TRAVELS IN KASHMIR AND1TIBET.* Ma. KNIGHT has given us a
delightful book of travels, and something more. In the course of his journey in the East he met with some exceptional opportunities, and;knew how to make use of them, with the result that his book, over and above the interest which a keen observer andja writer of some descriptive power is able to give to a narrative of travel in regions little known, yet strangely fascinating to all, contains matter of political and historical importance as well. Soon after his arrival in Kashmir, in the spring of 1891, Mr. Knight had the good fortune to accompany Mr. W. R. Law- rence, our Settlement Officer in the State, on one of his official tours, and his observations in the course of that journey may be commended to any one who wishes to realise the quality of our Indian administrators, and the beneficent • Where Three Empires Moot A Narrative of Reiient1Travel in Kashmir, ritg,,igrn Tibet, Gilgit, and the A "ning Countries. By E. F. Knight. London : Long- mans Groom, and Co. 1895. influence of their work. All the land in Kashmir is the property of the Maharajah, and, before the advent of Mr. Lawrence, the collection of the revenue was an organised system of robbery and oppression which impoverished, the people without enriching the Treasury. The revenue was collected in kind, a most wasteful system, the unfor- tunate cultivators being supposed to hand over two-thirds of their produce to the State. But in practice they were completely at the mercy of the State officials, and were as fearful of showing signs of prosperity as the subjects of that worst of all governments, the Sultanate of Morocco. And not only were the wretched peasants despoiled of the fruits of their industry, but, under the forced labour system, they were liable to be dragged away hundreds of miles, to perish of cold and hunger and thirst, in the transport service on the Gilgit road. As we follow the Settlement Officer on his tour, we are able to form some notion of the rapidity and success with which Englishmen such as he can strike down the oppressor, and bring order out of confusion in a mis- governed Indian State :— " A neighbouring village was interesting as an example of the good Mr. Lawrence has already effected. This was once a con- siderable place, but the houses are now in ruins and on the waste lands the squares of grass-grown ridges show ;be borders of former paddy fields. The whole of the inhabitants fled to India in the fatal year of 1879. These people are now flocking back. A year before our visit there were but seven families in the village ; we now found thirty, for during the previous twelve months twenty-three families had returned from the Punjab, where they were doing well, the report of Mr. Lawrence's settlement-work in their native land, and of the security from oppression that was already enjoyed in the settled districts, having reached these exiles."
The railway from the Punjab to Srinagar will restrict the area of famine in the future. Since we have actively inter- fered in the administration of the State, the horrors of the Gilgit transport service have been greatly mitigated, and the military road we have built will put an end to them alto- gether. Kashmir, in fact, is in a state of rapid transition ; and though the Indian Government, unwilling to increase its responsibilities, does not remove the obstacles in the way of English enterprise and settlement, it is doubtful whether, in view of the great attractions which the climate and natural resources of the country present, it will long be able to main- tain that policy. One fact of interest at the present moment is noticed by Mr. Knight. Though the bulk of the popula- tion is Mahomedan, the dominant caste of Hindoos who have ruled the country since they wrested it from the Patha,ns in 1819 treated cow-killing until recently as a capital offence ; and the punishment is still imprisonment for life. But these Kashmiri Mussulmans seem to be a feeble and cowardly race, born to a?,cept any kind of tyranny with submission. They are an exception to the rule that Islam gives dignity and spirit to its votaries.
