one resemblance. Whether it be the light and painted state-barge, or the ponderous and unadorned rice-boat ; whether it be the
RIVER VIEW OF SRINAGGAR. 61
swift pinnace with its elegant canopy and many paddles, or the more leisurely travelling-boat, with its mat roof and mud-built cooking-range ; or whether it be the skiff of the fisherman and fowler, or the punt of the market- gardener and caltrops-picker, they are all of one pattern and one build — a flat keelless bottom, straight ribless sides, and tapering ends that rise out symmetrically fore and aft, prow and stern alike for advance or retreat.
Of such form, these boats are well suited for the con- veyance of heavy burthens on a smooth stream; but they are most dangerous craft on rough water. From the wide hold they take of the water they gain buoy- ancy in respect to freight, but they lose it in the matter of riding. Instead of rising over the waves they present an obstacle over which they break, and the surf pouring over the low sides soon swamps the vessel.
The natives rarely venture far away from shore in heavily-laden boats, and when crossing the Wolar lake usually coast along its sides so that, if per chance caught by one of the squalls which so often sweep its surface, they can run as to a safe port into the belt of weeds bordering its shores ; for here the water-lily, duckweed, and caltrops, with other aquatic plants, cover the water with a continuous spread of broad leaves which float on the surface and prevent its being disturbed by the wind.
But to return to the river view. The mass of houses built on the masonry embankments which rise out of the water on either hand, and display here and there amongst the varied components of their structure the chiselled blocks of some ancient palace or temple, inces- santly draw the eyes from side to side by the attraction of some new form, and present a spectacle no less novel in character than strangely diverse in its uniformity as a whole.
62 KASHMIR AND KASHGHAR.
The gable roofs, with their untidy thatch of beech bark and their attic lofts open at both ends, rest so in- securely upon the loose-jointed frame of upright poles they cover that they seem ready to fly away with the first gale of wind, and certainly constitute the most pecu- liar feature of the architecture everywhere. Whether on the king's palace or the peasant's cottage, on the merchant's store or the mechanic's shop, or whether on the Hindu's barrack or the Musalman's mosque, this draughty log-built roof is the same in character on all.
The edifices it surmounts present a greater variety of structure, though in all — except in the palaces and Hindu temples, which are built throughout of solid masonry — the framework of upright poles fixed upon a raised plat- form of masonry forms the skeleton. This framework is held together by cross-trees and rafters and closed in, tier above tier, either by a planking of rough-split logs or a thin wall of bricks and mortar. The interior par- titions are of lath and plaster, and the compartments are lighted very much less than they are ventilated — as many a tourist in the "Happy Valley" must have dis- covered to his cost in comfort — by those lattice windows, so rich in the variety and elegance of their designs, which are, with the carved woodwork of the portals, the most agreeable features of Kashmir architectural clecora-- tion ; so far at least as exterior appearance is concerned, for the matter of interior comfort is quite another con- sideration, and dependent for its merits upon the views or means of the occupants.
Glass windows are unknown out of the palaces and the mansions of the wealthy. The lattice window supplies their place, and how inefficiently may be readily under- stood when one learns that the only device adopted for keeping out the wind is a sheet of paper pasted over the
CHARACTER OF THE ARCHITECTURE. 63
fretwork, whilst the cold air pouring in over the open coping is considered out of reach and submitted to as a matter of course.
The very general use of timber for house-building in Kashmir, and the loose putting together of the beams and logs, is said to be necessitated by the frequency of earthquakes in the country. It seems, however, that other causes are not without potent influence in deter- mining the preference. And notably the character of the people for physical inactivity — a trait which is ex- emplified in the nature of all their industries.
Their shawls and embroideries, their silver work and papier-mache-painting, their stone-engraving and wood- carving, &c., all alike exhibit proofs of wonderful delicacy and minute detail, but tell of no active expen- diture of muscular force. Where this is required, as in house-building, we find it exercised only to the smallest extent absolutely indispensable fo"r the attainment of the object desired. Hence, though stone is abundant and more durable, the easily-felled and floated timber is put together in a style of unfinish altogether independent of adaptation to stability under the conditions assigned. Doubtless the humid character of the climate and the soft nature of the soil may have their share of influence, which must not be overlooked. But with the relics of ancient edifices of ponderous stone and the existing buildings of substantial masonry before us on the spot, these conditions, it would appear, offer no serious ob- stacle to a more finished and substantial style of architec- ture to that which is in vogue here. Such as they are, however, the houses of Srinaggar constitute the most
7 OO
prominent feature in the view of the city as seen on the way up its stream. And more special objects amongst them are the new houses rising on the river frontage —
64 KASHMIR AND KASHGHAR.
very welcome signs, in their elaborate finish and straight angles and neat lines, of the march of civilisation and adoption of modern improvement ; the lofty piles of its principal mosques topped with those peculiar belfry-like towers supported midroof — testimonies to the architect's recognition of the dictates of taste as superior to the claims of conventional form ; and those shapeless little idol temples of stone and mortar which, though in the front rank on the river's bank, would be passed unnoticed but for the glare of their tinsel and gilt — incongruous objects in this quaint jumble of wood- work structures. It remains to fill in the picture with man, whose presence and activity enliven the scene and complete the speciality of its character. In a city so well situated as a centre for the trade of the countries beyond the passes, one might naturally look for the representatives of the different surrounding regions amidst the crowd of its inhabitants, but they are not to be found — or at least they do not appear amongst the moving forms that pass before the eyes of the mere traveller — in anything like the number expected.
As it is, the familiar forms of the Afghan and Sikh, met here in so frequent recurrence, claim no such in- terest from us as do those of the people the one ruled in this valley not so very long ago, and the other rules at the present time. Nor do the few members of those little known tribes of the outlying districts of Dardistan, Baltistan, and Bhotan who are found here as govern- ment servants, more than excite a transient curiosity amidst the crowd of natives which more fully attracts the attention. It is the Hindu Pandit and the Musal- man Kashmiri who are the chief actors in that busy scene of life and activity which at this season meets the eye at every turn in the river's course.
SCENES ON THE RIVER BANKS. 65
The Pandit, or Batta as he is styled by his Muham- madan brother, if not recognised by the nicer distinctions of manner and speech, or the difference in dress and occu- pation, may be at once distinguished by the paint-marks carefully set on the forehead as the tokens of his reli- gious purity.
He is seen as the well-to-do merchant, with a party of his fellows passing up and down the stream, seated on the matted floor of the Srinaggar gondola, in animated chat on the concerns of his business ; his comfortable form bulging between the tight strings of his spotless linen, and enveloped in the loose folds of his soft warm shawl. Or he is found en deshabille performing his ablutions, immersed at the edge of the current under which his shaven head, with its lank crown-top lock, bobs now and again as he gabbles through the formula of his prayers ; his hands the while, held up to the sun, pouring back to the river the drops they had raised from it, or quickly passing through the fingers the threads of tldQJaneo which encircles his body ; unmindful alike of the presence of the stranger or the proximity of his women- kind — the reputed fair Panditani — who (the latter), in like undisguise, may be disporting herself in the same element, or, concealed within the ample folds of her shapeless gown, may be washing her linen or filling her pitcher at the brink. Or else he is observed as the Brah- min priest — his withered and emaciated form divested of all covering but the indecent loin-clout — seated on his hams cooking his simple fare of unleavened cakes and pottage, and guarding scrupulously the purity of the spot sanctified for the operation ; or, seated crosslegged at the door of his temple, he is reciting the shastar with a volubility equal to the swaying to and fro of his body ;
or else, motionless and silent, he is absorbed in a trance
E
66 KASHMIR AND KASHGHAR.
of meditation, or more probably of mental torpor and abstraction. Or lie is seen, writing-case and paper in hand, as the civil functionary — the scribe, the notary, or the tax-collector — in the pursuit of his special avocation, or, as the corn chandler, on the river-barges superin- tending the discharge of rice into the government granaries, or its sale to the people.
