286 TRAVEL, ADVENTURE, AND SPORT. 



this ancient temple and gaze over the Valley of Roses. 

 A temple such as Martand, and the city which once 

 stood in its neighbourhood, would not, in all proba- 

 bility, have found a place on this plateau, except at 

 a period when the valley was a great lake. Hence 

 we may presume that this temple and city of the 

 Pandus belonged to a very ancient period when the 

 inhabitants of Kashmir were located on the slopes of 

 the mountains round a great beautiful lake, more 

 picturesquely surrounded than any sheet of water 

 now existing upon the earth. The people were 

 Indo-Aryans, retaining much of the simplicity and 

 rich, powerful naturalness of the Vedic period, but 

 civilised in a very high degree, and able to erect 

 splendid temples to the Sun-god. Associated with 

 their Aryan religion they indulged in the serpent- 

 worship which they had adopted from more primitive 

 races, and perhaps from the rude Turanians of the 

 neighbouring abodes of snow. In these ancient times 

 the people and rulers of Kashmir would be very 

 effectually secluded from aggressive forces. Ju> rapa- 

 cioxis neighbours would be strong enough to disturb 

 their family nationality; and in their splendid climate, 

 with a beautiful lake connecting their various settle- 

 ments, it is far from unlikely that the Aryans in 

 Kashmir may have presented a powerful, natural, 

 and art-loving development, analogous to that which, 

 about the same period, they were beginning to obtain 

 in the favoured Isles of Greece. But, whether pro- 



