boast a fine terra cotta ornament placed hat-wise on the
high wooden pinnacle. Less often there was a Hindu
temple, low, square, of stone, with sloping tower over the
shrine, decorated with all the glories of tinfoil.
In these poor quarters of the city the great
majority of the people are Mahomedans, and
may be distinguished by various peculiarities of
dress from the Hindus, the one wearing the
pagri rolled one way, and the other the contrary,
but the most notable characteristics are personal ones,
the Hindus, who belong generally to the ruling Dogra
race, showing all the favourable features of the old hill
tribes. They have a fair skin, clear-cut features, and
well-bred air, and the women think more of their
costume than their Mahomedan sisters, and have
adopted the becoming fashion of wearing pherans (the
universal “ frock ”) of brilliant colours, the bright
purples, blues, oranges suiting well their complexion,
while the white head-dress worn flatly folded and
fastened round the neck in broad pleats gives a pleasant,
dainty, nun-like finish to the costume entirely lacking
in the prosaic, undyed puttoo of the Mussulman’s
covering. Many of these Hindu women are very handsome,
their open brows, soft eyes, straight noses, and
oval faces reminding one of the ideal Roman type. The
open-air life they lead helps to make them strong and
straight, and in the city they have not the crushing
manual labour which in the country ages them before
their time and withers their early freshness and beauty.
On the whole, they have easy, pleasant lives.
Kashmiris seldom marry more than one wife,
and, as a rule, are kind and affectionate, and
a Kashmiri baby is a thing to soften the hardest
heart. Groups of adoring parents are generally
to be seen of an evening commenting on the
latest prodigies performed by the chubby little
orange-skinned “ butchas ” as their fond mothers teach
them their first lessons in bathing, or, if the water is
too cold for these aquatic performances so dear to all
denizens of the Happy Valley, they are sprinkled with
the chilly liquid while a surrounding crowd admires
the shiverings and shudderings and other signs of fear
of the little ones. So many strange ceremonies attend
the entrance into the world of Hindu boys that it would
be easy to believe that they were hardened for ever after
to curious and trying performances. So many unfavourable
circumstances, too, surround their youth, the
survival of the fittest is so obviously the law of the
land, that it might be expected that the Kashmiri would
grow up a very hardy and brave creature. However,
the chroniclers of the country and its folk do not give
them a good character in this respect, and nearly all
historians speak with the utmost contempt of the
Kashmiri, perhaps forgetting that men, when neither
educated nor travelled, seldom show great valour
under new circumstances, and that in facing the dangers
of his own valley and such things as he has comprehension
of—fording stormy torrents, disentangling
and floating the great blocks of wood—a very difficult
piece of work—and making long marches under trying
circumstances—the Kashmiri shows much courage and
endurance. For centuries, too, it must be remembered
Kashmir has had to pay a high price for its beauties,
and invader after invader has swept through, turning
this little place of fertile soil and refreshing rivers into
a holiday-ground for themselves and their lieutenants,