The Kashmiri, or Kashuri as he styles himself, con- stituting the bulk of the population, presents a greater diversity of ranks and occupations. These, from the barely clothed cooly and poverty-stricken peasant to the richly clad merchant and wealthy proprietor, are all to be seen in the course of a tour through the water-way of the city. The silversmiths, lapidaries, papier-mache artists, shawl-weavers, silk embroiderers, and other arti- ficers are, of course, only to be seen to advantage in their workshops on either side of the river. Here we are concerned only with the scene on its banks, and they consequently need no further notice in this place beyond the mention of their general resemblance in outward appearance to the Hindu portion of the population, from whom they are sometimes, in the absence of the paint- marks 01; tika, only to be distinguished by the different folding of the turban.
The special actor on the river- scene is naturally the boatman. His lithe, active form — bared for the task — is seen everywhere as it bends to the rapid strokes of his paddle ; and his merry voice, too often raised in unseemly wrangle and vociferous vitupera- tion, is heard above all other sounds. His family, who live in the boat with him, are seen variously occupied upon the banks ; the children — remarkable for their bright eyes, and soft, pleasing features — disporting them- selves on the limited planking of their homes moored alongside; > whilst the mother and elder daughters are
FLOATING GARDENS OP THE DALL. 67
busy on the beach in that laborious and unsightly task of husking their daily modicum of rice. The loose- sleeved and very roomy shift, which, like a long night- shirt, covers the body from neck to foot, and forms, with the characteristic cap of red fillet, their only dress — jerking up and down as their arms ply the pestle upon the grain — is not the least strange sight of the many that here amuse the visitor. And this particular one, from the awkwardness of the implements — the pestle being nothing but a pole of wood rounded at each end, and the mortar a mere cup excavated in a clumsy log of the same material — suggests reflection on the apathe- tic character of the people, who with such an easy com- mand of water-power can tolerate so burdensome a task.
It was through such a scene as this, the main features of which I have attempted to delineate by words, that we passed on our way to the Nasim Bagh. The last part of our route wound through that series of canals which intersect the swamps lying between the city and Dall lake. They are at this season nearly choked by the abundance of the water-weeds that shoot up from their shallow bottoms to mature their fruit on the surface, and wither and rot ; whilst their tangled meshes obstruct the passage, and poison the air with the stench of the mephitic odours evolved from the festering mass of their luxuriant foliage.
Between these narrow channels are small blocks of water-logged land, on which stand the log-huts and orchards of the market gardeners who supply the city with vegetables. They rise little above the level of the water, and are divided by cross trenches into fields, or plots whose banks are lined by rows of willows. Between these banks, which are further sup- ported by stakes, and raised above the general level by heaps of the decayed weeds drawn from the bottom of
68 KASHMIR AND KASHGHAR.
the canals, the little skiffs of the cultivators ride their way over the mass of reeds concealing the passage from the eye of the stranger, and thus pass from one end to the other of this pestiferous tract of labyrinthine swamp.
The produce of these gardens are cucumbers, melons, pumpkins, and tobacco, and that of the canals and shores of the lakes — which is spontaneous — are the water cal- trops or singhara — the fruit of which forms an important item as a breadstuff in the food products of the country, and is under government protection — and the nidar, or root-stalk of the water-lily (whose beautiful pink flowers are the pdnpawsh of the Dall lake) which is largely con- sumed as a vegetable. Passing beyond these canals, we entered the circular pool, called the Dall, by one of those clear passages between the reed beds which stretch across its centre, and came upon the floating gardens. These are formed of strips of decayed weeds which have been fished up from the bottom of the lake by means of a pole dexterously twisted amongst their long fibres. They are staked to the bottom where they float by long poles, and are covered above with small heaps of earth in which the melon seed is sown. They are capable of supporting the weight of two or three men at a time ; but great caution is necessary to prevent the feet break- ing through their flimsy, rotten structure.
On the lake we found a number of little skiffs, each with its single occupant, dotted about the surface. Here, in the line of our route, were two or three weighed down with the pile of weeds their owners were poling up from below for the repair of their floating melon beds, or maybe for the formation of a new one. There, along the shore, were a whole bevy of women, each paddling her own canoe with the one hand, whilst the other was rapidly plucking the duckweed that overspreads the sur-
THE DEATH OF "JINGO." 69
face, and throwing it into the hollow behind her with an eager haste, as though there was not enough to meet the wants of all. It is a favourite fodder for cattle, and is said to improve the milk of kine fed upon it. Further away, on the calm, open surface of the lake, rode motionless three or four boats as if moored to so many stakes, whilst the occupant of each, reclining crouched up, composed himself, head resting at the post, for a mid-day nap. Their occupants were fishermen, and far from asleep, were watchfully looking down the shaft of the narits or " har- poon" they poised in one hand to spear the first fish passing beneath its prongs.
We now came abreast of the handsome mosque of Hazrat Bal, the favourite resort of holiday folks, and passing its village, and the long array of bathing-closets half submerged in the waters of the lake, were presently landed at our camp a little beyond. Here, on the 4th August, we rejoined our comrades who preceded us from Murree.
The evening of our arrival closed with an abrupt end to the career of a favourite little pet of mine. He was a handsome and vivacious little Scotch terrier born of imported parents, and was the very simile of the bright- eyed little one represented in Landseer's "Dignity and Impudence." He came into my hands as a tiny pup only a few weeks old, when I was here in 1869 — a gift from my friend and former comrade in the Corps of Guides, Captain C. W. Hawes — and spent his infant days gambolling on the turfy spot to which he now returned only to find a grave under its sod. He had always proved a faithful and intelligent little companion, and a bold champion for his master, and now sacrificed his life in the rash defence of his domain. We were seated at dinner under the spreading boughs of some splendid plane trees on the bank overlooking the shore of the
70 KASHMIR AND KASHGHAR.
lake — the dark shades of the approaching night but dimly pierced by the light of the lamps on our table, and concealing all beyond the range of their rays in a veil of black obscurity — when some hungry pariahs prowling in the vicinity, attracted by the savoury odours of our viands, gathered round the lighted spot, and peering at us from the edge of the darkness whence they had emerged began stealthily to encroach on the privacy of our tem- porary domain. Their appearance was immediately announced by the challenge of my vigilant little friend who, pursuing their retreat, plunged after them into the darkness. An angry fight and a faint bark for assistance soon hurried us with lights to the spot. The great wolfish pariahs were driven from their worry, and my poor dog lay moribund on the ground. His ribs had been crushed in, and he was torn all over, and expired in a few minutes without ever a groan. Poor little Jingo ! His death was very sudden, and its sadness heightened by the associations of the locality. I was sorry to lose him, for he was an affectionate and brave dog, and an universal favourite in the camp, where the natives called him Jangu — " the warrior." His death was fully avenged next day, and half-a-dozen savage, mangy curs fell to our rifles.
