274 TKAVEL, ADVENTURE, AND SPORT. 



Jainii, which is much more populous than Kashmir. 

 Captain Bates says that the estimate of the Maha- 

 rajah's Government, founded on a partial census taken 

 in 1869, gave only 475,000; but that is better than 

 the population of the year 1835, when oppression, 

 pestilence, and famine had reduced it so low as 

 200,000. It is, however, not for want of producing 

 that the population is small ; for, according to the 

 same authority, " it is said that every woman has, at 

 an average, ten to fourteen children." I do not quite 

 understand this kind of average ; but it seems to 

 mean that, on an average every woman has twelve 

 children. That shows a prodigious fecundity, and is 

 the more remarkable when we learn that the propor- 

 tion of men to women is as three to one. This dis- 

 proportion is produced by the infamous export of 

 young girls to which I have already alluded ; and 

 it is impossible that such a traffic could be carried 

 on without the connivance of the Government, or, at 

 least, of a very large number of the Government 

 officials. Dr Elmslie's estimate of the population of 

 Kashmir, including the surrounding countries and 

 the inhabitants of the mountains, was 402,700 of 

 these 75,000 being Hindus, 312,700 being Siiri 

 Mohammedans, and 15,000 Shias. His estimate of 

 the population of Srinagar was 127,000 ; but the cen- 

 sus of the Government in 1869 gave 135,000 for 

 that city. 



At night our boatmen used to catch fish by holding 



