However, our traveller was shortly afterward delivered from the necessity of depending on the protection of this uncouth mountaineer by the arrival of a drove of asses laden with iron, which was pursuing the route to Kashmere. To this party he now joined himself, and, bidding adieu to the rannee’s army, he proceeded towards that of the Kangrah chief, which, after plundering the ironmongers of a considerable sum, and putting the whole body in great terror, affected to treat them with civility. In this army there was a large detachment of Sikh horsemen, and it was them that Forster, who well understood their licentious manners and habits of plundering, principally dreaded. At this moment, therefore, he would willingly have sacrificed the moiety of his property to ensure the remainder. But there was no retreating; they were already in sight; so, assuming to the best of his ability an air of confidence and ease, he boldly advanced into the midst of these formidable marauders. “Imagining our approach,” says he, “to be that of the enemy, the Sikhs were preparing for the fight, to which they loudly exclaimed, in the tone of religious ejaculation, that their prophet had summoned them. In token of respect I had dismounted, and was leading my horse, when a Sikh, a smart fellow, mounted on an active mare, touched me in passing. The high-mettled animal, whether in contempt of me or my horse, perhaps of both, attacked us fiercely from the rear, and in the assault, which was violent, the Sikh fell to the ground. The action having commenced on the top of a hill, he rolled with great rapidity to the bottom of it, and in his way down left behind him his matchlock, sword, and turban. So complete a derangement I feared would have irritated the whole Sikh body; but on evincing the show of much sorrow for the disaster, and having assiduously assisted in investing the fallen horseman with his scattered appurtenances, I received general thanks.”
It was about the middle of April when Forster arrived at Jummoo, where, being supposed to be a merchant from whom some advantage might be derived, he was received by a Kashmerian with truly oriental expressions of welcome. Upon a banker in this city he had a bill for a considerable amount; but on examining it he found, that having been frequently soaked by the rain, and by his having fallen into a river on the way, the folds adhered together as if they had been pasted. However, the banker contrived, by steeping it in water, to decipher its import, and at once paid the money; though its shattered condition might have afforded him a sufficient pretext for delay. Being thus furnished with cash, our traveller began to think of enjoying the pleasures of Jummoo.
The trade and consequent wealth of this city arose from the insecurity of the road through Lahore, occasioned by the invasion of the Sikhs, which caused merchants to prefer this tedious and difficult but secure route. All articles of merchandise constituting the trade between Kashmere and Jummoo are transported by men, principally Kashmerians, who carry their extremely heavy burdens, two of which are considered a load for a strong mule, upon their back, as a soldier does his knapsack. When he desires to rest, the porter places under his pack a kind of short crutch, which he uses in walking. “The shawls, when exported from Kashmere, are packed in an oblong bale containing a certain weight or quantity, which in the language of the country is termed a biddery, the outward covering of which is a buffalo or ox’s hide, strongly sewed with leather thongs. As these packages are supposed to amount, with little variation, to a value long since ascertained, they are seldom opened until conveyed to the destined market.”
On the 17th of April he set out on foot from Jummoo, accompanied by a Kashmerian servant. The roads were steep and rocky; and not having been much accustomed to travelling on foot, he soon found that it would be necessary to proceed more slowly. His feet, in fact, like Bruce’s in the desert of Nubia, were so severely bruised and excoriated, that he walked with extreme pain and difficulty; though, somewhat to assuage his sufferings, he had carefully wrapped them round with bandages steeped in oil. However, the cool bracing air of the mountains, united with a feeling of security, and the certainty of finding commodious lodgings and a good supper at night, prevented his spirits from sinking; and still further to invigorate his resolution, fancy ever and anon placed before his mind the rich smiling landscapes and sparkling streams of Kashmere.
After a tedious and harassing journey of ten days, they reached on the 26th the summit of a lofty mountain, from whence he enjoyed the first glimpse of Kashmere. He now travelled in the suite of a Mohammedan rhan, with whom he had fallen in on the road; and this gentleman being a native of the country, and held everywhere in the highest esteem, he enjoyed the rare privilege of passing the custom-house untaxed and unmolested. He therefore entered with an unsoured temper into the paradise of Hindostan, where the face of nature exhibited all those features whose tendency it is to call up in the mind images of cheerfulness and pleasure. “The road from Vere Nang,” says Forster, “leads through a country exhibiting that store of luxuriant imagery which is produced by a happy disposition of hill, dale, wood, and water; and that these rare excellences of nature might be displayed in their full glory, it was the season of spring, when the trees, the apple, the pear, the peach, the apricot, the cherry, and mulberry, bore a variegated load of blossom. The clusters also of the red and white rose, with an infinite class of flowering shrubs, presented a view so gayly decked, that no extraordinary warmth of imagination was required to fancy that I stood at least on a province of fairy land.”