Shortly after our arrival in camp, Wazir Earn Dhan made his appearance, attended by a long retinue of ser- vants bearing the various comestibles of the dali or " entertainment" sent by the Maharaja. The Wazir set them in array on the turf in front of Colonel Gordon's tent, and welcoming us to Kashmir in the name of His Highness, made the customary health inquiries, and expressed a hope that the arrangements made for our march were such as met approval.
The dali comprised a number of sheep and fowls, and dozens of great pottery jars of rice, and flour, with sugar,
VISIT TO THE MAHARAJA. 71
tea, fruits, and spices, and butter and kitchen stuff of sorts in liberal proportion. They were disposed of in the usual manner — that is, for the most part shared amongst our servants — and our visitor dismissed with compliments and grateful acknowledgments to his master.
Next day, according to arrangement by the Eesident, Mr Le Poer Wynne, we proceeded to visit the Maharaja. At five o'clock in the afternoon his Prime Minister, Diwan Kirpa Earn, arrived in our camp, and after a cere- monial visit conducted our party to the palace in the Slier Garhi Fort, whence a pinnace of the kind called parinda, or " Flier," from its rapid progress, had been sent for our conveyance. Maharaja Eanbir Sing met us at the door of the terrace overlooking the river on which he received us, and greeting each in turn in a friendly manner conducted Colonel Gordon to the chair on the right of his own, the rest of us finding seats on either side. A brief conversation followed on general topics, and then turned on the subject of our journey. Our host warned us of the difficulties of the country on the northern frontier of his territory, and said that, though he had no personal knowledge of its character, the reports of his officials described it as an inhospitable desert waste on which the traveller, however well pro- vided with creature comforts, was liable to suffer from the extremity of cold and the difficulty of respiration. He added, complimenting us on the enterprising charac- ter of our nation, that we would doubtless overcome such obstacles ; and so far as he was concerned, the country he ruled being our own, and his interests identical with ours, we had his best wishes for a prosperous journey and safe return. In proof of which, he concluded, he had issued orders for every assistance to be rendered to our party in all parts of the country under his rule.
On rising to take leave His Highness conducted Colonel
72 KASHMIR AND KASHGHAR.
Gordon to the door, and there, as on arrival, shaking hands all round, dismissed us.
Next morning (the 6th August) Captain Biddulph's party, with Captain Trotter and Dr Stoliczka, marched away in advance en route for Leh ; thence to meet us, by way of the Chang-channmo route, at Shahidulla, which had been fixed as the rendezvous prior to advancing to Yarkand. And in the evening, at the same hour as yesterday, Colonel Gordon, Captain Chapman, and I proceeded to return the visit of Diwan Kirpa Earn, under conduct of Pandit Hira Nand, who came up from the Fort in a government pari n da to do the honours of the ceremony. The Diwan received us in his official residence, adjoining the palace, with every mark of atten- tion, and expressed himself highly gratified at the honour we had conferred on him. He displayed an earnestness to please us, and do all in his power to make smooth the difficulties of our route ; and assured us, that by the Maharaja's orders, he had issued minute instructions to all the frontier officials as to the supply of provisions, with strict injunctions that they were to spare no efforts to ensure our comfort and safety on the march through their respective charges. On taking leave he expressed his hope that we would find the arrangements made for the furtherance of our journey such as would meet our approval.
The experiences of the road so far certainly testified to the sincerity of his words, whilst our future experiences, as it will be my agreeable duty to record hereafter — more fully than we could have expected, both on the march up and down — proved the perfect faith and thorough good- will of our Kashmir friends.
The day had been a thoroughly wet one, and the clouds only began to break and clear away to the mountain tops
BANQUET IN THE RANBIR BAGH. 73
as we set out for our visit. The river was hardly affected by this rainfall at the time of our return to camp, but during the night it rose in flood and inundated the Chinar Bagh to a depth of eight feet. This is a hand- some plantation of very fine plane trees on the bank of the Tsunt Kul or " Apple Tree Canal," which leads from the river to the sluice gates of the Call lake, and from its proximity to the city was at first thought of as the most convenient site for our camp. Other considerations, however, on the score of health and discipline, decided in favour of the more distant and less humid spot, and we very fortunately escaped the inconveniences of a midnight stampede amidst the marsh and mire of that tempting spot.
On the following evening we were entertained at a ban- quet, as the guests of the Maharaja, in the Eanbir Bagh. It is a palace, or hall of entertainment, which stands on a high masonry plinth, and forms a square block with open verandahs all round; and is covered with one of those airy roofs which, in the manner peculiar to this country, slope up from all sides to a central point, there to be topped by another of miniature proportions. It has been recently built in the Kashmir style of architecture, and occupies a prominent isolated position on the river bank above the city, and opposite the quarters allotted for the residence of European visitors, and is furnished in the Indo-European fashion. In front of it, and on either side, is a fine turf promenade supported against the river by a masonry embankment which is ascended from the stream by a substantial flight of stone steps. And in rear, beyond a high bank of turf, is a spacious garden laid out, after our fashion, with fruit-trees, orna- mental shrubs, and flowering plants.
On this occasion a company of infantry, and a military
74 KASHMIR AND KASHGHAR.
band were drawn up on the embankment from the land- ing-steps to the verandah in which the Maharaja received his guests. Here, as throughout the building, the floor was carpeted with a sheeting of snow-white calico, which answered well to counteract the dull reflection from the walls highly embellished with the minute patterns of the Kashmir style of decoration. We found His High- ness and his two youngest sons — pretty and intelligent children — seated at the upper part of the hall with the Eesident and some officers who were visitors in the valley, and his court officers standing in attendance behind him. So approaching to pay our respects, we found seats on the chairs reserved for us on either side to witness the ndch which was to beguile the half-hour before dinner — the grace allowed the unpunctual ones to join the feast.
A troupe of twelve or fourteen dancing girls — the cele- brated beauties of Kashmir — attended by their torch- bearers, now made their appearance at the top of the verandah steps, and with one accord saluting the Maha- raja, quietly seated themselves in a semicircle opposite to us on the floor at the lower end of the hall. From this they rose two and two in turn, and reciting and singing and dancing, slowly worked their way up to where our host was seated ; then saluting, they retired, as gracefully as they had advanced, to make way for the next pair, and so on. I will not attempt to describe this, by us much abused, performance, for want of appropriate words; because the terms " reciting and singing and dancing," which, in default of better, I have used above, do not convey to our ideas a true representation of what they are meant to explain.
