THE PANJAB, NORTH-WEST

FRONTIER PROVINCE

AND KASHMIR

BY

SIR JAMES DOUIE, M.A., K.C.S.I.

SEEMA PUBLICATIONS C-3/19, R. P. Bagh, Delhi-110007.

First Indian Edition 1974

Printed in India at Deluxe Offset Press, Daya Basti, Delhi-110035 and
Published by Seema Publications, Delhi-110007.

EDITOR’S PREFACE

In his opening chapter Sir James Douie refers to the fact that the area
treated in this volume—just one quarter of a million square miles—is
comparable to that of Austria-Hungary. The comparison might be extended;
for on ethnographical, linguistic and physical grounds, the geographical
unit now treated is just as homogeneous in composition as the Dual
Monarchy. It is only in the political sense and by force of the ruling
classes, temporarily united in one monarch, that the term
Osterreichisch could be used to include the Poles of Galicia, the
Czechs of Bohemia and Moravia, the Szeklers, Saxons and more numerous
Rumanians of Transylvania, the Croats, Slovenes and Italians of
“Illyria,” with the Magyars of the Hungarian plain.

The term Punjábi much more nearly, but still imperfectly, covers the
people of the Panjáb, the North-West Frontier Province, Kashmír and the
associated smaller Native States. The Sikh, Muhammadan and Hindu Jats,
the Kashmírís and the Rájputs all belong to the tall, fair, leptorrhine
Indo-Aryan main stock of the area, merging on the west and south-west
[Pg vi]into the Biluch and Pathán Turko-Iranian, and fringed in the hill
districts on the north with what have been described as products of the
“contact metamorphism” with the Mongoloid tribes of Central Asia. Thus,
in spite of the inevitable blurring of boundary lines, the political
divisions treated together in this volume, form a fairly clean-cut
geographical unit.

Sir James Douie, in this work, is obviously living over again the happy
thirty-five years which he devoted to the service of North-West India:
his accounts of the physiography, the flora and fauna, the people and
the administration are essentially the personal recollections of one who
has first studied the details as a District Officer and has afterwards
corrected his perspective, stage by stage, from the successively higher
view-point of a Commissioner, the Chief Secretary, Financial
Commissioner, and finally as Officiating Lieut.-Governor. No one could
more appropriately undertake the task of an accurate and
well-proportioned thumb-nail sketch of North-West India and, what is
equally important to the earnest reader, no author could more obviously
delight in his subject.

T. H. H.

Alderley Edge,

March 9th, 1916.
[Pg vii]

NOTE BY AUTHOR

My thanks are due to the Government of India for permission to use
illustrations contained in official publications. Except where otherwise
stated the numerous maps included in the volume are derived from this
source. My obligations to provincial and district gazetteers have been
endless. Sir Thomas Holdich kindly allowed me to reproduce some of the
charts in his excellent book on India. The accuracy of the sections on
geology and coins may be relied on, as they were written by masters of
these subjects, Sir Thomas Holland and Mr R. B. Whitehead, I.C.S.
Chapter XVII could not have been written at all without the help
afforded by Mr Vincent Smith’s Early History of India. I have
acknowledged my debts to other friends in the “List of Illustrations.”[Pg viii]

J. M. D.

8 May 1916.
[Pg ix]

CONTENTS

[Pg xi]

LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS

[Pg 1]

CHAPTER I

AREAS AND BOUNDARIES

Fig. 1. Arms of Panjáb.

Introductory.—Of the provinces of India the Panjáb must always have a
peculiar interest for Englishmen. Invasions by land from the west have
perforce been launched across its great plains. The English were the
first invaders who, possessing sea power, were able to outflank the
mountain ranges which guard the north and west of India. Hence the
Panjáb was the last, and not the first, of their Indian conquests, and
the courage and efficiency of the Sikh soldiery, even after the guiding
hand of the old Mahárája Ranjít Singh was withdrawn, made it also one of
the hardest. The success of the early administration of the province,
which a few years after annexation made it possible to use its resources
in fighting men to help in the task of putting down the mutiny, has
always been a matter of just pride, while the less familiar story of the
conquests of peace in the first sixty years of British rule may well
arouse similar feelings.

Scope of work.—A geography of the Panjáb will fitly embrace an account
also of the North-West Frontier[Pg 2] Province, which in 1901 was severed
from it and formed into a separate administration, of the small area
recently placed directly under the government of India on the transfer
of the capital from Calcutta to Delhi, and of the native states in
political dependence on the Panjáb Government. It will also be
convenient to include Kashmír and the tribal territory beyond the
frontier of British India which is politically controlled from Pesháwar.
The whole tract covers ten degrees of latitude and eleven of longitude.
The furthest point of the Kashmír frontier is in 37° 2′ N., which is
much the same as the latitude of Syracuse. In the south-east the Panjáb
ends at 27° 4′ N., corresponding roughly to the position of the
southernmost of the Canary Islands. Lines drawn west from Pesháwar and
Lahore would pass to the north of Beirut and Jerusalem respectively.
Multán and Cairo are in the same latitude, and so are Delhi and
Teneriffe. Kashmír stretches eastwards to longitude 80° 3′ and the
westernmost part of Wazíristán is in 69° 2′ E.

Distribution of Area.—The area dealt with is roughly 253,000 square
miles. This is but two-thirteenths of the area of the Indian Empire, and
yet it is less by only 10,000 square miles than that of Austria-Hungary
including Bosnia and Herzegovina. The area consists of:

Approximately 136,000 square miles may be classed as highlands and
117,000 as plains, and these may be distributed as follows over the
above divisions:[Pg 3]

On the north the highlands include the Himalayan and sub-Himalayan
(Siwálik) tracts to the south and east of the Indus, and north of that
river the Muztagh-Karakoram range and the bleak salt plateau beyond that
range reaching almost up to the Kuenlun mountains. To the west of the
Indus they include those spurs of the Hindu Kush which run into Chitrál
and Dir, the Buner and Swát hills, the Safed Koh, the Wazíristán hills,
the Sulimán range, and the low hills in the trans-Indus districts of the
North West Frontier Province.

Boundary with China.—There is a point to the north of Hunza in Kashmír
where three great mountain chains, the Muztagh from the south-east, the
Hindu Kush from the south-west, and the Sarikol (an offshoot of the
Kuenlun) from the north-east, meet. It is also the meeting-place of the
Indian, Chinese, and Russian empires and of Afghánistán. Westwards from
this the boundary of Kashmír and Chinese Turkestán runs for 350 miles
(omitting curves) through a desolate upland lying well to the north of
the Muztagh-Karakoram range. Finally in the north-east corner of Kashmír
the frontier impinges on the great Central Asian axis of the Kuenlun.
From this point it turns southwards and separates Chinese Tibet from the
salt Lingzi Thang plains and the Indus valley in Kashmír, and the
eastern part of the native state of Bashahr, which physically form a
portion of Tibet.

Boundary with United Provinces.—The south-east corner of Bashahr is a
little to the north of the great Kedárnáth peak in the Central Himálaya
and of the[Pg 4] source of the Jamna. Here the frontier strikes to the west
dividing Bashahr from Teri Garhwál, a native state under the control of
the government of the United Provinces. Turning again to the south it
runs to the junction of the Tons and Jamna, separating Teri Garhwál from
Sirmúr and some of the smaller Simla Hill States. Henceforth the Jamna
is with small exceptions the boundary between the Panjáb and the United
Provinces.

Boundary with Afghánistán.—We must now return to our starting-point at
the eastern extremity of the Hindu Kush, and trace the boundary with
Afghánistán. The frontier runs west and south-west along the Hindu Kush
to the Dorah pass dividing Chitrál from the Afghán province of Wakhan,
and streams which drain into the Indus from the head waters of the Oxus.
At the Dorah pass it turns sharply to the south, following a great spur
which parts the valley of the Chitrál river (British) from that of its
Afghán affluent, the Bashgol. Below the junction of the two streams at
Arnawai the Chitrál changes its name and becomes the Kunar. Near this
point the “Durand” line begins. In 1893 an agreement was made between
the Amir Abdurrahman and Sir Mortimer Durand as representative of the
British Government determining the frontier line from Chandak in the
valley of the Kunar, twelve miles north of Asmar, to the Persian border.
Asmar is an Afghán village on the left bank of the Kunar to the south of
Arnawai. In 1894 the line was demarcated along the eastern watershed of
the Kunar valley to Nawakotal on the confines of Bajaur and the country
of the Mohmands.

Thence the frontier, which has not been demarcated, passes through the
heart of the Mohmand country to the Kábul river and beyond it to our
frontier post in the Khaibar at Landikhána.

From this point the line, still undemarcated, runs[Pg 5] on in a
south-westerly direction to the Safed Koh, and then strikes west along
it to the Sikarám mountain near the Paiwar Kotal at the head of the
Kurram valley. From Sikarám the frontier runs south and south-east
crossing the upper waters of the Kurram, and dividing our possessions
from the Afghán province of Khost. This line was demarcated in 1894.

At the south of the Kurram valley the frontier sweeps round to the west
leaving in the British sphere the valley of the Tochí. Turning again to
the south it crosses the upper waters of the Tochí and passes round the
back of Wazíristán by the Shawal valley and the plains about Wána to
Domandí on the Gomal river, where Afghánistán, Biluchistán, and the
North West Frontier Province meet. The Wazíristán boundary was
demarcated in 1895.

Political and Administrative Boundaries.—The boundary described above
defines spheres of influence, and only in the Kurram valley does it
coincide with that of the districts for whose orderly administration we
hold ourselves responsible. All we ask of Wazírs, Afrídís, or Mohmands
is to leave our people at peace; we have no concern with their quarrels
or blood feuds, so long as they abide in their mountains or only leave
them for the sake of lawful gain. Our administrative boundary, which
speaking broadly we took over from the Sikhs, usually runs at the foot
of the hills. A glance at the map will show that between Pesháwar and
Kohát the territory of the independent tribes comes down almost to the
Indus. At this point the hills occupied by the Jowákí section of the
Afrídí tribe push out a great tongue eastwards. Our military frontier
road runs through these hills, and we actually pay the tribesmen of the
Kohát pass for our right of way. Another tongue of tribal territory
reaches right down to the Indus, and almost severs the Pesháwar and
Hazára districts. Further[Pg 6] north the frontier of Hazára lies well to the
east of the Indus.

