The journey up to Kashmir from India is a most marvelous contrast; for besides the scenery, the dresses, houses, and boats are quite unlike anything one sees on the two-day train journey over the plains of India, from Bombay to Rawal Pindi in the Punjab. Rawal Pindi is the nearest railway station to Kashmir, and it is there necessary to hire a car and drive the two hundred miles into Kashmir. The road winds through the most wonderful mountainous country; it climbs to 6, 000 feet, then it drops down to about 2, 000 feet to join the gorge of the Jhelum river. Thence twists and turns along sheer hillsides, with the Jhelum foaming and roaring hundreds of feet below. Ever upward goes the road, till at last the gorge widens out into the broad smiling valley of Kashmir proper. The Jhelum, now no longer a furious cauldron, becomes a placid river, the patient beast of burden for countless boats.
One must bear in mind, while reading this narrative that it has been up stream all the way. Those who know anything of water know that the stiffer the current the harder must be boatman pull; slackening off means drifting down stream. This will help to explain why sometimes the methods employed may seem to have been rather severe. The only excuse that can be made to those who may feel hurt or shocked at anything that may have been done or said, is that the crews have been striving for a certain goal. To attain that goal they have employed those methods which to them seemed most suitable; results alone will show whether they acted wisely. |
