268 TRAVEL, ADVENTUKE, AND SPORT. 



however, which have been published very recently, 

 will be found of great use to the traveller of our day. 

 First and foremost of these is ' A Vocabulary of the 

 Kashmiri Language,' by the late lamented medical 

 missionary, Dr "W. J. Elmslie, published by the 

 Church Missionary House in London in 1872. It 

 is a small volume, and gives the Kashmiri for a great 

 number of English words, as well as the English for 

 Kashmiri ones ; and he has managed to compress 

 into it a large amount of valuable and accurate in- 

 formation in regard to the valley, its products and its 

 inhabitants. To any one who has a talent for lan- 

 guages, or who has had a good deal of experience in 

 acquiring them, it will be found a very easy matter 

 to learn to speak a little modern Kashmiri, which is 

 nearly altogether a colloquial language ; and for this 

 purpose Dr Elmslie's vocabularies the fruit of six 

 laborious seasons spent in the country will be found 

 invaluable. The acquisition of this language is also 

 rendered easy by its relationship to those of India 

 and Persia. The largest number of its words, or 

 about 40 per cent, are said to be Persian ; Sanscrit 

 gives 25 ; Hindusthani, 15 ; Arabic, 10 ; and the 

 Turanian dialects of Central Asia, 15. The letters 

 of ancient Kashmiri closely resemble those of San- 

 scrit, and are read only by a very few of the Hindu 

 priests in Kashmir ; and it is from these that the 

 Tibetan characters appear to have been taken. The 

 second important work to which I allude has not 



