1837.] Some account of the valley of Kashmir. 771 



of rice, and reaps 5,500 per cent, has to give two-fifths to the 

 maharaja ; but there are 6 or 7 official harpies in the district who 

 reduce his share to one-fifth. 



The climate of Kashmir is excellent except in the rice fields in the 

 hot weather. It has much altered within a few years. At Shdhbad there 

 used to be ten yards depth of snow ; now two or three only. The 

 thermometer now at noon stands about the summer heat of England : 

 toward the end of July it will rise to 95, but after that the weather 

 soon gets cooler. 



There are different kinds of rice but none very good. The saffron 

 grounds extend for six or seven miles from Sampri to Wintipur 

 nearly. A proportion is carried to Yarkand. Its price in Kashmir is 

 twenty rupees a seer. Wheat returns 4,000 per cent., barley 2,500, 

 &c. It is used for no purpose but cookery, and the Hindu sectarial 

 mark, 



Ganhar, the btitu of the hills is grown but is not much used for 

 bread. Of salgam or turnips, there are two crops in the year ; but of 

 nothing else. Farming is not good : the harrow is unknown, the 

 clods are broken with a kind of mallet. Of 100 persons, eighty eat oil 

 (instead of ghee) of rape, walnut and kanjid, or sesame and linseed, of 

 which there is a great deal grown only for its oil. No cultivated 

 indigo ; poppies are sown for their seed, which is eaten : but they 

 produce no opium. 



The villages in Kashmir have been the very picture of all that is 

 snug and rural, united. There is invariably a clear rattling stream . 

 (well water is unknown, and what there is, is generally brackish ;) 

 two or more huge chinars and a proportion of flowers and fruit-trees. 

 The chindr grows from seed but does not attain its gigantic size 

 unless transplanted. " The palms of Bdramula" exist but in the 

 poets' imagination ; there are none in the valley, nor mangoes, nor 

 orange trees. Those places on which the rays of the morning sun 

 first break are well covered with jangal ; the whole of the south side 

 of the valley for instance ; while the north side, which from the height 

 of the mountain range is kept a long time in shadow, is comparatively 

 destitute of trees, but plentifully covered with grass. The same 

 remark applies to the fruit, which is much better on the south side. 

 Snakes likewise are unknown, I am told, except on those parts that 

 are shone upon by the evening sun. There are fire-places and chim- 

 neys in most of the better houses, which are of two, three, or four 

 stories of brick and wood, with pointed roofs and open gable ends, 

 the windows of very elegant lattice work, papered in cold weather* 

 The birch bark is spread over a frame work of poplar stems ; on this 

 5 e 2 



