KASHMIR. 245 



in numbers to retiro, for a time, before invaders, from 

 their fertile lands into their mountain fastnesses. 

 As it is, they are abominably used and they use each 

 other abominably. It seemed to me that every 

 common soldier of the Maharajah of Kashmir felt 

 himself entitled to beat and plunder the country 

 people ; but I noticed that my boatmen tried to do 

 the same when they thought they were unobserved 

 by me. The Maharajah himself holds an open court 

 on one day every week, at which the meanest peasant 

 is nominally free to make his complaint, even if it 

 be against the highest officials ; but I was told, by 

 very good authority, that this source of redress was 

 practically inoperative, not because the Maharajah 

 was unwilling to do justice, but because there was 

 such a system of terrorism that the common people 

 dared not come forward to complain. Great improve- 

 ments have already been made under the present 

 ruler of Kashmir ; but he is one man among many, 

 and when a corrupt and oppressive officialdom has 

 existed in a country for ages, it cannot be rooted out 

 in one reign. 



Our position in Kashmir is a very curious one, and 

 reflects little credit upon the British name. By the 

 Treaty of Amritsar, concluded in 1846 after the first 

 Panjab war, we actually sold the country to Golab 

 Singh, the father of the present Maharajah, for seventy- 

 five lacs of rupees, or rather less than three-quarters 

 of a million sterling ; but so little welcome was he, 