Frontier with Biluchistán.—At Domandí the frontier turns to the east,
and following the Gomal river to its junction with the Zhob at Kajúrí
Kach forms the boundary of the two British administrations. Henceforth
the general direction of the line is determined by the trend of the
Sulimán range. It runs south to the Vehoa pass, where the country of the
Patháns of the North West Frontier Province ends and that of the Hill
and Plain Biluches subject to the Panjáb Government begins. From the
Vehoa pass to the Kahá torrent the line is drawn so as to leave Biluch
tribes with the Panjáb and Pathán tribes with the Biluchistán Agency.
South of the Kahá the division is between Biluch tribes, the Marrís and
Bugtís to the west being managed from Quetta, and the Gurchánís and
Mazárís, who are largely settled in the plains, being included in Dera
Gházi Khán, the trans-Indus district of the Panjáb. At the south-west
corner of the Dera Ghází Khán district the Panjáb, Sind, and Biluchistán
meet. From this point the short common boundary of the Panjáb and Sind
runs east to the Indus.

The Southern Boundary.—East of the Indus the frontier runs south-east
for about fifty miles parting Sind from the Baháwalpur State, till a
point is reached where Sind, Rájputána, and Baháwalpur join. A little
further to the east is the southern extremity of Baháwalpur at 70° 8′ E.
and 27° 5′ N. From this point a line drawn due east would at a distance
of 370 miles pass a few miles to the north of the south end of Gurgaon
and a few miles to the south of the border of the Narnaul tract of
Patiála. Between Narnaul and the south-east corner of the Baháwalpur
State the great Rájputána desert, mainly occupied in this quarter by
Bikaner, thrusts[Pg 7] northwards a huge wedge reaching almost up to the
Sutlej. To the west of the wedge is Baháwalpur and to the east the
British district of Hissár. The apex is less than 100 miles from Lahore,
while a line drawn due south from that city to latitude 27’5° north
would exceed 270 miles in length. The Jaipur State lies to the south and
west of Narnaul, while Gurgaon has across its southern frontiers Alwar
and Bharatpur, and near the Jamna the Muttra district of the United
Provinces.[Pg 8]

CHAPTER II

MOUNTAINS, HILLS, AND PLAINS

The Great Northern Rampart.—The huge mountain rampart which guards the
northern frontier of India thrusts out in the north-west a great bastion
whose outer walls are the Hindu Kush and the Muztagh-Karakoram ranges.
Behind the latter with a general trend from south-east to north-west are
the great valley of the Indus to the point near Gilgit where it turns
sharply to the south, and a succession of mountain chains and glens
making up the Himalayan tract, through which the five rivers of the
Panjáb and the Jamna find their way to the plains. To meet trans-Indus
extensions of the Himálaya the Hindu Kush pushes out from its main axis
great spurs to the south, flanking the valleys which drain into the
Indus either directly or through the Kábul river.

The Himálaya.—Tibet, which from the point of view of physical geography
includes a large and little known area in the Kashmír State to the north
of the Karakoram range, is a lofty, desolate, wind swept plateau with a
mean elevation of about 15,000 feet. In the part of it situated to the
north of the north-west corner of Nipál lies the Manasarowar lake, in
the neighbourhood of which three great Indian rivers, the Tsanpo or
Brahmapútra, the Sutlej, and the Indus, take their rise. The Indus flows
to the north-west for 500 miles and then turns abruptly to the south to
seek its distant home in the[Pg 9] Indian Ocean. The Tsanpo has a still
longer course of 800 miles eastwards before it too bends southwards to
flow through Assam into the Bay of Bengal. Between the points where
these two giant rivers change their direction there extends for a
distance of 1500 miles the vast congeries of mountain ranges known
collectively as the “Himálaya” or “Abode of Snow.” As a matter of
convenience the name is sometimes confined to the mountains east of the
Indus, but geologically the hills of Buner and Swát to the north of
Pesháwar probably belong to the same system. In Sanskrit literature the[Pg 10]
Himalaya is also known as “Himavata,” whence the classical Emodus.

Fig. 2. Orographical Map.
View larger image

The Kumáon Himálaya.—The Himálaya may be divided longitudinally into
three sections, the eastern or Sikkim, the mid or Kumáon, and the
north-western or Ladákh. With the first we are not concerned. The Kumáon
section lies mainly in the United Provinces, but it includes the sources
of the Jamna, and contains the chain in the Panjáb which is at once the
southern watershed of the Sutlej and the great divide between the two
river systems of Northern India, the Gangetic draining into the Bay of
Bengal, and the Indus carrying the enormous discharge of the north-west
Himálaya, the Muztagh-Karakoram, and the Hindu Kush ranges into the
Indian Ocean. Simla stands on the south-western end of this watershed,
and below it the Himálaya drops rapidly to the Siwálik foot-hills and to
the plains. Jakko, the deodár-clad hill round which so much of the
life of the summer capital of India revolves, attains a height of 8000
feet. The highest peak within a radius of 25 miles of Simla is the Chor,
which is over 12,000 feet high, and does not lose its snow cap till May.
Hattu, the well-known hill above Narkanda, which is 40 miles from Simla
by road, is 1000 feet lower. But further west in Bashahr the higher
peaks range from 16,000 to 22,000 feet.

Fig. 3. Nanga Parvat.

[Pg 11]

The Inner Himálaya or Zánskar Range.—The division of the Himálaya into
the three sections named above is convenient for descriptive purposes.
But its chief axis runs through all the sections. East of Nipál it
strikes into Tibet not very far from the source of the Tsanpo, is soon
pierced by the gorge of the Sutlej, and beyond it forms the southern
watershed of the huge Indus valley. In the west this great rampart is
known as the Zánskar range. For a short distance it is the[Pg 12] boundary
between the Panjáb and Kashmír, separating two outlying portions of the
Kángra district, Lahul and Spití, from Ladákh. In this section the peaks
are from 19,000 to 21,000 feet high, and the Baralácha pass on the road
from the Kulu valley in Kángra to Leh, the capital of Ladákh, is at an
elevation of about 16,500 feet. In Kashmír the Zánskar or Inner Himálaya
divides the valley of the Indus from those of the Chenáb and Jhelam. It
has no mountain to dispute supremacy with Everest (29,000 feet), or
Kinchinjunga in the Eastern Himálaya, but the inferiority is only
relative. The twin peaks called Nun and Kun to the east of Srínagar
exceed 23,000 feet, and in the extreme north-west the grand mountain
mass of Nanga Parvat towers above the Indus to a height of 26,182 feet.
The lowest point in the chain is the Zojilá (11,300 feet) on the route
from Srínagar, the capital of Kashmír, to Leh on the Indus

The road from Srínagar to Gilgit passes over the Burzil pass at an
elevation of 13,500 feet.

The Zojilá is at the top of the beautiful valley of the Sind river, a
tributary of the Jhelam. The lofty Zánskar range blocks the inward flow
of the monsoon, and once the Zojilá is crossed the aspect of the country
entirely changes. The land of forest glades and green pastures is left
behind, and a region of naked and desolate grandeur begins.

Fig. 4. Burzil Pass.

In all this desolation there are tiny oases where level soil and a
supply of river water permit of cultivation and of some tree growth.

Water divide near Baralácha and Rotang Passes in Kulu.—We have seen
that the Indus and its greatest tributary, the Sutlej, rise beyond the
Himálaya in the[Pg 14] Tibetan plateau. The next great water divide is in the
neighbourhood of the Baralácha pass and the Rotang pass, 30 miles to the
south of it. The route from Simla to Leh runs at a general level of 7000
to 9000 feet along or near the Sutlej-Jamna watershed to Narkanda (8800
feet). Here it leaves the Hindustán-Tibet road and drops rapidly into
the Sutlej gorge, where the Lurí bridge is only 2650 feet above sea
level. Rising steeply on the other side the Jalaurí pass on the
watershed between the Sutlej and the Biás is crossed at an elevation of
10,800 feet. A more gradual descent brings the traveller to the Biás at
Lárjí, 3080 feet above sea level. The route then follows the course of
the Biás through the beautiful Kulu valley to the Rotang pass (13,326
feet), near which the river rises. The upper part of the valley is
flanked on the west by the short, but very lofty Bara Bangáhal range,
dividing Kulu from Kángra and the source of the Biás from that of the
Ráví. Beyond the Rotang is Lahul, which is divided by a watershed from
Spití and the torrents which drain into the Sutlej. On the western side
of this watershed are the sources of the Chandra and Bhága, which unite
to form the river known in the plains as the Chenáb.

Mid Himálaya or Pangí Range.—The Mid Himálayan or Pangí range, striking
west from the Rotang pass and the northern end of the Bara Bangáhal
chain, passes through the heart of Chamba dividing the valley of the
Chenáb (Pangí) from that of the Ráví. After entering Kashmír it crosses
the Chenáb near the Kolahoi cone (17,900 feet) and the head waters of
the Jhelam. Thence it continues west over Haramukh (16,900 feet), which
casts its shadow southwards on the Wular lake, to the valley of the
Kishnganga, and probably across it to the mountains which flank the
magnificent Kágan glen in Hazâra.[Pg 15]

Fig. 5. Rotang Pass.

[Pg 16]

Fig. 6. Mt Haramukh.

Outer Himálaya or Dhauladhár-Pir Panjál Range.—The Outer Himálaya also
starts from a point near the Rotang pass, but some way to the south of
the offset of the Mid Himalayan chain. Its main axis runs parallel to
the latter, and under the name of the Dhauladhár (white ridge) forms the
boundary of the Chamba State and Kángra, behind whose headquarters, at
Dharmsála it stands up like a huge wall. It has a mean elevation of
15,000 feet, but rises as high as 16,000. It passes from Chamba into
Bhadarwáh in Kashmír, and crossing the Chenáb is carried on as the Pír
Panjál range through the south of that State. With an elevation of only
14,000 or 15,000 feet it is a dwarf as compared with the giants of the
Inner Himalayan and Muztagh-Karakoram chains. But it hides them from the
dwellers in the Panjáb, and its snowy crest is a very striking[Pg 17] picture
as seen in the cold weather from the plains of Ráwalpindí, Jhelam, and
Gujrát. The Outer Himálaya is continued beyond the gorges of the Jhelam
and Kishnganga rivers in Kajnág and the hills of the Hazára district.
Near the eastern extremity of the Dhauladhár section of the Outer
Himálaya it sends out southwards between Kulu and Mandí a lower
offshoot. This is crossed by the Babbu (9480 feet) and Dulchí passes,
connecting Kulu with Kángra through Mandí. Geologically the Kulu-Mandí
range appears to be continued to the east of the Biás and across the
Sutlej over Hattu and the Chor to the hills near Masúrí (Mussoorie), a
well-known hill station in the United Provinces. Another offshoot at the
western end of the Dhauladhár passes through the beautiful hill station
of Dalhousie, and sinks into the low hills to the east of the Ráví,
where it leaves Chamba and enters the British district of Gurdáspur.