Whatever the faults of each, and however unsuited to our tastes, these accomplishments are none the less
THE KASHMIR BAYADERE. 75
appreciated by those amongst whom they flourish, and by whom they are exhibited for our entertainment. Besides, apart from the divergence of taste in these respects, the performance, judged on its own merits, is not altogether unworthy of commendation ; particularly if set in comparison with the spectacles presented so often on our own stage where the ballet is in vogue. With the " bayadere " of Kashmir there is no studied indelicacy of dress, any more than there is abandon in the graceful movements of her limbs. These (the grace- ful movements) are only acquired by long practice and careful training, and to be judged fairly must be viewed with an unprejudiced eye. For the dance of the Kash- mir bayadere as she sails over the floor with those graceful evolutions of the arms and body which attract the eye more than that almost imperceptible movement of the feet — only recognised by the jingling of the ankle bells— is quite a different sight from the fling one sees on the stage, or the performances we go through in the ball- room ; though each may be appropriate in its own sphere.
After two or three rounds had been gone through dinner was announced, and the Maharaja rising conducted the Eesident and Colonel Gordon by either hand to the table, and then retired through a side-door to join Mirza Fazlullah Khan, the Persian Consul General of Bombay, who, happening to be on a tour in the valley, was one of his guests ; whilst the rest of us, following the first lead, ranged ourselves on either side of the board, and in the absence of our host did free justice to the good things provided.
The dinner was served entirely after our own fashion, excepting only the absence of our host from the head of his own table, in deference to an absurd prejudice the natives of India obstinately adhere to. This unjustifiable
76 KASHMIR AND KASHGHAR.
refusal to eat with us is the great stumbling-block in the way of that social intercourse which we strive to culti- vate with our native fellow-subjects, and will never be removed until the native princes send their sons to be educated in English colleges, where they may learn how to associate with us on equal terms.
As it was, the Resident presided, and at the proper time rose to propose the usual toasts — " The Queen " and " The Viceroy." Each in turn was duly responded to, and then Colonel Gordon proposed " The Maharaja," which was received in like manner, all standing. As each toast was drunk, the band, which had been treating us to a variety of music during the meal, struck up "God save the Queen." On the conclusion of the last repetition his Highness acknowledged the compliment in set form through Diwan Kirpa Earn, and then the company rejoined the party in the verandah, where the ndch was continued. In the midst of its performance was heard the squeak of a bagpipe, to the no small astonishment of those who were not in the secret of his coming ; and following it appeared our camp sergeant and piper stepping it gaily up the hall to where we were seated. He saluted the Maharaja, and then by his request gave us a performance. His appearance was splendid and, as in its handsome garb his well set-up form paced solidly up and down the hall, we could not but proudly admire all he represented.
His presence in such a scene was, nevertheless, totally out of place, and even more absurd than our dining without our host ; for it sadly discomfited the fair Kash- miris, whose countenances, instead of curious glances of admiration, depicted only the disgust with which the intrusion filled their hearts. Even the Maharaja, with all his determination to please, could not divest his
A REVIEW OF THE KASHMIR GARRISON. 77
features of the gloom our friend's Gaelic airs had cast upon them, and signalised his pleasure at their cessation, I trow, more likely than out of compliment to us, by ordering a handsome shawl and a purse of gold to be given to the performer.
On our return journey from this entertainment we found the sluice gates of the Dall closed to prevent the rising flood of waters entering ; otherwise the garden plots before mentioned as covering the marshy tract be- tween the river and the lake would have been destroyed by the inundation. We consequently walked across the embankment, and proceeded to camp in a boat which had been thoughtfully provided for us on the other side. It was nearly midnight when we reached camp, glad to have done with the passage by the water way, and escape its damp chills and heavy mephitic odours.
On the 10th we attended one of those military reviews of the Kashmir troops which the Maharaja holds weekly here, on the parade in rear of the Sher Garhi, when residing in this summer capital. We met his Highness as he issued from the gate of the fort, and, accompanying his unostentatious cavalcade, rode down the line paraded for inspection ; and then, turning off to the saluting point, were provided with chairs on the platform from which he viewed the evolutions of his army.
There were about four thousand infantry, two hundred cavalry, and fifty or sixty wall pieces the size of camel guns upon the ground. The men were equipped in uni- form similar to that of the Indian army, though their arms were decidedly inferior, and the men themselves evidently not selected on the merits of physical efficiency. They were, however, on the whole, a light-limbed, active body of men, generally well set-up ; and they marched with creditable regularity. Dogras and Sikhs, amongst whom
7 8 KASHMIR AND KASHGHAR.
were interspersed some Pathans and Hindustanis, com- posed the chief constituents of the force, and a battalion of Baltis, in the extraordinary bonnets and jaunty petti- coats (which display below the knee the neat folds of their leg-bands) of their national garb, formed its most interesting an,d curious feature.
After the manoeuvres the force marched past the plat- form, in front of which their bands had been massed, and took the routes to their different quarters. The Maharaja evinced no keen interest in the spectacle, but, referring to the services his troops had shared in during the mutiny, pointed to them as but a contingent of the Indian army which held these hills as part of the British Empire for the Empress of India, and as at all times ready for the service of the state.
It was originally intended that our camp should halt here for eight or ten days to provide our men and cattle with the warm clothing requisite on the march across the passes, as well as to effect certain changes in our camp-establishment, and alterations and improvements in our mule gear and tent equipage, which the march from Murree had rendered advisable. Our wants in these respects had been promptly attended to by the Kashmir officials who, for the sake of convenience and expedition — for the city was five miles distant by road — had es- tablished a temporary bazar under the trees in the immediate vicinity of our camp, so that the tailoring, cobbling, carpentry and smith- work, &c., required by our party, were at once executed under direct supervision in the booths and workshops that had sprung up around us ; and accordingly on the 14th August I accompanied Colonel Gordon on a farewell visit to the Maharaja to thank him for his attentions to our party, and acknow- ledge the punctuality and assiduity of his officials.
DEPARTURE FROM SRINAGGAR DELAYED. 79
On the eve of our departure, however, orders were received from our chief at Simla directing the halt of the camp here till his arrival on the 29th of the month. The march was consequently postponed, and we devoted the interval to perfecting the arrangements which had already been made. But the time hung heavily, and the fortnight proved a weary one amidst the fevers and the musquitos of the spot — which, after all, was the best site for our purpose the locality afforded. Not even the interest of lessons in Turki, nor the diversion of shooting grebe, coots, and water-pheasants amongst the reeds and weeds of the lake, nor yet the ridiculous rumours gossip brought us from the city, sufficed to enliven our stay amidst such pests ; and finally, when our chief did arrive, the order to march was hailed with joy by us all, only too glad to change our forced inactivity in the alluring shades of Nasim Bagh and its fever poison for the excitements of the road and the pure air of the mountains.
Prior to our departure from Murree I had been for- tunate enough to secure as one of my personal servants a native of Yarkand who, in 1868, had left his home to make the pilgrimage to Mecca by way of India. His history was a very remarkable one, and may be taken as a type of that of many another who sets out from his remote home in Central Asia to brave the vicissitudes and dangers by land and sea of a journey of which he has no conception other than that it is somehow to carry him to that sacred spot which holds so mysterious a sway over the Muslim mind.
Haji Casim — such was my hero's name — was the son of a baker who kept a shop in one of the principal thoroughfares of Yarkand city. He did a flourishing trade under the rule of the Chinese till the Tungani rebellion,
8o KASHMIR AND KASHGHAR.
filling the streets with bloodshed, violence, and plunder, necessitated his closing his business and secreting him- self and family for very life in the store vaults and cellars under his tenement. The father died during these troubles, and on their subsidence the widow with her children, emerging from their lurking, re-opened the shop. And Casirn now worked the business with his mother, and was a witness of all those eventful changes which the city underwent till it was finally taken by Atalik Ghazi.
