A LAND INDEPENDENT OF RAIN. 407 



Kashmir, we may add, has an irregular and un- 

 certain rainy season of its own, but the rainfall is 

 often insignificant and in general does not come at the 

 right time of year to supply the moisture necessary 

 to perfect the growth of crops. Thus it happens that 

 "every great famine that has occurred in K ashmir has 

 been caused not by the summer droughts, but by a 

 too mild winter, or by heavy rains in the hot season, 

 which have flooded the plains and destroyed the crops." * 



Nevertheless, owing to the copious irrigation afforded 

 during the hot weather by the snow streams, the valley 

 of Kashmir may be described in general terms as " a 

 green land of woods and pastures." f But the moment 

 the lofty snowy ridge, which divides Kashmir from 

 Ladak and other mountain states to the northward 

 and eastward is traversed; the traveller is met with 

 the same remarkable contrast that is observed in Peru. 

 This great divide has not failed to intercept and 

 condense the atmospheric vapours ; and in consequence 

 " on crossing the Zoji La pass (13,400 feet over sea-level) 

 one suddenly enters the great black wastes of Central 

 Asia, where there is practically no rainfall, and where 

 even the winter snowfall on the mountain tops, is light, " 

 because the snow has fallen almost entirely on the 

 opposite side of the ridge; the climate of Ladak there- 

 fore, says the Encyclopedia Britannica, 



"is intensely dry, and practically rainless, the little snow 

 which falls soon disappearing; above a certain height no dew 

 is deposited, and rapid alternations of temperature are the 



* Where Three Empires Meet (Travels in Kashmir, Ladak, etc.), by 

 E. F. Knight, 1893, p. 10. 

 t Ibid., p. 105. 

 Ibid., p. 105. 



