Aelian relates that a man having three times successively closed the nest of a Hoopoe, and having remarked the herb with which the bird, as often, opened it, applied the same herb, and with the same success, to charm the locks off the strongest coffer.—Naturalists’ Magazine (about 1805).
His personal appearance.—The beak is bent, convex and sub-compressed, and in some degree obtuse; the tongue is obtuse, triangular and very short, and the feet are ambulatory. As this bird has a great abundance of feathers, it appears considerably thicker than it is. It is, in fact, about the size of a mistletoe thrush, but looks, while in its feathers, to be as large as a common pigeon.—Naturalists’ Magazine.
I had got no further in my magnum opus, when I unfortunately showed my notes to Colonel—well, I will not mention his name, but he is the greatest authority on the birds and beasts of Kashmir. He besought me to spare him, pathetically remarking that I should cut the ground from under his feet, and take the bread out of his mouth, and the wind out of his sails, if I went any further with my monograph on the Hoopoe. He saw at a glance that I was conversant with authorities whom he had never consulted, and possessed a knowledge of my subject to which he could hardly aspire, so I gracefully agreed to leave the field to him, and relinquished my magnum opus in its very inception.
One of the chiefest charms of Kashmir, and one which is apt to be overlooked, is the entirely unspoilt freshness of its scenery. No locust horde of personally-conducted “trippers” pollutes its ways and byways, nor has the khansamah of the dâk bungalow as yet felt constrained to add sauerkraut and German sausage to his bill of fare—for which Allah be praised!
The world is growing very small, and the globe-trotter rushes round it in eighty days. The trail of the cheap excursionist is all over Europe, from the North Cape to Tarifa, from the highest Alpine summit (which he attains in comfort by a funicular railway) to the deepest mines of Cornwall. Egypt has become his footstool, and the shores of the Mediterranean his wash-pot. Niagara is mapped and labelled for his benefit, and the Yosemite is his happy hunting-ground. He “does” the West Indies in “sixty days for sixty pounds,” and he is now arranging a special cheap excursion from the Cape to Cairo. “But,” it may be remarked, “what were Jane and I but globe-trotters’? and am I not trying to sing the praises of Kashmir with the avowed object of inducing people to go out and see it for themselves?”
By all manner of means let us travel. Far be it from me to wish folks to stay dully at home, while the wonders and beauties of the wide world lie open for the admiration and education of its inhabitants.
But there are globe-trotters and globe-trotters. My objection is only to those—alas! too numerous—vagrants who cannot go abroad without casting shame on the country which bred them; whose vulgarity causes offence in church and picture-gallery; who cannot see a monument or a statue without desiring to chip off a fragment, or at least scrawl their insignificant names upon it.
From these, and such as these, Kashmir is as yet free; but some day, I suppose, it will be “opened up,” when the railway, which is already contemplated, is in going order between Pindi and Srinagar, and cheap excursion tickets are issued from Berlin and Birmingham.
Here is a specimen page of the Guide Book (bound in red) for 19—(?):
“Ascend Apharwat by the funicular railway. The neat little station, with its red corrugated-iron roof, makes a picturesque spot of colour near the Dobie’s Ghât. Fares, 4 an. 6 pi., all the way.”