River Valleys and Passes in the Himálaya.—While these principal chains
can be traced from south-east to north-west over hundreds of miles it
must be remembered that the Himálaya is a mountain mass from 150 to 200
miles broad, that the main axes are linked together by subsidiary cross
chains dividing the head waters of great rivers, and flanked by long and
lofty ridges running down at various angles to the gorges of these
streams and their tributaries. The typical Himalayan river runs in a
gorge with mountains dipping down pretty steeply to its sides. The lower
slopes are cultivated, but the land is usually stony and uneven, and as
a whole the crops are not of a high class. The open valleys of the
Jhelam in Kashmír and of the Biás in Kulu are exceptions. Passes in the
Himálaya are not defiles between high cliffs, but cross the crest of a
ridge at a point where the chain is locally depressed, and snow melts
soonest. In the Outer and Mid Himálaya the line[Pg 18] of perpetual snow is at
about 16,000 feet, but for six months of the year the snow-line comes
down 5000 feet lower. In the Inner Himálaya and the Muztagh-Karakoram,
to which the monsoon does not penetrate, the air is so dry that less
snow falls and the line is a good deal higher.

Fig. 7. R. Jhelam in Kashmír—View towards Mohand Marg.

[Pg 19]Himalayan Scenery.—Certain things strike any observant traveller in the
Himálaya. One is the comparative absence of running or still water,
except in the height of the rainy season, away from the large rivers.
The slope is so rapid that ordinary falls of rain run off with great
rapidity. The mountain scenery is often magnificent and the forests are
beautiful, but the absence of water robs the landscape of a charm which
would make it really perfect. Where this too is present, as in the
valley of the Biás in Kulu and those of the Jhelam and its tributaries
in Kashmír and Hazára, the eye has[Pg 20] its full fruition of content.
Another is the silence of the forests. Bird and beast are there, but
they are little in evidence. A third feature which can hardly be missed
is the contrast between the northern and the southern slopes. The former
will often be clothed with forest while the latter is a bare stony slope
covered according to season with brown or green grass interspersed with
bushes of indigo, barberry, or the hog plum (Prinsepia utilis). The
reason is that the northern side enjoys much more shade, snow lies
longer, and the supply of moisture is therefore greater. The grazier for
the same reason is less tempted to fire the hill side in order to
promote the growth of grass, a practice which is fatal to all forest
growth. The rich and varied flora of the Himálaya will be referred to
later.

Fig. 8. Near Náran in Kágan Glen, Hazára.

Muztagh-Karakoram Ranges.—The Muztagh-Karakoram mountains form the
northern watershed of the Indus. The range consists of more than one
main axis. The name Karakoram is appropriated to the eastern part of the
system which originates at E. longitude 79° near the Pangong lake in the
Tibetan plateau a little beyond the boundary of Kashmír. Beyond the
Karakoram pass (18,550 ft.) is a lofty bleak upland with salt lakes
dotted over its surface. Through this inhospitable region and over the
Karakoram pass and the Sasser-lá (17,500 ft.) the trade route from
Yarkand to Leh runs. The road is only open for three months in the year,
and the dangers and hardships are great. In 1898 Dr Bullock Workman and
his wife marched along it across the Shyok river, up the valley of the
Nubra, and over the Sasser-lá to the Karakoram pass. The scenery is an
exaggeration of that described by Dr Neve as seen on the road from the
Zoji-lá to Leh. There is a powerful picture of its weird repellent
grandeur in the Workmans’ book entitled In the Ice World of Himálaya
(pp. 28-29, 30-32). The[Pg 21] poet who had found ideas for a new Paradiso in
the Vale of Kashmír might here get suggestions for a new Inferno.

View larger image
Fig. 9. Muztagh-Karakoram and Himalayan Ranges in
Kashmír.

The Karakoram range culminates in the north-west near the Muztagh pass
in a group of majestic peaks including K 2 or Mount Godwin Austen
(28,265 feet), Gasherbrum, and Masherbrum, which tower over and feed the
vast Boltoro glacier. The first of these giants is the second largest
mountain in the world. The Duke of the Abruzzi ascended it to the height
of 24,600 feet, and so established a climbing record. The Muztagh chain
carries on the northern bastion to the valley of[Pg 22] the Hunza river and
the western extremity of the Hindu Kush. It has several peaks exceeding
25,000 feet. The most famous is Rakiposhi which looks down on Hunza from
a height of 25,550 feet.

The Hindu Kush.—The Muztagh chain from the south-east, the Sarikol from
the north-east, and the Hindu Kush from the south-west, meet at a point
to the north of Hunza. The last runs westward and south-westward for
about 200 miles to the Dorah pass (14,800 feet), separating the valleys
which drain into the Indus from the head waters of the Oxus, and Hunza
and Gilgit in Kashmír and Chitrál in British India from the Afghán
province of Wakhan. The highest point in the main axis, Sad Istragh
(24,171 feet), is in this section. But the finest mountain scenery in
the Hindu Kush is in the great spurs it thrusts out southwards to flank
the glens which feed the Gilgit and Chitrál rivers. Tirach Mír towers
above Chitrál to a height of 25,426 feet. From Tibet to the Dorah pass
the northern frontier of India is impregnable. It is pierced by one or
two difficult trade routes strewn with the bones of pack animals, but no
large army has ever marched across it for the invasion of India. West of
the Dorah pass the general level of the Hindu Kush is a good deal lower
than that of its eastern section. The vital point in the defences of
India in this quarter lies near Charikár to the north of Kábul, where
the chain thins out, and three practicable passes debouch on the valley
of the Kábul river. It is this fact that gives the town of Kábul its
great strategic importance. The highest of the three passes, the Kaoshan
or Hindu Kush (dead Hindu), crosses the chain at an elevation of 14,340
feet. It took its own name from the fate that befel a Hindu army when
attempting to cross it, and has handed it on to the whole range. It is
the pass which the armies of Alexander[Pg 23] and Bábar used. The historical
road for the invasion of India on this side has been by Charikár and the
valley of the Kábul river to its junction with the Kunar below
Jalálábád, thence up the Kunar valley and over one of the practicable
passes which connect its eastern watershed with the Panjkora and Swát
river valleys, whence the descent on Pesháwar is easy. This is the route
by which Alexander led the wing of the Grecian army which he commanded
in person, and the one followed by Bábar in 1518-19. Like Alexander,
Bábar fought his way through Bajaur, and crossed the Indus above Attock.

View larger image
Fig. 10. The Khaibar Road.

The Khaibar.—A British force advancing on Kábul from Pesháwar has never
marched by the Kunar and Kábul valley route. It has always taken the
Khaibar road, which only follows the Kabul river for less than one-third
of the 170 miles which separate Pesháwar from the Amir’s capital. The
military road from Pesháwar to Landikhána lies far to the south of the
river, from which it is shut off by difficult and rugged country held by
the Mohmands.[Pg 24]

Safed Koh.—From Landikhána the political boundary runs south-west to
the Safed Koh (white mountain) and is continued westwards along that
range to the Paiwar Kotal or pass (8450 feet). The Safed Koh forms the
watershed of the Kábul and Kurram rivers. It is a fine pine clad chain
with a general level of 12,000 feet, and its skyline is rarely free from
snow. It culminates in the west near Paiwar Kotal in Sikarám (15,620
feet). To the west of the Pesháwar and Kohát districts is a tangle of
hills and valleys formed by outlying spurs of the Safed Koh. This
difficult country is in the occupation of Afrídís and Orakzais, who are
under our political control.

The Kurram Valley.—The line of advance into Afghánistán through the
Kurram valley is easy, and Lord Roberts used it when he marched towards
Kábul in 1898. After the war we annexed the valley, leaving however the
head waters of the Kurram in Afghán territory. The road to Kábul leaves
the river far to the south before it crosses our frontier at Paiwar
Kotal.

Wazíristán Hills.—Between the Kurram valley and the Gomal river is a
large block of very rough mountainous country known as Wazíristán from
the turbulent clan which occupies it. In the north it is drained by the
Tochí. Westwards of the Tochí valley the country rises into lofty
mountains. The upper waters of the Tochí and its affluents drain two
fine glens known as Birmal and Shawal to the west of the country of the
Mahsud Wazírs. The Tochí valley is the direct route from India to
Ghazní, and nine centuries ago, when that decayed town was the capital
of a powerful kingdom, it must often have heard the tramp of armed men.
The loftiest peaks in Wazíristán, Shuidár (11,000 feet) and Pírghal
(11,600 feet), overhang Birmal. Further south, Wána, our post in
south-west Wazíristán, overlooks from its plateau the Gomal valley.[Pg 25]

The Gomal Pass as a trade route.—East of Kajúrí Kach the Gomal flows
through tribal territory to the Gomal pass from which it debouches into
the plains of the Dera Ismail Khán district. “The Gomal route is the
oldest of all trade routes. Down it there yearly pours a succession of
káfilas (caravans) led and followed up by thousands of well-armed
Pathán traders, called Powindahs, from the plains of Afghánistán to
India. The Powindahs mostly belong to the Ghilzai tribes, and are not
therefore true Afgháns[1]. Leaving their women and children encamped
within British territory on our border, and their arms in the keeping of
our frontier political officials, the Powindah makes his way southwards
with his camel loads of fruit and silk, bales of camel and goat hair or
sheepskin goods, carpets and other merchandise from Kábul and Bokhára,
and conveys himself through the length and breadth of the Indian
peninsula…. He returns yearly to the cool summits of the Afghán hills
and the open grassy plains, where his countless flocks of sheep and
camels are scattered for the summer grazing” (Holdich’s India, pp.
80-81).