It is in such regions as these, and not in our northern climates, that the month of May is a season of beauty. The plains, dotted with numerous villages, and intersected by small rivers, were already waving with a rich harvest; while every copse and woody knoll gave shelter to innumerable singing-birds, whose notes made the whole atmosphere appear alive with music. Having reached Pamper, our traveller embarked in a boat on the Jylum, and proceeded by water to the city of Serinagur, which, with its houses covered with parterres of beautiful flowers, possesses at a distance a splendid and imposing aspect, answering in some degree to the idea which the historians of the flourishing days of India have given of it. But on entering the streets the illusion is quickly dissipated. Slaves are invariably filthy in their habits, and the people of Kashmere are now the slaves of the Afghans.
One of the principal beauties of this magnificent valley is its lake, a sheet of water five or six miles in circumference, interspersed with numerous small islands, and surrounded in its whole extent by shores singularly picturesque and romantic. We have already given, in the life of Bernier, some account of Serinagur and its environs; but it may be interesting to add here the picture of the Shalimar, which our traveller drew upon the spot nearly one hundred and fifty years after, when the power of the Moguls had passed away, and their palaces become the haunts of tenants more destructive than the owls and serpents of Babylon. “In the centre of the plain,” says he, “as it approaches the lake, one of the Delhi emperors constructed a spacious garden called the Shalimar, which is abundantly stored with fruit-trees and flowering shrubs. Some of the rivulets which intersect the plain are led into a canal at the back of the garden, and, flowing through its centre, or occasionally thrown into a variety of water-works, compose the chief beauty of the Shalimar. To decorate this spot the Mogul princes of India have displayed equal magnificence and taste, especially Jehangheer, who, with the enchanting Moormahal, made Kashmere his usual residence during the summer months, and largely contributed to improve its natural advantages. On arches thrown over the canal are erected, at equal distances, four or five suites of apartments, each consisting of a saloon, with four rooms at the angles, where the followers of the court attend, and the servants prepare sherbets, coffee, and the hookah. The frame of the doors of the principal saloon is composed of pieces of stone of a black colour, streaked with yellow lines, and of a closer grain and higher polish than porphyry. They were taken, it is said, from a Hindoo temple by one of the Mogul princes, and are esteemed of great value. The canal of the Shalimar is constructed of masonry as far as the lower pavilion, from whence the stream is conveyed through a bed of earth, in the centre of an avenue of spreading trees, to the lake, which, with other streams of less note, it supplies and refreshes.”
The environs of the city are adorned with private gardens. Here, and throughout the whole valley, the oriental plane-tree is carefully cultivated, and arrives at greater perfection than in any other country. It commonly attains the size of an oak, and, with its straight taper stem, silver bark, and pale-green leaf resembling an expanded hand, is, when in full foliage, a splendid and beautiful tree, and affords a grateful and refreshing shade. But the chief glory of Kashmere is its rose, of all the vegetable world the most exquisite production, unrivalled for its brilliancy and delicacy of odour, and yielding an essential oil, or attar, in comparison with which all other perfumes are as dross. The season when the rose first opens into blossom is celebrated as a festival by the inhabitants of the valley, who, repairing in crowds to the surrounding gardens, give loose to their passions, and riot in every species of licentious rejoicing.
But the wealth and fame of Kashmere have been chiefly derived from the manufacture of shawls, unrivalled for their fineness and beauty. The wool, or rather down, from which they are fabricated is not the growth of the country, but brought from districts of the high table-land of Tibet, a month’s journey to the north-east, where alone the shawl-goat will properly thrive. Various attempts have been made by the emperors of Hindostan and the kings of Persia to introduce this species of goat into their dominions; but the wool has always been found to be of an inferior quality. The French have lately imitated the examples of the Mogul and Persian sovereigns, and they may no doubt succeed in procuring a coarse kind of wool from which very useful shawls may be manufactured; but it may without much rashness be predicted, that in the attempt to rival the shawls of Kashmere they will inevitably fail, since no part of France is sufficiently analogous to the lofty plains of Tibet to afford the shawl-goat an exactly similar position with respect to climate, water, and food. Of all imitations that of the Persians, from the wool of Kerman, is said to approach most nearly to the shawl of Kashmere.
The wool, when imported, is of a dark-gray colour, and is bleached in Kashmere by means of a certain preparation of rice-flour. The whitest down, which is said to be brought from Rodank, is reckoned the best, and sells in the valley from ten to twenty rupees the turruk, about twelve pounds. No exact estimate of the number of shawls manufactured in the year can be made. There are said to be about sixteen thousand looms, each occupying three men, employed; and supposing, with a contemporary author, that five shawls on an average are made annually to each loom, the total number would amount to eighty thousand. The shop of the weavers consists of a kind of framework, at which the workmen sit on a wooden bench. Two persons are employed on the plainest shawls, and the number is sometimes doubled. The shuttle made use of is long, narrow, and heavy. When the pattern of the shawl is variegated, the flowers of figures are worked with wooden needles, there being a separate one for every different-coloured thread; and in such cases the operation is exceedingly slow.