Beyond the Pir Panjal; life among the mountains and valleys of Kashmir . outside Islamabad, when nearly 1000 men werestarting. And when they took leave of the friends who hadaccompanied them so far, loud was the sobbing of some,fervid the demeanour of all as, led by the mullah, they in-toned their prayers and chanted some of their special Ramzanpenitential psalms. Braver men might well have beenagitated at such a time. It is certain that cholera clung tothe camp, and that unburied corpses of hundreds of thesepoor begaris marked the whole line of march from Srinagarto Bunji. » In the year 1882
Beyond the Pir Panjal; life among the mountains and valleys of Kashmir . outside Islamabad, when nearly 1000 men werestarting. And when they took leave of the friends who hadaccompanied them so far, loud was the sobbing of some,fervid the demeanour of all as, led by the mullah, they in-toned their prayers and chanted some of their special Ramzanpenitential psalms. Braver men might well have beenagitated at such a time. It is certain that cholera clung tothe camp, and that unburied corpses of hundreds of thesepoor begaris marked the whole line of march from Srinagarto Bunji. » In the year 1882 the State tried the remarkable experi-ment of auctioning the villages for revenue purposes. Thepurchasers in many cases bid amounts which were absurdlygreater than the value of the village revenue, and afterwringing all they could out of the unhappy villagers theyabsconded without paying the State a single rupee. Thiswas bad enough. But to aggravate it the State actuallyprofessed to regard the sum offered at the auction as the real1 A. Neve, Mission Hospital VILLAGE LIFE 55 value of the village tax, and year by year put pressure uponthe unfortunate cultivators with a view to realizing thisfictitious revenue! The great land settlement, initiated by Sir Andrew Win-gate in 1887, and carried through by Sir Walter Lawrencefrom 1889-1895, changed all this, and from that time thecondition of the villagers has been one of increasing pros-perity. Two among many evidences of this are the largeareas of new land being annually brought under cultivation,and the numerous shops, which are springing up in thevillages, stocked with cotton piece goods and other luxuriesor necessities of civilization. The abolition of the old method of a special low ratefor rice, fixed by Government, was, however, effected tooabruptly. It had been going on for generations, and the lifeof the poorer inhabitants of Srinagar was largely dependentupon cheap food thus obtained. When the market wasthrown ope
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Keywords: ., bookcentury1900, bookdecade1910, booksubjectmountai, bookyear1912