Physical features of hilly country between Pesháwar and the Gomal
river.—The physical features of the hill country between Pesháwar and
the Gomal pass may best be described in the words of Sir Thomas Holdich:

The Sulimán Range.—A well-marked mountain chain runs from the Gomal to
the extreme south-west corner of the Dera Ghází Khán district where the
borders of Biluchistán, Sind, and the Panjáb meet. It culminates forty
miles south of the Gomal in the fine Kaisargarh mountain (11,295 feet),
which is a very conspicuous object from the plains of the Deraját. On
the side of Kaisargarh there is a shrine called Takht i Sulimán or
Throne of Solomon, and this is the name by which Englishmen usually know
the mountain, and which has been passed on to the whole range.
Proceeding southwards[Pg 27] the general elevation of the chain drops
steadily. But Fort Munro, the hill station of the Dera Ghází Khán
district, 200 miles south of the Takht, still stands 6300 feet above sea
level, and it looks across at the fine peak of Ekbhai, which is more
than 1000 feet higher. In the south of the Dera Ghází Khán district the
general level of the chain is low, arid the Giandári hill, though only
4160 feet above the sea, stands out conspicuously. Finally near where
the three jurisdictions meet the hills melt into the Kachh Gandáva
plain. Sir Thomas Holdich’s description of the rugged Pathán hills
applies also to the Sulimán range. Kaisargarh is a fine limestone
mountain crowned by a forest of the edible chilgoza pine. But the
ordinary tree growth, where found at all, is of a much humbler kind,
consisting of gnarled olives and dwarf palms.

Passes and torrents in Sulimán Hills.—The drainage of the western
slopes of the Sulimán range finding no exit on that side has had to wear
out ways for itself towards the plains which lie between the foot of the
hills and the Indus. This is the explanation of the large number of
passes, about one hundred, which lead from the plains into the Sulimán
hills. The chief from north to south are the Vehoa, the Sangarh, the
Khair, the Kahá, the Cháchar, and the Sirí, called from the torrents
which flow through them to the plains. There is an easy route through
the Cháchar to Biluchistán. But unfortunately the water of the torrent
is brackish.

Sub Himálaya or Siwáliks.—In its lowest ridges the Himálaya drops to a
height of about 5000 feet. But the traveller to any of the summer
resorts in the mountains passes through a zone of lower hills
interspersed sometimes with valleys or “duns.” These consist of Tertiary
sandstones, clays, and boulder conglomerates, the débris in fact which
the Himálaya has dropped in the course[Pg 28] of ages. To this group of hills
and valleys the general name of Siwáliks is given. East of the Jhelam it
includes the Náhan hills to the north of Ambála, the low hills of
Kángra, Hoshyárpur, Gurdáspur, and Jammu, and the Pábbí hills in Gujrát.
But it is to the west of the Jhelam that the system has its greatest
extension. Practically the whole of the soil of the plains of the
Attock, Ráwalpindi, and Jhelam districts consists of disintegrated
Siwálik sandstone, and differs widely in appearance and agricultural
quality from the alluvium of the true Panjáb plains. The low hills of
these districts belong to the same system, but the Salt Range is only in
part Siwálik. Altogether Siwálik deposits in the Panjáb cover an area of
13,000 square miles. Beyond the Indus the hills of the Kohát district
and a part of the Sulimán range are of Tertiary age.

The Great Panjáb Plain.—The passage from the highlands to the plains is
as a rule abrupt, and the contrast between the two is extraordinary.
This is true without qualification of the tract between the Jamna and
the Jhelam. It is equally true of British districts west of the Jhelam
and south of the Salt Range and of lines drawn from Kálabágh on the west
bank of the Indus southwards to Paniála and thence north-west through
the Pezu pass to the Wazíristán hills. In all that vast plain, if we
except the insignificant hills in the extreme south-west of the province
ending to the north in the historic ridge at Delhi, some hillocks of
gneiss near Toshám in Hissár, and the curious little isolated rocks at
Kirána, Chiniot, and Sángla near the Chenáb and Jhelam, the only
eminences are petty ridges of windblown sand and the “thehs” or mounds
which represent the accumulated débris of ancient village sites. At the
end of the Jurassic period and later this great plain was part of a sea
bed. Far removed as the Indian[Pg 29] ocean now is the height above sea level
of the Panjáb plain east of the Jhelam is nowhere above 1000 feet. Delhi
and Lahore are both just above the 700 feet line. The hills mentioned
above are humble time-worn outliers of the very ancient Aravalli system,
to which the hills of Rájputána belong. Kirána and Sángla were already
of enormous age, when they were islands washed by the waves of the
Tertiary sea. A description of the different parts of the vast Panjáb
plain, its great stretches of firm loam, and its tracts of sand and sand
hills, which the casual observer might regard as pure desert, will be
given in the paragraphs devoted to the different districts.

The Salt Range.—The tract west of the Jhelam, and bounded on the south
by the Salt Range cis-Indus, and trans-Indus by the lines mentioned
above, is of a more varied character. Time worn though the Salt Range
has become by the waste of ages, it still rises at Sakesar, near its
western extremity, to a height of 5000 feet. The eastern part of the
range is mostly in the Jhelam district, and there the highest point is
Chail (3700 feet). The hill of Tilla (3242 feet), which is a marked
feature of the landscape looking westwards from Jhelam cantonment, is on
a spur running north-east from the main chain. The Salt Range is poorly
wooded, the dwarf acacia or phuláhí (Acacia modesta), the olive, and
the sanattha shrub (Dodonea viscosa) are the commonest species. But
these jagged and arid hills include some not infertile valleys, every
inch of which is put under crop by the crowded population. To geologists
the range is of special interest, including as it does at one end of the
scale Cambrian beds of enormous antiquity and at the other rocks of
Tertiary age. Embedded in the Cambrian strata there are great deposits
of rock salt at Kheora, where the Mayo mine is situated.[Pg 30] At Kálabágh
the Salt Range reappears on the far side of the Indus. Here the salt
comes to the surface, and its jagged pinnacles present a remarkable
appearance.

Country north of the Salt Range.—The country to the north of the Salt
Range included in the districts of Jhelam, Ráwalpindí, and Attock is
often ravine-bitten and seamed with the white sandy beds of torrents.
Generally speaking it is an arid precarious tract, but there are fertile
stretches which will be mentioned in the descriptions of the districts.
The general height of the plains north of the Salt Range is from 1000
feet to 2000 feet above sea level. The rise between Lahore and
Ráwalpindí is just over a thousand feet. Low hills usually form a
feature of the landscape, pleasing at a distance or when softened by the
evening light, but bare and jagged on a nearer view. The chief hills are
the Márgalla range between Hazára and Ráwalpindí, the Kálachitta and the
Khairimurat hills running east and west through Attock and the very dry
and broken Narrara hills on the right bank of the Indus in the same
district. Between the Márgalla and Kálachitta hills is the Márgalla pass
on the main road from Ráwalpindí to the passage of the Indus at Attock,
and therefore a position of considerable strategical importance. The
Kálachitta (black and white) chain is so called because the north side
is formed of nummulitic limestone and the south mainly of a dark purple
sandstone. The best tree-growth is therefore on the north side.

Pesháwar, Kohát, and Bannu.—Across the Indus the Pesháwar and Bannu
districts are basins ringed with hills and drained respectively by the
Kábul and Kurram rivers with their affluents. Between these two basins
lies the maze of bare broken hills and valleys which make up the Kohát
district. The cantonment of Kohát is 1700 feet above sea level and no
hill in the district[Pg 31] reaches 5000 feet. Near the Kohát border in the
south-west of the Pesháwar district are the Khattak hills, the
culmination of which at Ghaibana Sir has a height of 5136 feet, and the
military sanitarium of Cherát in the same chain is 600 feet lower. On
the east the Maidáni hills part Bannu from Isakhel, the trans-Indus
tahsíl of Mianwáli, and on the south the Marwat hills divide it from
Dera Ismail Khán. Both are humble ranges. The highest point in the
Marwat hills is Shekhbudín, a bare and dry limestone rock rising to an
elevation of over 4500 feet.[Pg 32]

CHAPTER III

RIVERS

The Panjáb Rivers.—”Panjáb” is a Persian compound word, meaning “five
waters,” and strictly speaking the word denotes the country between the
valley of the Jhelam and that of the Sutlej. The intermediate rivers
from west to east are the Chenáb, the Ráví, and the Biás. Their combined
waters at last flow into the Panjnad or “five rivers” at the south-west
corner of the Multán district, and the volume of water which 44 miles
lower down the Panjnad carries into the Indus is equal to the discharge
of the latter. The first Aryan settlers knew this part of India as the
land of the seven rivers (sapla sindhavas), adding to the five
mentioned above the Indus and the Sarasvatí. The old Vedic name is more
appropriate than Panjáb if we substitute the Jamna for the Sarasvatí or
Sarustí, which is now a petty stream.

View larger image
Fig. 11. Panjáb Rivers.