On the restoration of order, and the revival of Islam under the new rule, he took advantage of the favouring opportunity, and with some four or five other members of the family, leaving his mother to mind the shop, joined a caravan of pilgrims who were setting out for Kashmir, on the long journey they were bound, in com- pany with a party despatched by the successful conqueror with presents for the holy shrine at Mecca.
He and his companions set out on their unconsidered wanderings with what few necessaries their humble state allowed of their collecting laden on three ponies, which also served to alleviate from time to time the fatigues of their weary march. They had, besides, a joint sum of money, hardly exceeding five pounds of our money, to meet the expenses of a journey of as many thousand miles.
By the time they reached Leh two of their three ponies had succumbed to the hardships of the road, and their carcases were left to desiccate and bleach with the thou- sands of others which mark the traveller's track across those terrible Tibat highlands. "Whilst the other proved such an expense in a country where money was the medium of exchange, and in a land where there was no free pasture, that he was sold to avoid threatened bank-
STORY OF A PILGRIM. 81
ruptcy, and, instead thereof, to increase their slender means. With their small stock of money thus nearly- doubled, the party made their way to Srinaggar, and thence through the Panjab to Bombay, where they em- barked in a native pilgrim boat with a crowd of others for one of the Arab ports.
Our Haji's account of his adventures and losses is too long and confused, from his ignorance of the names of many of the places on the route followed, for profitable insertion here. Let it suffice for us to know that he did get to Mecca, and piously performed the prescribed rites there ; that he somehow found himself in Constantinople, and somehow returned thence to Lahore, a veritable pil- grim, a lonely, friendless stranger. His aunt had died in one place, her daughter had disappeared at another, his brother was lost somewhere else, and finally he and his cousin, of about his own age, lost sight of each other in the maze of some great Indian city, and neither knows the other's fate, or did not up to July last year.
The troubles and perplexities of this doomed little band appear to have commenced at Leh, and tracked their steps in all their perilous wanderings. In one place they were cheated of their money by knaves, in another they were fed by the charity of the pious, and more often they earned their living and worked their way by odd jobs here and there.
From Lahore Haji Casim found his way to Leh as a mule-driver in the train of a Panjabi merchant ; and, arrived here, he was stopped short at the threshold of his own home by a singular accident. He fell ill by ex- posure on the march, and applied for relief at the Charitable Dispensary established here by the British Government in connection with the office of the Joint Commissioner. The Hospital assistant, Khuda Bakhsh,
F
82 KASHMIR AND KASHGHAR.
took an interest in the forlorn stranger, and after his recovery provided for him as a domestic servant in his own family.
Khuda Bakhsh subsequently abandoned the profession for more profitable employment in the Commissariat Department, and hearing of my want, obligingly placed the Haji at my service with the view to his visiting his home.
During our stay at Srinaggar, with the aid of my books, I found him a very useful assistant in picking up some acquaintance with the language of his country ; whilst, in Kasghar, his services were freely in requisition by most of us. His sudden rise to such prosperity and importance led him into some extravagancies — not the least of them marrying a wife and treating her friends to a succession of feasts. But this may be passed as excusable, since he considered it his duty to maintain the dignity of his position as a servant in the Embassy, and in no way detracts from his merits as an intelligent and trustworthy guide. He accompanied me back to Srinaggar, and there meeting Mr Shaw's party going up to Kashghar, he resigned my service to return with his camp to the bride he had left behind him.
CHAPTER III.
THE monotony of our last day's stay at Nasim Bagh was agreeably interrupted on the 25th August by a visit to the Maharaja's silk filature. It is an extensive establishment in the vicinity of the Sher Garhi, and gives employment to 400 men, though, as we were informed, there is work enough for four times the number. Babu Nilambar Dey Mukarji, who has the management of the concern, accompanied us over the establishment, and very obligingly explained the entire process of sericulture.
The industry, it appears, has only been introduced here during the last two or three years on the system in vogue in Bengal, and from the results already achieved, promises soon to be a productive source of wealth for this country, so as in some measure to compensate for the decline of the shawl trade in this ancient seat of its prosperity.
The spinning-wheels we saw here were worked by hand, but at the larger filature at Raghonathpur, on the shore of the Dall, we were told they are worked by water power. The silk appeared to be of remarkably good quality, with a soft and fine fibre, and, from a cor- respondence on the subject shown to us, some samples which had been sent to London were pronounced by Messrs Durant and Co. as worth from twenty-three to twenty-four shillings the pound. The outturn of silk last year is estimated at two lakhs of rupees, of which
84 KASHMIR AND KASHGHAR.
ninety-five thousand are reckoned as profit. For the same period twenty maunds or 1600 pounds of eggs were stored for breeding. One ounce of eggs produces, it is said, forty thousand worms. And these produce 120 ounces of silk. We saw the silk reeled in one part of the establishment being woven into lengths in another by the ordinary hand-loom, and were shown some samples of a new fabric for the production of which experiments were still in course of progress. They were a combination of shawl-wool and silk, and seemed durable and warm, but felt stiff and rough.
From the silk filature we went to the Maharaja's Charitable Dispensary, which stands in a very good position on the river bank, and is under the charge of Dr Gopal Dass, formerly a sub-assistant surgeon on the Indian Establishment, who kindly conducted us over it.
The institution is managed entirely on European principles, as in our own establishments of the same kind, and is a great boon to the people on whom, in a quiet, unobserved way, it confers unknown benefits. Amongst the patients we saw a case of amputation of the thigh, and another of the leg, both of which were well advanced towards recovery. The records showed that twenty-two other surgical operations of an impor- tant nature, including three of lithotomy, had been performed here during the current year, and all suc- cessfully, except one of the lithotomy cases which terminated fatally. The charity is worthy of every support and encouragement, yet it is rarely visited by the Maharaja or his court officials, though in justice it must be recorded that it is amply provided with European medicines and surgical instruments by him.
On the appointed day — the 29th August — a salute
THE MAHARAJA VISITS THE ENVOY. 85
fired at Srinaggar warned us of the arrival of our chief. We accordingly donned our uniform, and hastened to the Kesidency to welcome him, and pay our respects, and were glad to find him none the worse for his rapid ride from Murree.
On the next day Mr Forsyth, attended by his staff, paid a ceremonial visit to the Maharaja, which his Highness returned on the following morning. A spa- cious tent and Shahmiydna, or " king in the centre " awning, had been prepared for the reception on the turfy bank overlooking the Dall ; and the slope from the landing up to the tent had been laid with a strip of white calico, on either side of which were ranged our guard of " Guides " to do the honours. Captain Chapman went down to the palace to escort his Highness who, on arrival, was received at the landing by Colonel Gordon and myself, and conducted to the tent, where he was welcomed by the Envoy and Plenipotentiary, under a salute from the guard, and a skirl on the pipes by Sergeant Ehind.