Leaving Srinagar, Mr. Knight crossed the Western Hima- layas, and travelled as far as Leh in company with Captain Bower, the explorer of Tibet, who was then setting out on the now famous journey which ended a year later at Shanghai. Leh is the capital of Ladak, an outlying portion of Tibet conquered by the Sikhs half a century ago, and still within the dominions of the Sikh dynasty that rules in Kashmir. But the inhabitants are Mongolian by race and Buddhists by religion, and Ladak is neither physically nor morally dis- tinguishable from Chinese Tibet. The country is in practice a theocracy under the control of the powerful Buddhist Church, which absorbs one-sixth of the population, and the lamas still regard their spiritual over-lord, the Grand Lama at Lassa, as their rightful temporal ruler as well. Ladak is the land of topsy-turvydom in all things—Mr. Knight h g y compares it to Gulliver's Laputa—alike fantastic in the physi- cal features of nature, and in the customs and institutions of man. Among other things, the strange practice of polyandry prevails, based apparently on economic reasons ; at all events, it has the effect of keeping down the population, and preventing poverty in a country of no natural fertility. In Leh, where there is a considerable Mahomedan population, the contact of the two extremes of polygamy and polyandry has resulted in monogamy being the rule both among Mussulmans and Buddhists. While at Leh, Mr. Knight was able to attend a great religious festival, the performance of a mystery-play, at the monastery of Kimis in the neighbourhood. Buddhists have none of the jealous exclusiveness of other Asiatics in matters of religion, and he was allowed, it would seem, complete liberty of access to their penetralia. Mr. Knight notes, as so many travellers have noted, the strange resemblance between the forms and pageantry of Buddhism and those of the Roman Church ; but thie can hardly be other than a mere coincidence. As the result of all his observations, he declares that Buddhism in Ladak has completely lost its spiritual meaning and force, and has become so overgrown with for- malism and ritual, that it is now no better than a degraded system of idolatry. Prayers are rolled on wheels which are turned by water-power, and with each revolution the efficacy of the petition is increased ; piety has been quite dissociated from morality ; and even the priests have forgotten the real significance of the symbols and ceremonies of their religion. But there may well be exaggeration here. A hasty traveller through some of the Catholic countries of the Continent, with little antecedent knowledge of the Church of Rome, might see in it little more than a mixture of superstition and pageantry, and might utterly fail to appreciate the meral and spiritual significance of its teaching.
From Leh, Mr. Knight travelled to Gilgit, following for the greater part of the journey the valley of the Indus, and pass- ing through the country of Baltistan, whose amiable inhabit- ants, of the Mongolian stock, but Mahomedans of the Shah sect in religion, have been the oppressed of all oppressors, bat are now, thanks to our presence at Gilgit, within sight of better times. The occupation of Gilgit and the mainten- ance of communications with it have always been necessary to the safety of Kashmir against the turbulent tribes on the North ; but these ends have only been secured at a great cost of men and money. Within the last few years, however, the importance of Gilgit from the Imperial point of view has been recognised, and in 1889 we established. a British agency there under the direction of Colonel Durand. The place is now occupied by Imperial service troops of the Kashmir State, and we have constructed a military road from Srinagar, which will greatly diminish the difficulties of transport. There is an alternative route from the Punjab by the Indus valley, which is at once considerably shorter and much less difficult, and it has also the advantage of being open all the year round, whereas the Kashmir line is closed at the Borzil Pass for eight months out of the twelve. Until lately the Indus route was impracticable owing to the hos tility of the Chiles tribesmen ; but their capital has now been occupied, and as the important outlying post of Chitral depends on Gilgit, and all these regions have been definitely assigned to our sphere of influence by the terms of Sir Mortimer Durand's agreement with the Amir, the route by the Indus valley will doubtless be opened up at once ; the more so as the Russians, under Colonel Yanoff, are now believed to be posted at Sarhad on the northern side of the Hindoo Koosh at the entrance to the Baroghil. We stated above that Mr. Knight has given us in his book some matter of historical importance. Perhaps the most interesting portion of the volume is his account of Colonel Durand's expedition from Gilgit into the Kanjut valley against the raiding tribesmen of Hunza-Nagar, in which he had the privilege of taking a part. This little war was not different, we imagine, from a hundred other cam- paigns in India that pass unnoticed here save for a few telegrams in the newspapers. But in Mr. Knight it has had the good fortune to find a very painstaking and skilful historian. His services to the expedition were not limited to those rendered with the pen; others more substantial were acknowledged, we believe—though, with becoming modesty, he omits all mention of the faet—in despatches to the Indian Government. We are sorry we have no space left to dwell on the incidents of the campaign; they help us to realise the amount of individual heroism and resourceful daring which are required, and never required in vain, from the handful of Englishmen who hold India and guard its frontiers. It will be sufficient to mention that, for deeds of valour performed in the course of this one small expedition, three Victoria Crosses and one Distinguished Service Order were awarded. For the full story of the campaign, and for a thousand other points of interest to the student of polities, geography, folk-lore, or ethnology that we have had to pass unnoticed, we must refer our readers to the book itself.
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