The mineral products of the Kashmir valley are small. In other districts of the Kashmir State there are indications of a moderate amount of mineral wealth. In the Jammu province there is a considerable quantity of coal of a rather poor quality, and there is good iron and bauxite. Sapphires also are found there. And in Ladak, in the Indus and its tributaries, there are gold-washings. But in the Kashmir valley, with which we are at present dealing, only a small amount of iron has been worked so far, though it is believed that large quantities exist near Sopor and about Islamabad and Pampur; and copper has also been found near Aishmakam in the Liddar valley.
Peat is extracted from the low-lying lands on the Jhelum River, and can be used as a cheap fuel. Several strong sulphur springs are found in the valley, and limestone exists in many places, notably about Rampur, and on the Manasbal Lake.
Arts and Manufactures
Of manufactures the shawl is the best known, but the production has sadly fallen off of late years. In accordance with the treaty between the Kashmir State and the British Government, six pairs of shawls of fine quality have to be yearly paid to the latter, and but for this the industry would almost disappear. Kashmir shawls in the middle of the last century used to be very fashionable in Europe, but the Franco-Prussian War seems to have sealed the fate of the industry. After 1870 the fashion went out and has never revived; and the famine of 1877-79 carried off numbers of the weavers, so that now very few carry on the industry. According to M. Dauvergne, who was for many years connected with the shawl and carpet industry in Kashmir, the Kashmir shawl dates back to the times of the Emperor Baber. The first shawls which reached Europe were brought by Napoleon at the time of his campaign in Egypt as a present to the Empress Josephine.
EVENING ON THE DAL LAKE
The best shawls are made from the very fine wool, known as pashm, underlying the long hair of the Tibetan goat, which is woven into a delicate material called pashmina on which the shawl patterns are worked. Some of this pashm, and some of the best, is also imported from Chinese Turkestan from the neighbourhood of Ush Turfan. It so happens that I have been in this particular region, and I well remember the rolling grassy downs among the Tian Shan mountains on which the nomad Kirghiz kept immense flocks of sheep and goats. It was an ideal country for the growth of wool, and I believe much of this beautiful wool of which the finest shawls were made is now allowed to run to waste.
From 1862 to 1870 the export of shawls averaged 25 to 28 lakhs of rupees per annum, or over a quarter of a million sterling, and when the trade was at its zenith 25,000 to 28,000 persons were engaged in their manufacture.
Some of the best of the old shawls are preserved in the museum at Srinagar. They show much tasteful arrangement of colour and fineness of workmanship; but one does not wonder that they have gone out of fashion, and even at their best one misses that extreme delicacy of finish denoting strength and character in the worker which one sees in Japanese, and more still in Chinese workmanship.