KASHMIR. 243 



hour's sleep before starting ; and the chief with his 

 people came down on him then, overpowered him, 

 tied his hands behind his back and took him into the 

 wood. Here, seeing preparations made for putting 

 him to death, the unfortunate traveller offered a 

 ransom for his life ; but his captors would not hear 

 of it. They made him kneel down, and, while he 

 Avas offering up a prayer, they hacked off his head 

 after the half-hacking half-sawing way they have of 

 killing sheep in the Himaliya. How this story was 

 gathered has been told in the Journal of the Royal 

 Geographical Society, and tolerably correct accounts 

 of such incidents get abroad in even the wildest parts 

 of the East. The moral of it is that one ought to 

 avoid Yassin rather than that it is dangerous to abuse 

 the Kashmir Government ; but it is no wonder that 

 the three cases just mentioned should have given 

 rise to suspicions when we consider the character of 

 the people, and the powerful motives which the 

 native officials have in preventing any outcry being 

 raised against them. 



Many hundred years ago the Chinese traveller 

 Fa-Hian spoke of the people of Kashmir as being of 

 a peculiarly bad character. Ranjit Singh said to Sir 

 Alexander Burnes, " All the people I send into Kash- 

 mir turn out rascals (haramzada) ; there is too much 

 pleasure and enjoyment in that country. ' r Moorcroft 

 described them as " selfish, superstitious, ignorant, 

 supple, intriguing, dishonest, and false." A more 