The Maharaja— his eldest son, Miyan Partab Sing, being prevented by indisposition — was accompanied by his two younger sons, Earn Sing and Ammar Sing, aged ten and eleven years respectively, and was attended by Diwan Kirpa Earn, and eight or ten other principal officers of his court. The ceremony passed off with the usual formalities and courtesies, and our visitors on departure went to spend the day in the cool retreat of the Nishat Bagh, or " garden of delight," on the further shore of the Dall.
On the following evening the Embassy was entertained by the Maharaja at a banquet in the Eanbir Bagh. The guests included the European community at the time in the place, and the feast was graced by the
86 KASHMIR AND KASHGHAR.
presence of ladies. The assembly was one for the usual toasts and speeches proper to the occasion, and con- cluded with a handsome acknowledgment by the Envoy of the kindness and hospitality of our princely host.
With this parting proof of friendship terminated our month's halt at Srinaggar, and on the following morning — the 3rd September — our camp broke ground, and marched to Gandarbal, at the entrance to the Sind valley, where we camped under the shade of some mag- nificent plane trees such as are only to be found in this country. It is the first village we have come to in the district of Lar (which extends from Manasbal to Sona Marg, and is said to contain a hundred villages and hamlets, few of which, however, contain as many as thirty houses), and on this occasion presented a bustle of activity such as it seldom witnesses.
Our own camp comprised 103 mules of the fixed establishment, and nearly as many camp followers of sorts. And we employed, besides, eighty-seven hired ponies, and two or three score of coolies. We were all closely packed on the side of the road, between the village and the ridge at the foot of which it lies ; for the land beyond spreads on to the Kashmir plain in a wide stretch of rice swamp and reed marsh, which extends away to the Manasbal lake.
Around us were grouped, in picturesque disorder, the tents of our Kashmir attendants, and the piles of provi- sions they had collected for our use ; whilst a stream of coolies and baggage-ponies continued through the day to file past, on their way to the stages ahead. The complimentary speech of the Envoy on the preceding evening had evidently flattered the vanity of our good friends, and stimulated their exertions on our behalf; and their service, here renewed, smoothed our way,
MARCH AWAY FROM SRINAGGAR. 87
stage by stage, till in due course we passed to the pro- tection of our Kashghar allies.
At a mile or two beyond Gandarbal is the village of Arr, on the bank of a small stream, of the same name, which empties into the Dall at Telbal. It has some paper-mills, worked by water-power, the sound of whose pounders at work reached our camp. The fibre of the wild hemp plant, which grows here in abundance, is the material used, mixed up with old rags, &c. The pulp is merely mashed and washed here, and then con- veyed to the city to be made into paper. Another plant which grows in abundance here, and much more plenti- fully in the Kashmir valley, is the krishun, a species of iris lily, the leaves of which are used for making ropes.
The evening closed here with the side-eddies of a storm of thunder and lightning, which swept across the plain from west to east, but caused us no further commotion than a securing of pegs and trenching of tent walls in anticipation of the threatened downpour.
From Gandarbal we marched to Kangan, twelve miles, and camped in a grove of walnut and plane trees near a silkworm nursery. The route at first winds amongst cultivated fields and orchards to the homesteads of Nunar, and further on leads across a high shelf of land which drops precipitously to the bed of the Sind river. We here crossed the stream on a ricketty bridge of long fir poles which were stretched across between two piers built up of loose boulders at the edges of the current, and floored with cross bars of rough split logs. By another similar bridge, beyond the homesteads of Palang, we crossed a tributary stream coming down from the Har- mukh mountain, and then following up the course of the main river reached Kangan.
After the storm last night, the morning broke with a
88 KASHMIR AND KASHGHAR.
clear, sunny sky ; and, as we passed up the valley, we saw its beautiful scenery to the best advantage — wood- land and mountain alike radiant in verdure refreshed by recent showers. Vegetation is luxuriant everywhere, and quite conceals from view the little farmsteads scat- tered along the hill skirt.
The umbrageous walnut and mulberry clustered about them hardly attract attention amongst the general growth of apricot, plum, and apple trees which over- spread the surface, and conceal from view the little plots of rice and millets and vetches, or the narrow strips of amaranth and buckwheat, which, more than the self- growing fruit-trees, are the cultivator's care.
The two last constitute an important item of the winter diet of the peasant here. The amaranth seed is consumed in the form of porridge boiled with milk, and is considered a warm and nourishing food. The other is roasted and ground to flour, and then baked in thick cakes mixed with walnut or apricot oil, which in this country are in common use for domestic and culinary purposes.
Evening closed at Kangan with a storm of thunder and lightning on the hills around ; and next morning, as we followed our path to Gund, a few stray clouds over- head showered their contents upon us, and then, with- drawing to the hill tops, disclosed to our view the glorious scene we were marching through.
As we proceeded up the winding course of its stream, the hills on either side closed in upon the channel of the Sind river in long slopes of pine and cedar forest which terminate only at its edges. Bright, grassy glades opened vistas through the mass of sombre forest, the ge- nerally dull hue of which was agreeably lighted here and there by foliage of varied form and colour ; whilst rifts in the overtopping clouds now and_again favoured us with
THE VALLEY OF THE S1ND RIVER. 89
transient glimpses of rugged peaks projecting against the sky, of stupendous banks of bare rock marking the limit of vegetation, and of snow- clad mountain summits form- ing the junction of radiating spurs.
The air was delightfully fresh and perfumed with the honied scent of a multitude of wild flowers, amongst which the familiar meadow-sweet claimed welcome recognition from its abundance. Our men and cattle partook of its enlivening benefits, and showed by their merry song and buoyant steps that they had already recovered from the fevers and lassitudes of our Srinaggar halt. On our way we passed the village of Terewdn, with Hayan on the opposite side of the river, and four miles on came to Hciri, with Ganjawdn on the other bank. A little further on we crossed the river by a bridge similar to those between Gandarbal and Kangan, and, passing through a wood, crossed some cultivated fields to Sumbal, and beyond the village recrossed the river by a bridge, the span of which is, I think, greater than that of any other we saw on this route. At all events, the vibration was greater and the undulation of the poles unsteadied one's gait in an uncomfortable manner.
From Gandarbal up to the Nubra valley all these bridges are exactly alike, and consist merely of two or three long fir trunks stretched across between buttress piers of loose boulders built upon either edge of the torrent, and laid above with cross pieces of rough split log. They are called Sanga, and seldom have any side railing. They are only safe to cross on foot, owing to the unsteady motion of the poles being apt to make a horse restive. Laden cattle, too, should only cross one at a time.
Beyond the Sumbal bridge we passed through a strip of terraced cultivation to Pra"o, and two or three miles further on halted for breakfast a little way short of
90 KASHMIR AND KASHGHAR.
Gund, where our camp, going on, was pitched on a ledge overlooking the river — distance fifteen miles. The route traversed up to this point, and, indeed, up to Kezin, eight miles further on, is a prosperous though not very populous tract. The peasantry appeared to be comfort- ably off, and their farmsteads well stocked with kine, ponies, sheep, and goats. In most of the villages the bee is hived, and at Pra"o we were presented with a fresh honeycomb for our breakfast.