River Valleys.—The cold weather traveller who is carried from Delhi to
Ráwalpindí over the great railway bridges at points chosen because there
the waters of the rivers are confined by nature, or can be confined by
art, within moderate limits, has little idea of what one of these rivers
is like in flood time. He sees that, even at such favoured spots,
between the low banks there is a stretch of sand far exceeding in width
the main channel, where a considerable volume of water is running, and
the minor depressions, in which a sluggish and[Pg 33] shallow flow may still
be found. If, leaving the railway, he crosses a river by some bridge of
boats or local ferry, he will find still wider expanses of sand
sometimes bare and dry and white, at others moist and dark and covered
with dwarf tamarisk. He may notice that, before he reaches the sand and
the tamarisk scrub, he leaves by a gentle or abrupt descent the dry
uplands, and passes into a lower, greener, and perhaps to his
inexperienced eye more fertile seeming tract. This is the valley, often
miles broad, through which the stream has moved in ever-shifting
channels in the course of centuries. He[Pg 34] finds it hard to realize that,
when the summer heats melt the Himalayan snows, and the monsoon
currents, striking against the northern mountain walls, are precipitated
in torrents of rain, the rush of water to the plains swells the river
20, 30, 40, or even 50 fold. The sandy bed then becomes full from bank
to bank, and the silt laden waters spill over into the cultivated
lowlands beyond. Accustomed to the stable streams of his own land, he
cannot conceive the risks the riverside farmer in the Panjáb runs of
having fruitful fields smothered in a night with barren sand, or lands
and well and house sucked into the river-bed. So great and sudden are
the changes, bad and good, wrought by river action that the loss and
gain have to be measured up year by year for revenue purposes. Nor is
the visitor likely to imagine that the main channel may in a few seasons
become a quite subsidiary or wholly deserted bed. Like all streams, e.g.
the Po, which flow from the mountains into a flat terrain, the Panjáb
rivers are perpetually silting up their beds, and thus, by their own
action, becoming diverted into new channels or into existing minor ones,
which are scoured out afresh. If our traveller, leaving the railway at
Ráwalpindi, proceeds by tonga to the capital of Kashmír, he will find
between Kohála and Báramúla another surprise awaiting him. The noble but
sluggish river of the lowlands, which he crossed at the town of Jhelam,
is here a swift and deep torrent, flowing over a boulder bed, and
swirling round waterworn rocks in a gorge hemmed in by mountains. That
is the typical state of the Himalayan rivers, though the same Jhelam
above Báramúla is an exception, flowing there sluggishly through a very
flat valley into a shallow lake.

The Indus Basin.—The river Sindh (Sanskrit, Sindhu), more familiar to
us under its classical name of the Indus,[Pg 35] must have filled with
astonishment every invader from the west, and it is not wonderful that
they called after it the country that lay beyond. Its basin covers an
area of 373,000 square miles. Confining attention to Asia these figures,
large though they seem, are far exceeded by those of the Yangtsze-Kiang.
The area of which a description is attempted in this book is, with the
exception of a strip along the Jamna and the part of Kashmír lying
beyond the Muztagh-Karakoram range, all included in the Indus basin. But
it does not embrace the whole of it. Part is in Tibet, part in
Afghánistán and Biluchistán, and part in Sindh, through which province
the Indus flows for 450 miles, or one-quarter of its whole course of
1800 miles. It seems likely that the Jamna valley was not always an
exception, or at least that that river once flowed westwards through
Rájputána to the Indian ocean. The five great rivers of the Panjáb all
drain into the Indus, and the Ghagar with its tributary, the Sarustí,
which now, even when in flood, loses itself in the sands of Bikaner,
probably once flowed down the old Hakra bed in Baháwalpur either into
the Indus or by an independent bed now represented by an old flood
channel of the Indus in Sindh, the Hakro or Nara, which passes through
the Rann of Kachh.

The Indus outside British India.—To the north of the Manasarowar lake
in Tibet is Kailás, the Hindu Olympus. On the side of this mountain the
Indus is said to rise at a height of 17,000 feet. After a course of 200
miles or more it crosses the south-east boundary of the Kashmír State at
an elevation of 13,800 feet. From the Kashmír frontier to Mt Haramosh
west of Gilgit it flows steadily to the north-west for 350 miles. After
125 miles Leh, the capital of Ladákh, is reached at a height of 10,500
feet, and here the river is crossed by the trade route to Yarkand. A
little below Leh[Pg 36] the Indus receives the Zánskar, which drains the
south-east of Kashmír. After another 150 miles it flows through the
basin, in which Skardo, the principal town in Baltistán, is situated.
Above Skardo a large tributary, the Shyok, flows in from the east at an
elevation of 8000 feet. The Shyok and its affluent, the Nubra, rise in
the giant glaciers to the south-west of the Karakoram pass. After the
Skardo basin is left behind the descent is rapid. The river rushes down
a tremendous gorge, where it appears to break through the western
Himálaya, skirts Haramosh, and at a point twenty-five miles east of
Gilgit bends abruptly to the south. Shortly after it is joined from the
west by the Gilgit river, and here the bed is about 4000 feet above sea
level. Continuing to flow south for another twenty miles it resumes its
westernly course to the north of Nanga Parvat and persists in it for 100
miles. Our political post of Chilás lies in this section on the south
bank. Fifty or sixty miles west of Chilás the Indus turns finally to the
south. From Jálkot, where the Kashmír frontier is left, to Palosí below
the Mahaban mountain it flows for a hundred miles through territory over
which we only exercise political control. Near Palosí, 812 miles from
the source, the river enters British India. In Kashmír the Indus and the
Shyok in some places flow placidly over alluvial flats, and at others
with a rapid and broken current through narrow gorges. At Skardo their
united stream is said, even in winter, to be 500 feet wide and nine or
ten feet deep. If one of the deep gorges, as sometimes happens, is
choked by a landslip, the flood that follows when the barrier finally
bursts may spread devastation hundreds of miles away. To the north of
the fertile Chach plain in Attock there is a wide stretch of land along
the Indus, which still shows in its stony impoverished soil the effects
of the great flood of 1841.[Pg 37]

Fig. 12. The Indus at Attock.

Fig. 13. Indus at Káfirkot, D.I. Khán dt.

The Indus in British India.—After reaching British India the Indus soon
becomes the boundary dividing Hazára and Pesháwar, two districts of the
North West Frontier Province. Lower down it parts Pesháwar from the
Panjáb district of Attock. In this section after a time the hills recede
on both sides, and the stream is wide and so shallow that it is fordable
in places in the cold weather. There are islands, ferry boats and rafts
can ply, and the only danger is from sudden freshets. Ohind, where
Alexander crossed, is in this section. A more famous passage is at
Attock just below the junction of the Kábul river. Here the heights
again approach the Indus on either bank. The volume of water is vastly
increased by the union of the Kábul river, which brings down the whole
drainage of the southern face of the Hindu Kush. From the north it
receives near Jalálábád the Kunar river, and near Charsadda in Pesháwar
the[Pg 38] Swát, which with its affluent the Panjkora drains Dír, Bajaur, and
Swát. In the cold weather looking northwards from the Attock fort one
sees the Kábul or Landai as a blue river quietly mingling with the
Indus, and in the angle between them a stretch of white sand. But during
floods the junction is the scene of a wild turmoil of waters. At Attock
there are a railway bridge, a bridge of boats, and a ferry. The bed of
the stream is 2000 feet over sea level. For ninety miles below Attock
the river is confined between bare and broken hills, till it finally
emerges into the plains from the gorge above Kálabágh, where the Salt
Range impinges on the left bank. Between Attock and Kálabágh the right
bank is occupied by Pesháwar and Kohát and the left by Attock and
Mianwálí. In this section the Indus is joined by the Haro and Soán
torrents, and spanned at Khushálgarh by a railway bridge. This is the
only other masonry[Pg 39] bridge crossing it in the Panjáb. Elsewhere the
passage has to be made by ferry boats or by boat bridges, which are
taken down in the rainy season. At Kálabágh the height above sea level
is less than 1000 feet. When it passes the western extremity of the Salt
Range the river spreads out into a wide lake-like expanse of waters. It
has now performed quite half of its long journey. Henceforth it receives
no addition from the east till the Panjnad in the south-west corner of
the Muzaffargarh district brings to it the whole tribute of the five
rivers of the Panjáb. Here, though the Indian ocean is still 500 miles
distant, the channel is less than 300 feet above the sea. From the west
it receives an important tributary in the Kurram, which, with its
affluent the Tochí, rises in Afghánistán. The torrents from the Sulimán
Range are mostly used up for irrigation before they reach the Indus, but
some of them mingle their waters with it in high floods. Below Kálabágh
the Indus is a typical lowland river of great size, with many sandy
islands in the bed and a wide valley subject to its inundations.
Opposite Dera Ismail Khán the valley is seventeen miles across. As a
plains river the Indus runs at first through the Mianwálí district of
the Panjáb, then divides Mianwálí from Dera Ismail Khán, and lastly
parts Muzaffargarh and the Baháwalpur State from the Panjáb frontier
district of Dera Ghází Khán.

The Jhelam.—The Jhelam, the most westernly of the five rivers of the
Panjáb, is called the Veth in Kashmir and locally in the Panjáb plains
the Vehat. These names correspond to the Bihat of the Muhammadan
historians and the Hydaspes of the Greeks, and all go back to the
Sanskrit Vitasta. Issuing from a deep pool at Vernág to the east of
Islámábád in Kashmír it becomes navigable just below that town, and
flows north-west in a lazy stream for 102 miles through Srínagar, the
summer[Pg 40] capital, into the Wular lake, and beyond it to Báramúla. The
banks are quite low and often cultivated to the river’s edge. But across
the flat valley there is on either side a splendid panorama of
mountains. From Báramúla the character of the Jhelam suddenly changes,
and for the next 70 miles to Kohála, where the traveller crosses by a
fine bridge into the Panjáb, it rushes down a deep gorge, whose sides
are formed by the Kajnág mountains on the right, and the Pír Panjál on
the left, bank. Between Báramúla and Kohála there is a drop from 5000 to
2000 feet. At Domel, the stage before Kohála the Jhelam receives from
the north the waters of the Kishnganga, and lower down it is joined by
the Kunhár, which drains the Kágan glen in Hazára. A little above Kohála
it turns sharply to the south, continuing its character as a mountain
stream hemmed in by the hills of Ráwalpindí on the right bank and of the
Púnch State on the left. The hills gradually sink lower and lower, but
on the left side only disappear a little above the cantonment of Jhelam,
where there is a noble railway bridge. From Jhelam onwards the river is
of the usual plains’ type. After dividing the districts of Jhelam (right
bank) and Gujrát (left), it flows through the Sháhpur and Jhang
districts, falling finally into the Chenáb at Trimmu, 450 miles from its
source. There is a second railway bridge at Haranpur on the Sind Ságar
line, and a bridge of boats at Khusháb, in the Sháhpur district. The
noblest and most-varied scenery in the north-west Himalaya is in the
catchment area of the Jhelam. The Kashmír valley and the valleys which
drain into the Jhelam from the north, the Liddar, the Loláb, the Sind,
and the Kágan glen, display a wealth of beauty unequalled elsewhere. Nor
does this river wholly lose its association with beauty in the plains.
Its very rich silt gives the lands on its banks the green charm of rich
crops and pleasant trees.[Pg 41]

The Chenáb.—The Chenáb (more properly Chínáb or river of China) is the
Asikní of the Vedas and the Akesines of the Greek historians. It is
formed by the union of the Chandra and Bhága, both of which rise in
Lahul near the Báralácha pass. Having become the Chandrabhága the river
flows through Pángí in Chamba and the south-east of Kashmír. Near
Kishtwár it breaks through the Pír Panjál range, and thenceforwards
receives the drainage of its southern slopes. At Akhnúr it becomes
navigable and soon after it enters the Panjáb district of Siálkot. A
little later it is joined from the west by the Tawí, the stream above
which stands Jammu, the winter capital of Kashmír. The Chenáb parts
Siálkot and Gujránwála on the left bank from Gujrát and Sháhpur on the
right. At Wazírábád, near the point where Siálkot, Gujrát, and
Gujránwála meet, it is crossed by the Alexandra railway bridge. Leaving
Sháhpur and Gujránwála behind, the Chenáb flows through Jhang to its
junction with the Jhelam at Trimmu. In this section there is a second
railway bridge at Chund Bharwána. The united stream runs on under the
name of Chenáb to be joined on the north border of the Multán district
by the Ráví and on its southern border by the Sutlej. Below its junction
with the latter the stream is known as the Panjnad. In the plains the
Chenáb cannot be called an attractive river, and its silt is far
inferior to that of the Jhelam.

