FROM SABATHU TO KASHMIR. 49 



were all in their varied autumn dress, surmounted 

 by forests of pine : altogether I never saw so grand 

 a scene." On the 5th the three Englishmen, Law- 

 rence, Browne, and Hodson, rode down into the 

 valley " amid the acclamations of an admiring 

 population of beggars ! " A few days spent in the 

 valley sufficed to carry out Lawrence's plans for the 

 pacification of Kashmir. 



This chapter may fitly close with Hodson's 

 description of the men and women of Kashmir : 

 "They are a poor wretched set, only good for beasts 

 of burden, — and certainly they can carry a vast load, 

 — their dress, both men and women, being a loose 

 wide-sleeved smock-frock of dirty sackcloth-looking 

 woollen. The men wear a dirty skull-cap on their 

 shaven ' nobs,' and the women a crimson machine, 

 like a flower-pot saucer inverted, from which depends 

 a veil or cloth of the same texture as the frock ; 

 legs and feet clothed in their native dirt. The 

 women are atrociously ugly, and screech like the 

 witches in ' Macbeth ' — so much so, that when the 

 Agent asked me to give them a rupee or two, I felt 

 it my duty to refuse firmly, but respectfully, on the 

 ground that it would be encouraging ugliness ! " 



D 