From Gund we marched to Shat Gari, fifteen miles. For the first three miles, up to Eevil, the road is difficult, and leads across a steep hill slope in parts of which it is built up against the side of a vertical wall of rock. Beyond Eevil — which is a small cluster of farmsteads embowered amidst splendid walnut trees very pictu- resquely grouped together at the entrance of the Gumbur glen, winding up amongst wild hills to the northward — it passes over a considerable stretch of cultivation which slopes down to the river in a succession of terraces, and conducts to the village of Kulan. Here it crosses the river and traverses the flat reach on which stand the homesteads of Gwipara and Rezin ; beyond these it recrosses to Gaganger, where we breakfasted under the shade of its walnut trees.
Onwards from this the road becomes difficult, and lies for about four miles, with numerous ascents and descents en route, along the foot of precipitous cliffs which wear a singularly wild aspect. Kugged ridges top the hills and shoot up in sharp peaks against the sky ; whilst the thinning forests on the lower slopes barely hide the nakedness of their rocks. In many parts the path was obstructed by the debris of slate and sandstone which had fallen from the slopes above, and several loads were thrown in the passage of these obstructions. We were,
MO UNTAIN SCENER Y AT SON A MARG. 9 1
however, well supplied with coolies to meet such contin- gencies, and no loss or delay occurred. On our return journey this way, the following year, we found this road, which is called Hang Sattu, had been repaired and made easy. Beyond it we crossed the river, and camped on a flowery meadow lying along its bank, under the shadow of a forest- covered ridge which concealed from our view much of the magnificent scenery of the locality.
At Shat Gari the valley branches off in different direc- tions, and forms an amphitheatre in the hills. Its undu- lating surface is covered with a profuse growth of flowering plants, and its surroundings present some of the finest scenery to be found in Kashmir — mountains and glaciers, forest slopes and pasture meadows, with sparkling torrents and gloomy defiles being all combined in one landscape. Shat Gari, the village of eight or ten houses near which we are camped, is said to signify " The seven hills," from the number of peaks that enclose its basin which is more commonly called Sona Marg, or " The golden meadow," from the flowery slopes at its further end, where is the village of that name.
The rise in this march is considerable. I made it 1848 feet by the difference in the boiling point of water, which gave the elevation at Shat Gari as 8506 feet. The change in climate and difference in temperature, too, were very sensible ; the maxima and minima being 78° Fah. and 45° Fah. respectively, against 83° Fah. and 53° Fah. on the last day of our stay at Nasim Bagh.
This is a favourite summer resort of tourists in Kash- mir, and the hills around contain the hunting-grounds of the sportsman. The stag, or barasing, ranges their forests and feeds on the grassy glades that break their thick shades ; the ibex, or Jcel, disports himself on their inac- cessible crags, and roams the pastures on their loftiest
92 KASHMIR AND KASHGHAR.
slopes, where the wild goat, or mdrkhor, keeps him company, and divides the dominion; and the brown bear, or hdputs, lurks in the gullies and ravines ; whilst the monal pheasant hides his bright plumage in the favouring foliage of the woods he inhabits ; and the snow pheasant mixes his less attractive colours with the similar hues of the rocks he lives amongst. In winter this region is deeply covered with snow, and then the few houses, which here constitute the last signs of habitation in this direction, are deserted by their tenants, excepting such as are retained here by the governor for the purpose of keeping open the communication with the country beyond.
From Shat Gari we marched across Sona Marg and, crossing the river above the village, followed up its course to Baltal — " The foot of the pass " — where we camped near some log huts which are used as a post stage and shelter for travellers. Distance twelve miles. The Sind river is here joined by a considerable tributary which flows through a picturesque gorge that winds down from the south-east, whilst the main stream coming down from the north-east, and which appears the smaller of the two, is lost to view in the dark, deep chasm of the Zojibal a little way ahead. Vegetation here — which is the limit of its luxuriance in this direction — is very profuse, particularly in pasture and flowering plants. I collected the seeds of several different kinds, which, with others gathered at various stages on our route, I sent to Dr Hooker at Kew, and Mr Anderson Henry at Edinburgh.
I remembered this was the spot indicated to me as the natural home of the Mt or " costum," by the carriers we met on the march to Srinaggar, but searched the vicinity of the camp in vain for the plant. Nor could I find amongst the crowd of coolies about us any one who even
PASS FROM KASHMIR TO TIB AT. 93
knew the name. They were for the most part strangers to the locality, having been collected here from distant parts of the district for the service of this special occa- sion; and though they could not help me themselves, one of them got me a native of the locality from the post huts hard by, who brought me in some specimens from a hill a few miles off.
Our next stage was to Matayan. Marching next day — the 7th September — from Baltal, we crossed the Zojibal pass, and shortly after passed from the territory of Kash- mir proper to that of Tibat. We left behind us a beau- tiful country, luxuriant in vegetation ever fresh in the moist atmosphere of its climate, and entered a region in the dry air of which no tree and no herb flourished away from the banks of its rivers and water-courses. We lost the varied and picturesque scenery of limestones and sandstones, with their always pleasing landscapes of wood- land and pasture, and found instead the dreary wastes and wilds of schists and shales, of granites and gneiss rocks, with their interminable monotony of desolation, only varied by repetition of inhospitable glacier. And we parted from a well-favoured people who present, in their comely features and robust frames, one of the purest forms of that diversified family of the Caucasian race — the Aryan ; and we met another who as distinctly bear all the typical characters of that great branch of the Mongol stock — the Tatar. And with the change we passed from one set of dialects to another — from Aryan to Turanian ; and from professors of one religion to those of another — from the Musalman to the Budhist. And, finally, on passing from one region to the other we came upon new manners and dresses, different plants and different ani- mals. We found polyandry in place of polygamy, and the bonnet in place of the turban. We found a pasture
94 KASHMIR AND KASHGHAR.
of peculiar herbs in place of the common grasses. And we found the grunting ox and hybrids in place of the familiar bullock and kine. The limit between these two regions of such opposite characters is the water- shed of the Sind and Dras rivers, which trickle away from it west and east respectively. It is an almost im- perceptible saddle-shaped elevation running across the narrow col about five miles beyond the pass ; and, though we found only a few scattered wreaths lying under the shade of its sides, it is for eight months of the year buried deeply under snow.
The pass itself, however, is the great object of atten- tion here, as it forms the most serious obstacle in the way of uninterrupted communication with the regions to the north. It is called Zoji-la by the Tibetans, and Zoji-bdl by the Kashmiris. The terminal syllable, in the language of each respectively, signifies " hill pass," and the proper name is a corruption of Shivaji or Sheoji, one of the three great Hindu deities.
The pass is closed to traffic during nearly half the year, and is entirely impassable except to post couriers, and then at peril, during two months. The Envoy of AtalikGhazi crossed this pass last December with extreme difficulty, and lost, so I was informed here, eleven of the coolies of his convoy, who perished in a snow-drift. It is crossed by two roads ; one of these follows up the bed of the river, and passes over the blocks of ice and snow-drift which block the narrow gorge or gap through which it flows ; and the other winds up the steep slope of the hill rising above this gap to the north. The first is seldom used owing to its dangers, and is only practic- able to footmen ; the other is a very fair road, and is kept in repair by the Kashmir authorities.