Fig. 14. Fording the River at Lahore.

The Ráví.—The Ráví was known to the writers of the Vedic hymns as the
Parushní, but is called in classical Sanskrit Irávatí, whence the
Hydraotes of the Greek historians. It rises near the Rotang pass in
Kángra, and flows north-west through the southern part of Chamba. Below
the town of Chamba, it runs as a swift slaty-blue mountain stream, and
here it is spanned by a fine bridge. Passing on to the north of the hill
station of Dalhousie[Pg 42] it reaches the Kashmir border, and turning to the
south-west flows along it to Basolí where Kashmír, Chamba, and the
British district of Gurdáspur meet. At this point it is 2000 feet above
the sea level. It now forms the boundary of Kashmír and Gurdáspur, and
finally near Madhopur, where the head-works of the Bárí Doáb canal are
situated, it passes into the Gurdáspur district. Shortly after it is
joined from the north by a large torrent called the Ujh, which rises in
the Jammu hills. After reaching the Siálkot border the Ráví parts that
district first from Gurdáspur and then from Amritsar, and, passing
through the west of Lahore, divides Montgomery and Lyallpur, and flowing
through the north of Multán joins the Chenáb near the Jhang border. In
Multán there is a remarkable straight reach in the channel known as the
Sídhnai, which has been utilized for the site of the head-works of a
small canal. The Degh, a torrent which rises in the Jammu hills and has
a long course[Pg 43] through the Siálkot and Gujránwála districts, joins the
Ráví when in flood in the north of the Lyallpur district. But its waters
will now be diverted into the river higher up in order to safeguard the
Upper Chenáb canal. Lahore is on the left bank of the Ráví. It is a mile
from the cold weather channel, but in high floods the waters have often
come almost up to the Fort. At Lahore the North Western Railway and the
Grand Trunk Road are carried over the Ráví by masonry bridges. There is
a second railway bridge over the Sídhnai reach in Multán. Though the
Ráví, like the Jhelam, has a course of 450 miles, it has a far smaller
catchment area, and is really a somewhat insignificant stream. In the
cold weather, the canal takes such a heavy toll from it that below
Mádhopur the supply of water is mainly drawn from the Ujh, and in
Montgomery one may cross the bed dryshod for months together. The valley
of the Ráví is far narrower than those of the rivers described in the
preceding paragraphs, and the floods are most uncertain, but when they
occur are of very great value.

Fig. 15. Biás at Manálí.

The Biás.—The Biás (Sanskrit, Vipasa; Greek, Hyphasis) rises near the
Rotang pass at a height of about 13,000 feet. Its head-waters are
divided from those of the Ráví by the Bara Bangáhal range. It flows for
about sixty miles through the beautiful Kulu valley to Lárjí (3000
feet). It has at first a rapid course, but before it reaches Sultánpur
(4000 feet), the chief village in Kulu, some thirty miles from the
source, it has become, at least in the cold weather, a comparatively
peaceful stream fringed with alder thickets. Heavy floods, however,
sometimes cover fields and orchards with sand and boulders. There is a
bridge at Manálí (6100 feet), a very lovely spot, another below Nagar,
and a third at Lárjí. Near Lárjí the river turns to the west down a bold
ravine and becomes for a time the boundary between[Pg 44] Kulu and the Mandí
State. Near the town of Mandí, where it is bridged, it bends again, and
winds in a north-west and westerly direction through low hills in the
south of Kángra till it meets the Siwáliks on the Hoshyárpur border. In
this reach there is a bridge of boats at Dera Gopípur on the main road
from Jalandhar and Hoshyárpur to Dharmsála. Elsewhere in the south of
Kángra the traveller can cross without difficulty on a small bed
supported on inflated skins. Sweeping round the northern end of the
Siwáliks the Biás, having after long parting again approached within
about fifteen miles of the Ráví, turns definitely to the south, forming
henceforth the dividing line between Hoshyárpur and Kapúrthala (left
bank) and Gurdáspur and Amritsar (right). Finally above the Harike ferry
at a point where Lahore, Amritsar, Ferozepur, and Kapúrthala nearly
meet, it falls into the Sutlej. The North Western[Pg 45] Railway crosses it by
a bridge near the Biás station and at the same place there is a bridge
of boats for the traffic on the Grand Trunk Road. The chief affluents
are the Chakkí, the torrent which travellers to Dharmsála cross by a
fine bridge twelve miles from the railhead at Pathánkot, and the Black
Bein in Hoshyárpur and Kapúrthala. The latter is a winding drainage
channel, which starts in a swamp in the north of the Hoshyárpur
district. The Biás has a total course of 390 miles. Only for about
eighty miles or so is it a true river of the plains, and its floods do
not spread far.

The Sutlej.—The Sutlej is the Shatadru of Vedic hymns and the Zaradros
of Greek writers. The peasant of the Panjáb plains knows it as the Nílí
or Ghara. After the Indus it is the greatest of Panjáb rivers, and for
its source we have to go back to the Manasarowar lakes in Tibet. From
thence it flows for 200 miles in a north-westerly direction to the
British frontier near Shipkí. A little beyond the Spití river brings it
the drainage of the large tract of that name in Kángra and of part of
Western Tibet. From Shipkí it runs for forty miles in deep gorges
through Kunáwar in the Bashahr State to Chíní, a beautiful spot near the
Wangtu bridge, where the Hindustan-Tibet road crosses to the left bank.
A little below Chíní the Báspa flows in from the southeast. The fall
between the source and Chíní is from 15,000 to 7500 feet. There is
magnificent cliff scenery at Rogí in this reach. Forty miles below Chíní
the capital of Bashahr, Rámpur, on the south bank, is only 3300 feet
above sea level. There is a second bridge at Rámpur, and from about this
point the river becomes the boundary of Bashahr and Kulu, the route to
which from Simla passes over the Lurí bridge (2650 feet) below Nárkanda.
Beyond Lurí the Sutlej runs among low hills through several of the Simla
Hill States. It pierces the Siwáliks[Pg 46] at the Hoshyárpur border and then
turns to the south, maintaining that trend till Rúpar and the head-works
of the Sirhind canal are reached. For the next hundred miles to the Biás
junction the general direction is west. Above the Harike ferry the
Sutlej again turns, and flows steadily, though with many windings, to
the south-west till it joins the Chenáb at the south corner of the
Multán district. There are railway bridges at Phillaur, Ferozepur, and
Adamwáhan. In the plains the Sutlej districts are—on the right bank
Hoshyárpur, Jalandhar, Lahore, and Montgomery, and on the left Ambála,
Ludhiána and Ferozepur. Below Ferozepur the river divides Montgomery and
Multán from Baháwalpur (left bank). The Sutle; has a course of 900
miles, and a large catchment area in the hills. Notwithstanding the
heavy toll taken by the Sirhind canal, its floods spread pretty far in
Jalandhar and Ludhiána and below the Biás junction many monsoon canals
have been dug which inundate a large area in the lowlands of the
districts on either bank and of Baháwalpur. The dry bed of the Hakra,
which can be traced through Baháwalpur, Bikaner, and Sindh, formerly
carried the waters of the Sutlej to the sea.

The Ghagar and the Sarusti.—The Ghagar, once a tributary of the Hakra,
rises within the Sirmúr State in the hills to the east of Kálka. A few
miles south of Kálka it crosses a narrow neck of the Ambála district,
and the bridge on the Ambála-Kalka railway is in this section. The rest
of its course, till it loses itself in the sands of Bikaner, is chiefly
in Patiála and the Karnál and Hissár districts. It is joined by the Umla
torrent in Karnál and lower down the Sarustí unites with it in Patiála
just beyond the Karnál border. It is hard to believe that the Sarustí of
to-day is the famous Sarasvatí of the Vedas, though the little
ditch-like channel that[Pg 47] bears the name certainly passes beside the
sacred sites of Thanesar and Pehowa. A small sandy torrent bearing the
same name rises in the low hills in the north-east of the Ambála
district, but it is doubtful if its waters, which finally disappear into
the ground, ever reach the Thanesar channel. That seems rather to
originate in the overflow of a rice swamp in the plains, and in the cold
weather the bed is usually dry. In fact, till the Sarustí receives above
Pehowa the floods of the Márkanda torrent, it is a most insignificant
stream. The Márkanda, when in flood, carries a large volume of water,
and below the junction the small channel of the Sarustí cannot carry the
tribute received, which spreads out into a shallow lake called the
Sainsa jhíl. This has been utilized for the supply of the little
Sarustí canal, which is intended to do the work formerly effected in a
rude way by throwing bands or embankments across the bed of the
stream, and forcing the water over the surrounding lands. The same
wasteful form of irrigation was used on a large scale on the Ghagar and
is still practised on its upper reaches. Lower down earthen bands have
been superceded by a masonry weir at Otu in the Hissár district. The
northern and southern Ghagar canals, which irrigate lands in Hissár and
Bikaner, take off from this weir.

