64 
ANCIENT GEOGRAPHY OF KAS'MIR. [Extra No. 2, 
almost unique character. We have here a fertile plain embedded among 
high mountain ranges, a single valley large enough to form a kingdom 
for itself and capable of supporting a highly developed civilization. 
Its height above the sea, nowhere less than 5000 feet, and its peculiar 
position assure to it a climate equally free from the heat of India and 
the rigours of cold, peculiar to the higher mountain regions in the north 
and east. 
The form of the country has been justly likened to a great irregular 
oval, consisting of a similarly shaped level vale in the centre and 
a ring of mountains around it. The low and more or less flat part 
of the country measures about 84 miles in length, from south-east to 
north-west, while its width varies from 20 to 25 miles. The area com¬ 
prised in this part lias been estimated at 1800 or 1900 square miles. 1 
Around this great plain rise mountain ranges which enclose it in an 
almost unbroken ring. Their summit lines are everywhere but for a 
short distance at the southernmost point of the oval, more than 10,000 
feet above the sea. For the greatest part they rise above 13,000 feet, 
while the peaks crowning them tower up to altitudes close on 18,000 
feet. Reckoned from the summit lines of these ranges, the length of 
the irregular oval enclosed by them is 'about 116 miles, with a varying 
width from 40 to 75 miles. The whole area within these mountain 
boundaries may be estimated at about 3,900 square miles. 
The slopes of the mountains descending towards the central plain 
are drained by numerous rivers and streams all of which join the 
Vitasta within the Kasmir plain. The side-valleys in which these 
tributaries flow, add much ground to the cultivated area of the country 
several of them being of considerable length and width. But even 
the higher zones of the mountain-slopes where cultivation ceases, add 
their share to the economical wealth of the country. They are clothed 
with a belt of magnificent forests, and above this extend rich alpine 
pastures, close up to the line of perpetual snow. 
In the great mountain-chain which encircles the country, there is 
but one narrow gap left, near to the north-west end of the Valley. 
There the Vitasta after uniting the whole drainage of Kasmir flows 
out by the gorge of Baramula (Varahamula) on its course towards the 
sea. For a distance of nearly 200 miles further this course lies through 
a very contracted valley which forms a sort of natural gate to Kasmir. 
It is here that we find the old political frontier ot Kasmir extending 
beyond the mountain-barriers already described. For about 50 miles 
below the Varahamula gorge the narrow valley of the Vitasta was held 
in Hindu times as an outlying frontier tract of Kasmir. 8 
1 Compare Drew, Jummoo , p, 162, for this and subsequent statements. 
8 See below § 53. 