We followed the latter route, and at the summit of the
CROSSING OF THE ZOJILA PASS. 95
pass found the elevation by the boiling point of water to be about 11,400 feet above the sea, and 2118 feet above Baltal. The path is very steep and zigzag up the face of a high cliff which forms one side of the gorge. Our long file of mules got over very well, and without further loss than that of two casks of mess liquor, which went over the side, and were only picked up in the bed of the river below, where, through their stoved-in sides, the limpid waters of the Sind river quickly replaced the Scotch whisky and French brandy which were to have served us through the winter. The descent on the other side is easy, and leads down to the river channel above where it narrows and drops suddenly in the gorge. We crossed to the opposite bank over a mass of hard impacted snow which sloped steeply to the gorge.
This pass is of historical interest as being the spot at which the Yarkand troops of Sultan Said, in 1531 A.D., defeated its defenders. The circumstance is recorded by the principal actor in the enterprise — Mirza Muhammad Hydar — in his history of the Mughal Khans of Kashghar. He wrote his book in the " city of Kashmir," or Srinag- gar, in 1544 A.D., and entitled it Tarikhi Eashidi or " The Annals of Eashid," who was the reigning Khan of Kashghar at that time. During our stay in the country I obtained a good copy of this book, and from its pages have derived several interesting historical memorials connected with different parts of the route we traversed. In his account of this campaign, which was undertaken as a ghaza or " crescentade" against the infidels of Tibat, Sultan Said set out from Yarkand in the last month of the Muhammadan year 938, corresponding with April or May of our year 1531, with an army of 5000 men, and crossing the Caracoram, came upon his enemies' first settlements in the Nubra valley. His force marched in
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two divisions, one of which — under the joint command of his son Iskandar, and his minister Mirza Hydar — pro- ceeded some days in advance, whilst the other under command of Said himself followed in rear.
Sultan Said suffered so severely from difficulty of breathing in the passage of the highlands — on which he subsequently died — that his officers, alarmed for his safety, hurried him off to the lower valleys, and des- patched messengers to warn Mirza Hydar of the king's distress. The first division had advanced in their vic- torious career as far as Maryol or Ladakh when they were overtaken by this intelligence ; and Mirza Hydar, immediately retracing his steps, joined his master in Nubra, where he found that the sufferer had quite recovered from his troubles on passing out of the sphere of the causes which produced them.
After this the invaders spent four or five months in active guerilla with the inhabitants, and overran their thinly peopled valleys, plundering, slaughtering, captivat- ing, and converting till they had devastated the whole country. Winter was now approaching, and it was dis- covered that the country was incapable of supporting their numbers until the return of spring should enable them to retrace their steps across the passes.
It was consequently decided to divide their force, and seek winter quarters elsewhere. Sultan Said with one thousand men penetrated into the Balti country, which is described as situated between Badakhshan and Bolor, and was received as a guest by its chief, one Bahram Toe. He and his people, it would seem, were Musalmans — proba- bly of the heretic Shia sect ; for the Yarkandis — of the orthodox Sunni creed — treated them in a very un- brotherly fashion, and abused their host's hospitality by turning his subjects out of their houses, killing
WINTER QUARTERS IN KASHMIR. 97
the men, enslaving the women and appropriating their chattels.
Mirza Hydar, with the youthful Iskandar and the other four thousand of the force, minus a small detach- ment left in Nubra, set out to make their way into Kashmir. They arrived at the Zojibal pass about November or December and found it deep in snow, and defended by four hundred of the enemy — apparently people of Dras. These, however, were soon put to flight by the overwhelming number of their assailants, and the Yarkandis, hurrying on, reached Srinaggar on the second evening, camping only one night midway ;. thus fighting a battle, and marching at least seventy miles within the space of forty-eight hours.
At Srinaggar they were hospitably received by the king, one Muhammad Shah, who enlivened the monotony of the winter months by celebrating a marriage between his daughter and the Yarkand prince.
In the ensuing spring the crescentaders issued from their respective retreats. The rigours of the winter in Balti, it would seem, somewhat chilled the fervour of Sultan Said's religious zeal, for he set out forthwith to re- turn to his capital. On reaching the elevated plateaux he was again seized with his former ailment, and, though hurried on by double stages towards the place where the difficulty of breathing or dam is known to cease, he ex- pired midway, only a few miles from the Caracoram pass, just twelve months after he had set out on this ill-fated expedition.
On his departure from Nubra Said had ordered Mirza Hydar to prosecute the gliaza, and carry the victorious banner of Islam into the very metropolis of the infidels — to Aorsang, or Ouchang, or Hlassa itself — consequently the Kashmir division set out from Maryol on the enter-
G
98 KASHMIR AND KASHGHAR.
prise without delay, as the goal of their ambition was dis- tant a journey of two months. The force endured incredible sufferings and losses from cold, privation, and effects of altitude, and after wandering about for two months were compelled to retreat on Maryol before they had ac- complished half the distance to their destination. They now learned of the death of Said, of the revolution in Kashghar, and the accession to the throne of his eldest son, Sultan Eashid, by the murder of Mirza Hydar 's uncle, Sayyid Muhammad Khan — who had seized on the government in favour of Iskandar — and of the recall of Iskandar with the army, and of the proscription of Mirza Hydar. The winter was now setting in, and the joint commanders decided on sharing what fortune provided together. By deaths and desertions their force had been reduced to five hundred men. With these they seized the fort of Kalasiya or Gala Shiya, and in it held out till spring, subsisting on the ten thousand sheep they had captured on their way down. With the opening of the roads they invaded Bang Shigar, and after ravaging the country for two months finally returned to Maryol, where the remnant of the force dispersed to return as best they could to Yarkand. On the approach of the third winter Mirza Hydar and Iskandar, with their following reduced to fifty men, set out together to seek a safer retreat. By the time they reached the Caracoram their men were reduced to twenty-seven. Of these, four returned with Iskandar to Yarkand, and the rest followed Mirza Hydar on his venturesome journey by an un- known track through Bashgam and Pamir to Badakhshan. And thus ended the Yarkand invasion of Tibat in 1531 — the first and last from that direction of which we have any record. To resume the narrative of our march, whence we
CHANGE OF CLIMATE AND SCENE. 99
digressed for this historical memorandum. After cross- ing the Zoji La to the opposite bank of the river-bed the path follows up its course to the water-shed, the eleva- tion of which is, by hypsometric observation, 11,300 feet. Beyond it the route passes down the " col," along the gradually growing stream of the Dras river, and over a moorland covered with turf and peat beds down to a tributary from a glacier close on the right. We here first came upon the marmots for which this locality is famous. Further on the road, crossing other tributaries, conducts to Matdyan. Distance 14 miles. There are no trees here, but there is a good deal of cultivation, mostly barley, on the long strip of alluvium which here forms the valley. The change in climate and scene is sudden and complete. The birch and willow, with some juniper, soon cease beyond the water-shed, and then the hills assume that dreary, bare, treeless aspect which is their character throughout the rest of our journey. The air too is sen- sibly drier and lighter, whilst the change in phy- siognomy, dress, and language are no less strange. Dras, 13 miles, was our next stage. It is a collection of half- a-dozen hamlets dispersed over the inequalities of a spacious basin in these close set hills, and forms the capital of the Dras