86 



SHIKAR 



Cattle are used for carriage, countless droves being 

 employed in the conveyance of salt, and every other 

 article of merchandise between Cashmere and the adjoin- 

 ing countries. As food the milk is eaten when curdled, 

 and some ' ghee ' is made, but not for the market. 



Sheep are plentiful and large flocks are brought into 

 the valley to depasture from Cashmere. Their fleece is 

 their chief remunerating property. A few goats are 

 reared, and at every village I have met with a score or 

 so of ponies of an indifferent, leggy breed. Fowls are 

 not plentiful, and gardens appear nowhere. 



The inhabitants are very low in the scale of civilization, 

 but as they have little acquaintance with things beyond 

 their valley, they have few wants or desires which it 

 does not supply. Their existence is patriarchal and 

 simple. Either sex have but one style of garment, a 

 baggy, shapeless smock of warm woollen homespun, the 

 produce of their own flocks, and the work of their own 

 hands. 



Their houses, or hovels, are of wood, the sides of logs, 

 the interstices filled with clay, the roofs of split slabs. No 

 care is taken in their construction to fit them for pro- 

 tection from the extreme rigours of the winter; so I 

 conclude their inmates suffer much at that season, as do 

 their flocks and herds, as their unthrifty, apathetic 

 habits do not allow them to store up sufficient dry fodder 

 to support them, while the deep snows cover the ground. 

 Dirt and filth abound in the villages and their precincts ; 

 and the people are martyrs to hydrophobia. The males 

 are stout, hale, and well-looking : the females, as far as 

 my limited opportunities of observation permitted an 

 opinion, are haggard and ugly. They, poor creatures ! 

 as in all races where man's nature is least refined, have 

 the greater portion of the labours of life to endure. 