Action of Torrents.—The Ghagar is large enough to exhibit all the three
stages which a cho or torrent of intermittent flow passes through.
Such a stream begins in the hills with a well-defined boulder-strewn
bed, which is never dry. Reaching the plains the bed of a cho becomes a
wide expanse of white sand, hardly below the level of the adjoining
country, with a thread of water passing down it in the cold weather. But
from time to time in the rainy season the channel is full from bank to
bank and the waters spill far and wide over the fields. Sudden spates
sometimes sweep away men and cattle[Pg 48] before they can get across. If, as
in Hoshyárpur, the chos flow into a rich plain from hills composed of
friable sandstone and largely denuded of tree-growth, they are in their
second stage most destructive. After long delay an Act was passed in
1900, which gives the government large powers for the protection of
trees in the Siwáliks and the reclamation of torrent beds in the plains.
The process of recovery cannot be rapid, but a measure of success has
already been attained. It must not be supposed that the action of chos
in this second stage is uniformly bad. Some carry silt as well as sand,
and the very light loam which the great Márkanda cho has spread over
the country on its banks is worth much more to the farmer than the stiff
clay it has overlaid. Many chos do not pass into the third stage, when
all the sand has been dropped, and the bed shrinks into a narrow
ditch-like channel with steep clay banks. The inundations of torrents
like the Degh and the Ghagar after this stage is reached convert the
soil into a stiff impervious clay, where flood-water will lie for weeks
without being absorbed into the soil. In Karnál the wretched and
fever-stricken tract between the Ghagar and the Sarustí known as the
Nailí is of this character.

The Jamna.—The Jamna is the Yamuna of Sanskrit writers. Ptolemy’s and
Pliny’s versions, Diamouna and Jomanes, do not deviate much from the
original. It rises in the Kumáon Himálaya, and, where it first meets the
frontier of the Simla Hill States, receives from the north a large
tributary called the Tons. Henceforth, speaking broadly, the Jamna is
the boundary of the Panjáb and the United Provinces. On the Panjáb bank
are from north to south the Sirmúr State, Ambála, Karnál, Rohtak, Delhi,
and Gurgáon. The river leaves the Panjáb where Gurgáon and the district
of Mathra, which belongs to the United Provinces, meet, and finally[Pg 49]
falls into the Ganges at Allahábád. North of Mathra Delhi is the only
important town on its banks. The Jamna is crossed by railway bridges
between Delhi and Meerut and between Ambála and Saháranpur.

Changes in Rivers.—Allusion has already been made to the changes which
the courses of Panjáb rivers are subject to in the plains. The Indus
below Kálabágh once ran through the heart of what is now the Thal
desert. We know that in 1245 A.D. Multán was in the Sind Ságar Doáb
between the Indus and the united streams of the Jhelam, Chenáb, and
Ráví. The Biás had then no connection with the Sutlej, but ran in a bed
of its own easily to be traced to-day in the Montgomery and Multán
districts, and joined the Indus between Multán and Uch. The Sutlej was
still flowing in the Hakra bed. Indeed its junction with the Biás near
Harike, which probably led to a complete change in the course of the
Biás, seems only to have taken place within the last 150 years[2].[Pg 50]

CHAPTER IV

GEOLOGY AND MINERAL RESOURCES

Extent of Geological Record.—Although the main part of the Panjáb plain
is covered by a mantle of comparatively recent alluvium, the provinces
described in this book display a more complete record of Indian
geological history than any other similar area in the country. The
variety is so great that no systematic or sufficient description could
be attempted in a short chapter, and it is not possible, therefore, to
do more in these few pages than give brief sketches of the patches of
unusual interest.

Aravallí System.—In the southern and south-eastern districts of the
Panjáb there are exposures of highly folded and metamorphosed rocks
which belong to the most ancient formations in India. These occupy the
northern end of the Aravallí hills, which form but a relic of what must
have been at one time a great mountain range, stretching roughly
south-south-west through Rájputána into the Bombay Presidency. The
northern ribs of the Aravallí series disappear beneath alluvial cover in
the Delhi district, but the rocks still underlie the plains to the west
and north-west, their presence being revealed by the small promontories
that peep through the alluvium near the Chenáb river, standing up as
small hills near Chiniot in the Sháhpur, Jhang, and Lyallpur districts.[Pg 51]

The Salt Range in the Jhelam and Sháhpur districts, with a western
continuation in the Mianwálí district to and beyond the Indus, is the
most interesting part of the Panjáb to the geologist. It contains
notable records of three distinct eras in geological history. In
association with the well-known beds of rock-salt, which are being
extensively mined at Kheora, occur the most ancient fossiliferous
formations known in India, corresponding in age with the middle and
lower part of the Cambrian system of Europe. These very ancient strata
immediately overlie the red marls and associated rock-salt beds, and it
is possible that they have been thrust over bodily to occupy this
position, as we have no parallel elsewhere for the occurrence of great
masses of salt in formation older than the Cambrian.

The second fragment of geological history preserved in the Salt Range is
very much younger, beginning with rocks which were formed in the later
part of the Carboniferous period. The most remarkable feature in this
fragment is a boulder-bed, resting unconformably on the Cambrian strata
and including boulders of various shapes and sizes, which are often
faceted and striated in a way indicative of glacial action. Several of
the boulders belong to rocks of a peculiar and unmistakable character,
such as are found in situ on the western flanks of the Aravallí Range,
some 750 miles to the south. The glacial conditions which gave rise to
these boulder-beds were presumably contemporaneous with those that
produced the somewhat similar formation lying at the base of the great
coal-bearing system in the Indian peninsula. The glacial boulder-bed
thus offers indirect evidence as to the age of the Indian coal-measures,
for immediately above this bed in the Salt Range there occur sandstones
containing fossils which have affinities with the Upper Carboniferous
formations of Australia,[Pg 52] and on these sandstones again there lie
alternations of shales and limestones containing an abundance of fossils
that are characteristic of the Permo-Carboniferous rocks of Russia.
These are succeeded by an apparently conformable succession of beds of
still younger age, culminating in a series of shales, sandstones, and
limestones of unmistakably Triassic age.

There is then an interruption in the record, and the next younger series
preserved occurs in the western part of the Salt Range as well as in the
hills beyond the Indus. This formation is of Upper Jurassic age,
corresponding to the well-known beds of marine origin preserved in
Cutch. Then follows again a gap in the record, and the next most
interesting series of formations found in the Salt Range become of great
importance from the economic as well as from the purely scientific point
of view; these are the formations of Tertiary age.

The oldest of the Tertiary strata include a prominent limestone
containing Nummulitic fossils, which are characteristic of these Lower
Tertiary beds throughout the world. Here, as in many parts of
North-Western India, the Nummulitic limestones are associated with coal
which has been largely worked. The country between the Salt Range
plateau and the hilly region away to the north is covered by a great
stretch of comparatively young Tertiary formations, which were laid down
in fresh water after the sea had been driven back finally from this
region. The incoming of fresh-water conditions was inaugurated by the
formation of beds which are regarded as equivalent in age to those known
as the Upper Nari in Sind and Eastern Baluchistán, but the still later
deposits, belonging to the well-known Siwálik series, are famous on
account of the great variety and large size of many of the vertebrate
fossil remains which they have yielded. In these beds to the north[Pg 53] of
the Salt Range there have been found remains of Dinotherium, forms
related to the ancestors of the giraffe and various other mammals, some
of them, like the Sivatherium, Mastodon, and Stegodon, being animals of
great size. On the northern side of the Salt Range three fairly
well-defined divisions of the Siwálik series have been recognised, each
being conspicuously fossiliferous—a feature that is comparatively rare
in the Siwálik hills further to the south-east, where these rocks were
first studied. The Siwálik series of the Salt Range are thus so well
developed that this area might be conveniently regarded as the type
succession for the purpose of correlating isolated fragmentary
occurrences of the same general series in northern and western India. To
give an idea as to the age of these rocks, it will be sufficient to
mention that the middle division of the series corresponds roughly to
the well-known deposits of Pikermi and Samos.

Kashmir deserves special mention, as it is a veritable paradise for the
geologist. Of the variety of problems that it presents one might mention
the petrological questions connected with the intrusion of the great
masses of granite, and their relation to the slates and associated
metamorphic rocks. Of fossiliferous systems there is a fine display of
material ranging in age from Silurian to Upper Trias, and additional
interest is added by the long-continued volcanic eruptions of the
“Panjál trap.” Students of recent phenomena have at their disposal
interesting problems in physiography, including a grand display of
glaciers, and the extensive deposits of so-called karewas, which
appear to have been formed in drowned valleys, where the normal
fluviatile conditions are modified by those characteristic of lakes. The
occurrence of sapphires in Zánskar gives the State also an interest to
the mineralogist and connoisseur of gem-stones.[Pg 54]

Of this kaleidoscopic assemblage of questions the ones of most immediate
interest are connected with the Silurian-Trias succession in the Kashmír
valley, for here we have a connecting-link between the marine formations
of the Salt Range area and those which are preserved in greater
perfection in Spití and other parts of the Tibetan highlands, stretching
away to the south-east at the back of the great range of crystalline
snow-covered peaks.

In this interesting part of Kashmír the most important feature to Indian
geologists is the occurrence of plant remains belonging to genera
identical with those that occur in the lower part of the great
coal-bearing formation of Peninsular India, known as the Gondwána
system. Until these discoveries were made in Kashmír about ten years ago
the age of the base of the Gondwánas was estimated only on indirect
evidence, partly due to the assumption that glacial conditions in the
Salt Range and those at the base of the Gondwánas were contemporaneous,
and partly due to analogy with the coal measures of Australia and South
Africa. In Kashmír the characteristic plant remains of the Lower
Gondwánas are found associated with marine fossils in great abundance,
and these permit of a correlation of the strata with the upper part of
the Carboniferous system of the European standard stratigraphical scale.

Kashmír seems to have been near the estuary of one of the great rivers
that formerly flowed over the ancient continent of Gondwánaland (when
India and South Africa formed parts of one continental mass) into the
great Eurasian Ocean known as Tethys. As the deposits formed in this
great ocean give us the principal part of our data for forming a
standard stratigraphical scale, the plants which were carried out to sea
become witnesses of the kind of flora that flourished during the[Pg 55] main
Indian coal period; they thus enable us with great precision to fix the
position of the fresh-water Gondwánas in comparison with the marine
succession.

