He has in no degree come to comprehend the dignity of labour any more than a Poplar pauper comprehends it, but fortunately his Guardians, while granting certain advantages in his tenure of land and payment of rent, have bound him, in return, to work for a fair payment, when required to do so by his Government, as exercised by the local Tehsildhar.
The demand made upon a village for coolies is not, therefore, an arbitrary and high-handed system of bullying, but simply a call upon the villages to fulfil their obligation towards the State by doing a fair day’s work for a fair day’s pay of from four to six annas.
I do not, of course, propose to entangle myself in the working of the Land Settlement, which is most fully and admirably explained in Lawrence’s Valley of Kashmir.
The coolie, drawn from his native village reluctant, like a periwinkle from its shell, is never a good starter, and when he finds himself at the end of a tow-rope or bowed beneath half a hundredweight of the sahib’s trinkets, with a three-thousand-feet pass to attain in front of him, he is extremely apt to burst into tears—idle tears—or be overcome by a fit of that fell disease—“the lurgies.” Lest my reader should not be acquainted with this illness, at least under that name, here is the diagnosis of the lurgies as given by a very ordinary seaman to the ship’s doctor.
“Well, sir, I eats well, and I sleeps well; but when I’ve got a job of work to do—Lor’ bless you, sir! I breaks out all over of a tremble!”
CHAPTER X
THE LIDAR VALLEY
We were glad enough to leave Srinagar, as that place has been undoubtedly trying lately, being extremely hot and relaxing. The river, which had been up to the fourteen-foot level, as shown on the gate ports at the entrance to the Sunt-i-kul Canal, had fallen to 9-1/2 feet, and the mud, exposed both on its banks and in the fields and flats which had been flooded, must have given out unwholesome exhalations, of which the riverine population, the dwellers in house-boats and doungas, got the full benefit.
Jane has certainly been anything but well lately, and I confess to a certain feeling best described as “slack and livery.”
We had not intended to remain nearly so long in Srinagar, but the continuity of the chain of entertainments proved too firm to break, and dances and dinners, bridge and golf, kept us bound from day to day, until the fête at the Residency on the 15th practically brought the Srinagar season to a close, and broke up the line of house-boats that had been moored along both banks of the river.
We had arranged to start with a party of three other boats up the river, visiting Atchibal with our friends, and then going up the Lidar Valley, while they retraced their way to Srinagar.