as often freed by the active natives running along the
water’s edge, spaces of cultivated ground often gay with
the yellow flower of the rape wherever the karewas
presented surface enough, and at long intervals villages
of square, wooden cabins and carved boxlike shrines in
a setting of great trees with flowery undergrowth of
Logs r eady to be floated down stream
hawthorn, filling all the air with its sweetness, wild
daphne and lilacs.
A “ jhula/Vor rope bridge, spanned the river at
one place, and had an unpleasantly “ temporary ” a ir;
one strand acted as footboard, two others supplied
support for the hands, and then all were free to “ hold
h a rd ” or drop off, and I guessed which my unwilling
choice would have been had I been forced to attempt
its passage! All the modern Kashmirian structures
share this very “ casual ” appearance, and are in marked
contrast to the massive stone temples, one or two of
which we passed. These are found in many places,
and speak eloquently of a bygone race of solid
builders, whose structures have stood from one thousand
to two thousand years successfully defying wildest
storms and earthquakes, flood, and, as some think, the
power of “ villainous saltpetre.” No one considers them
now, for the people are Mahomedan, and the Hindu
rulers prefer their new little gaudy tinfoil tabernacles;
in fact, the modem Kashmirian, save for his sturdiness,
is not a “ solid person,” and if one meets any monument
likely to be permanent, one may be certain that a
Britisher is at the back of it. For example, the Jhelum
road, engineered by Englishmen, and achieved under
their guidance at vast expenditure of life, money, and
ceaseless perseverance, the nature of the rock out
of which it is cut making the work both difficult and
dangerous owing to constant slips and cleavages. I t is
now complete, and connects Kashmir with the outer
world, whereby there accrues to the State that general
prosperity which always follows the Pax Britannica, as
great and valuable a reality in this wild corner of the
earth, the bloody playground for many centuries of
countless conquerors, as at home in London. I t was
a pleasant experience, and a tiny but sure proof of the
wide influence of that same power, to arrive late in the
afternoon of the second day, having driven two hundred
miles through the heart of a wild, mountainous country,
and find a riverside rest-house, where lodgings were as
comfortable and property and life as secure as at any
Thames-side inn.