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Show f ""V1 The Shcr Garni, Palace of the Maharaja of Kashmir and Jammu. Royal Eareg in Foreground. At Left, Kashmir Boatman. (Prepared by the National Geographic Society, So-ciety, Washington, 1). C.) JAMMU, where the new maharaja of Kashmir was crowned recently re-cently with great pomp and splendor, gains an honor that should have gone to Srinagar, the real capital of Kashmir. It was necessary for the coronation to take place in winter, however, and at that season It is uncomfortably cold in the great Vale of Kashmir, 6,000 feet above sea level. Jammu, nearer the warm plains of India, where the maharaja sojourns during the winter season, therefore was chosen for the ceremonies. cere-monies. The official title of the ruler Is "Maharaja of Kashmir and Jammu." Here, too, Jammu province gains what seems an unearned increment of fame, for it is, after all, only a small division of Kashmir state, smaller than many of its fellow provinces. Much of it is barren, and the rest of its area but slightly1 productive. Its unique characteristic char-acteristic among the other divisions of Kashmir Is that its southern fringe lies in the plains while the remainder of the state is almost entirely a mass of mountains a great knot in the Himalaya ranges. Altogether the state of Kashmir spreads over an area equal to that of Minnesota. WTith the upper part of the Northwest Frontier province, it makes up the great projection between Tibet and Afghanistan that forms the northernmost northern-most territory of India. Jammu town boasts a railroad, a possession which sets it apart among Kashmir communities ; for nowhere else in Kashmir's S0.000 square miles are rails to be found. Jammu's railway rail-way extends for less than twenty miles through Kashmir territory, from the town to the nearby border. It connects with a main line of the Indian In-dian railway system at Wazirabad, thirty miles outside Kashmir, and some fifty miles north of Lahore. Imposing From a Distance. Jammu is a very striking town when viewed from a distance. Above its many one-storied, flat-roofed stone houses tower shining white Hindu temples topped by golden pinnacles. But when one has arrived in the town his opinions change. The little houses are built of stones plastered together with mud. The white temples are merely whitewashed and their spires gilded. Practically all of the buildings are in reality commonplace, though in the upper part of town are more substantial sub-stantial dwellings of brick. Across the Tawi river, on which Jammu is situated, is a fine modern suspension bridge. The railway ends on the southern side of the stream, while the town lies on the north bank. The only fairly broad and good street in Jammu is the cart road which crosses the bridge and extends on to the higher ground on which are the palaces and state buildings. The other streets are narrow and irregular. The palaces are, of course, well built, as befits one of the wealthiest of the Indian rulers. They include the winter residence of the maharaja and the homes of several of his relatives. rela-tives. Nearby are the residences of the governor .of Jammu and other officials of the province, as well as the buildings in which the business of the province and in the winter, the affairs of the state are transacted. Jammu has seen better days. A century ago it had considerable industrial in-dustrial activity, and at that time It 1 was the main gateway to the Vale of Kashmir, 100 miles to the north across the mountains. During this period the population was about 100.-000. 100.-000. It is now only about 40,000. The place has had pretty much the experience ex-perience that certain towns had In the American West in railroad building build-ing days when the new highways left them high and dry. The cart road from the Indian plains into the Vale of Kashmir was built from the neighborhood neighbor-hood of Rawalpindi a hundred miles northwest of Jammu. This road was built, largely by the British military authorities, up the valley and gorge of the Jhelum river, the stream which winds so picturesquely and placidly through the vale, and then pursues its way crookedly and turbulently through the outer mountain barrier. Through Hilly Country. The elevation of Jammu is only 1.200 feet. The old road slopes gently gen-tly upward through a poor country of low, stony hills covered somewhat sparsely with acacias, to Dansal at the 1.S00 foot level. Here steep hills are encountered. Gray sandstone is much in evidence, and the vegetation is scarce. Through these hills the road winds to the first of the passes, the Laru Lorl, at 8,200 feet. From this height the road drops to 2,500 feet at Ramban on the Chenab river, and then continues through a series of ridges and valleys, for the most part treeless, to the Banihal pass, 0,200 feet above the sea. As one stands on the windy, uncomfortable uncomfort-able Banihal, he sees a new and fairer world before him. The bare, uninteresting uninter-esting outer hills are behind him, while spread out before him is the beautiful, green, fertile Vale of Kashmir. Kash-mir. Kashmir is said to bring to its ruler an income in excess of $5,000,-000 $5,000,-000 a year. But the country's real wealth cannot be measured In terms of money. Anyone making a list of the ten most richly endowed of nature's na-ture's beauty spots would have to include, in a representative list, this vale set amidst the towering Hima layas. One traveler asserts "it is impossible im-possible to know what color and depth, and proportion are until one has visited this 'Happy Valley' In the Himalayas." Him-alayas." The Vale of Kashmir, a wide, leel plain 84 miles long and 20 to 25 miles wide, has been compared to a transplanted, trans-planted, peaceful Thames valley, with a girdle of high, snowcapped mountains. moun-tains. Its charming combinations of hike and mountain . scenery, wooden chalets and winding roads, are much like those of Switzerland, except that there is always a white horizon, a complete circle of snowy peaks. On a clear day the mountains glisten in the sunshine like "the battlements and towers of some fairy city of purest pur-est marble." These mountains, the loftiest in the world, have helped to make Kashmir the primitive beauty spot it is today. They are Kashmir's strongest battlements battle-ments against the encroachments of the white man's civilization which has so greatly altered the more accessible ac-cessible parts of India. No railroad enters Srinagar, the capital of Kashmir, Kash-mir, because the loose rocks in the mountain passes carry away everything every-thing along the mountain sides and not infrequently take a toll of human life. Climatic Variations. With a latitude about that of Da-' mascus, or of the Carolinas in the United States, and a protecting wall of mountains, the Vale of Kashmir seldom has those extremes of heat and cold which make the districts to the north and to the south so uncomfortable uncom-fortable at times. Flowers and trees of many varieties grow in profusion. Sometimes a sudden change In temperature tem-perature near by will result in a snowstorm snow-storm on the surrounding mountain I peaks, a vivid and interesting spectacle spec-tacle from the valley. In the winter the mercury drops a little below freezing. During the summer the thermometer sometimes shows a temperature' of 105 degrees. Over the Jhelum are many large bridges of wood, built on piers of j crossed horizontal logs. What the I little chalellike houses lack in architectural archi-tectural elegance, they make up in picturesqueness, and in the spring their sod-covered roofs blossom forth with fresh green grass, delicate mauve irises, and in some cases with gorgeous gor-geous scarlet Kashmir tulips. Near the capital, and gracing the shores of the lakes of the Jhelum, are the beautiful summer gardens of many of the former rulers of the country. coun-try. Some of them, such as the Shall-mar, Shall-mar, where the Aryan youth sang of the pale hands he loved, are in ruins, but nature has been kind and even In ruins they possess a dreamy loveliness that puts man's handiwork to shame. On an autumn evening, when the avenues ave-nues of Cheriar trees are tinged with gold and russet, wlien the lofty mountains moun-tains behind them take on every shade of blue and purple, and the long lines of fountains sparkle in the rays of the setting sun, it would be dillicult to find a match for them elsewhere. Kashmir, outside the vale, may be considered as a series of terraces. Above the narrow strip of plains in Jammu lie the low hills traversed by the old road. The first real terrace lies inside a range of mountains S,000 feet high and is a temperate region where rhododendron, chestnut and oak ! grow in profusion. To reach the sec- ond story one must climb the Pii ; Ponjal range of the Himalayas. It ' is beyond these mountains that the "Happy Valley" lies. Farther north ' are still higher and steeper Ilimala- ' yan ranges, the ramparts to Pakistan ! on the north, and Ladakh in the east. To the west lies Gilgit, even higher, while in the extreme north is llunza and beside it the Karakoram range j with peaks little short of Mount Everest, the world's highest peak. I Mount Goodwin Austen, one of thes I rises to a height of 2S.250 feet. ' |