Spití.—With á brief reference to one more interesting patch among the
geological records of this remarkable region, space will force us to
pass on to consideration of minerals of economic value. The line of
snow-covered peaks, composed mainly of crystalline rocks and forming a
core to the Himálaya in a way analogous to the granitic core of the
Alps, occupies what was once apparently the northern shore of
Gondwánaland, and to the north of it there stretched the great ocean of
Tethys, covering the central parts of Asia and Europe, one of its
shrunken relics being the present Mediterranean Sea. The bed of this
ocean throughout many geological ages underwent gradual depression and
received the sediments brought down by the rivers from the continent
which stretched away to the south. The sedimentary deposits thus formed
near the shore-line or further out in deep water attained a thickness of
well over 20,000 feet, and have been studied in the tahsíl of Spití,
on the northern border of Kumáon, and again on the eastern Tibetan
plateau to the north of Darjeeling. A reference to the formations
preserved in Spití may be regarded as typical of the geological history
and the conditions under which these formations were produced.

Succession of Fossiliferous Beds.—In age the fossiliferous beds range
from Cambrian right through to the Tertiary epoch; between these
extremes no single period was passed without leaving its records in some
part of the great east-to-west Tibetan basin. At the base of the whole
succession there lies a series of schists which have been largely
metamorphosed, and on these rest the oldest of the fossiliferous series,
which, on account of their occurring in the region of snow, has been
named the Haimanta system. The[Pg 56] upper part of the Haimanta system has
been found to contain the characteristic trilobites of the Cambrian
period of Europe. Over this system lie beds which have yielded in
succession Ordovician and Silurian fossils, forming altogether a compact
division which has been distinguished locally as the Muth system. Then
follows the so-called Kanáwar system, which introduces Devonian
conditions, followed by fossils characteristic of the well-known
mountain limestone of Europe.

Then occurs a break in the succession which varies in magnitude in
different localities, but appears to correspond to great changes in the
physical geography which widely affect the Indian region. This break
corresponds roughly to the upper part of the Carboniferous system of
Europe, and has been suggested as a datum line for distinguishing in
India an older group of fossiliferous systems below (formed in an area
that has been distinguished by the name Dravidian), from the younger
group above, which has been distinguished by the name Aryan.

During the periods that followed this interruption the bed of the great
Eurasian Ocean seems to have subsided persistently though
intermittently. As the various sediments accumulated the exact position
of the shore-line must have changed to some extent to give rise to the
conditions favourable for the formation at one time of limestone, at
another of shale and at other times of sandy deposits. The whole column
of beds, however, seems to have gone on accumulating without any folding
movements, and they are consequently now found lying apparently in
perfect conformity stage upon stage, from those that are Permian in age
at the base, right through the Mesozoic group, till the time when
Tertiary conditions were inaugurated and the earth movements began which
ultimately drove back the ocean and raised the bed, with its accumulated
load[Pg 57] of sediments, into the great folds that now form the Himálayan
Range. This great mass of Aryan strata includes an enormous number of
fossil remains, giving probably a more complete record of the gradual
changes that came over the marine fauna of Tethys than any other area of
the kind known. One must pass over the great number of interesting
features still left unmentioned, including the grand architecture of the
Sub-Himálaya and the diversity of formations in different parts of the
Frontier Province; for the rest of the available space must be devoted
to a brief reference to the minerals of value.

Rock-salt, which occurs in abundance, is possibly the most important
mineral in this area. The deposits most largely worked are those which
occur in the well-known Salt Range, covering parts of the districts of
Jhelam, Sháhpur, and Mianwálí. Near the village of Kheora the main seam,
which is being worked in the Mayo mines, has an aggregate thickness of
550 feet, of which five seams, with a total thickness of 275 feet,
consist of salt pure enough to be placed on the table with no more
preparation than mere pulverising. The associated beds are impregnated
with earth, and in places there occur thin layers of potash and
magnesian salts. In this area salt quarrying was practised for an
unknown period before the time of Akbar, and was continued in a
primitive fashion until it came under the control of the British
Government with the occupation of the Panjáb in 1849. In 1872 systematic
mining operations were planned, and the general line of work has been
continued ever since, with an annual output of roughly 100,000 tons.

Open quarries for salt are developed a short distance to the
east-north-east of Kálabágh on the Indus, and similar open work is
practised near Kohát in the North[Pg 58] West Frontier Province, where the
quantity of salt may be regarded as practically inexhaustible. At
Bahádur Khel the salt lies at the base of the Tertiary series, and can
be traced for a distance of about eight miles with an exposed thickness
of over 1000 feet, sometimes standing up as hills of solid salt above
the general level of the plains. In this area the production is
naturally limited by want of transport and the small local demand, the
total output from the quarries being about 16,000 tons per annum. A
small quantity of salt (generally about 4000 tons a year), is raised
also from open quarries in the Mandí State, where the rock-salt beds,
distinctly impure and earthy, lie near the junction between Tertiary
formations and the older unfossiliferous groups.

Coal occurs at numerous places in association with the Nummulitic
limestones of Lower Tertiary age, in the Panjáb, in the North West
Frontier Province, and in the Jammu division of Kashmír. The largest
output has been obtained from the Salt Range, where mines have been
opened up on behalf of the North Western Railway. The mines at Dandot in
the Jhelam district have considerable fluctuations in output, which,
however, for many years ranged near 50,000 tons. These mines, having
been worked at a financial loss, were finally abandoned by the Railway
Company in 1911, but a certain amount of work is still being continued
by local contractors. At Bháganwála, 19 miles further east, in the
adjoining district of Sháhpur, coal was also worked for many years for
the North Western State Railway, but the maximum output in any one year
never exceeded 14,000 tons, and in 1900, owing to the poor quality of
material obtained, the collieries were closed down. Recently, small
outcrop workings have been developed in the same formation further west
on the southern scarp of the Salt Range at Tejuwála in the Sháhpur
district.[Pg 59]

Gold to a small amount is washed from the gravel of the Indus and some
other rivers by native workers, and large concessions have been granted
for systematic dredging, but these enterprises have not yet reached the
commercially paying stage.

Other Metals.—Prospecting has been carried on at irregular intervals in
Kulu and along the corresponding belt of schistose rocks further west in
Kashmír and Chitrál. The copper ores occur as sulphides along certain
bands in the chloritic and micaceous schists, similar in composition and
probably in age to those worked further east in Kumáon, in Nipál, and in
Sikkim. In Lahul near the Shigrí glacier there is a lode containing
antimony sulphide with ores of zinc and lead, which would almost
certainly be opened up and developed but for the difficulty of access
and cost of transport to the only valuable markets.

Petroleum springs occur among the Tertiary formations of the Panjáb and
Biluchistán, and a few thousand gallons of oil are raised annually.
Prospecting operations have been carried on vigorously during the past
two or three years, but no large supplies have so far been proved. The
principal oil-supplies of Burma and Assam have been obtained from rocks
of Miocene age, like those of Persia and the Caspian region, but the
most promising “shows” in North West India have been in the older
Nummulitic formations, and the oil is thus regarded by some experts as
the residue of the material which has migrated from the Miocene beds
that probably at one time covered the Nummulitic formations, but have
since been removed by the erosive action of the atmosphere.

Alum is manufactured from the pyritous shales of the Mianwálí district,
the annual output being generally about 200 to 300 tons. Similar shales
containing pyrites are known to occur in other parts of this area, and
possibly the industry might be considerably extended, as the[Pg 60] annual
requirements of India, judged by the import returns, exceed ten times
the native production of alum.

Borax is produced in Ladákh and larger quantities are imported across
the frontier from Tibet. In the early summer one frequently meets herds
of sheep being driven southwards across the Himalayan passes, each sheep
carrying a couple of small saddle-bags laden with borax or salt, which
is bartered in the Panjáb bazars for Indian and foreign stores for the
winter requirements of the snow-blocked valleys beyond the frontier.

Sapphires.—The sapphires of Zánskar have been worked at intervals since
the discovery of the deposit in 1881, and some of the finest stones in
the gem market have been obtained from this locality, where work is,
however, difficult on account of the great altitude and the difficulty
of access from the plains.

Limestone.—Large deposits of Nummulitic limestone are found in the
older Tertiary formations of North-West India. It yields a pure lime and
is used in large quantities for building purposes. The constant
association of these limestones with shale beds, and their frequent
association with coal, naturally suggest their employment for the
manufacture of cement; and special concessions have recently been given
by the Panjáb Government with a view of encouraging the development of
the industry. The nodular impure limestone, known generally by the name
of kankar, contains sufficient clay to give it hydraulic characters
when burnt, and much cement is thus manufactured. The varying
composition of kankar naturally results in a product of irregular
character, and consequently cement so made can replace Portland cement
only for certain purposes.

Slate is quarried in various places for purely local use. In the Kángra
valley material of very high quality is obtained and consequently
secures a wide distribution,[Pg 61] limited, however, by competition with
cheaply made tiles.

Gypsum occurs in large quantities in association with the rock-salt of
the Salt Range, but the local demand is small. There are also beds of
potash and magnesian salts in the same area, but their value and
quantity have not been thoroughly proved.[Pg 62]

January to February.

March to May

June to September

October to December.

Fig. 16. Rainfall of different Seasons.

[Pg 63]

[Pg 64]

CHAPTER V

CLIMATE

Types of Climate.—The climate of the Panjáb plains is determined by
their distance from the sea and the existence of formidable mountain
barriers to the north and west. The factor of elevation makes the
climate of the Himalayan tracts very different from that of the plains.
Still more striking is the contrast between the Indian Himalayan climate
and the Central Asian Trans-Himalayan climate of Spití, Lahul, and
Ladákh.

Zones.—A broad division into six zones may be recognised:

Trans-Himalayan Climate.—Spití, Lahul, and Ladákh are outside the
meteorological influences which affect the rest of the Indian Empire.
The lofty ranges of the Himálaya interpose an almost insurmountable
barrier between them and the clouds of the monsoon. The rainfall is
extraordinarily small, and, considering the elevation of the inhabited
parts, 10,000 to 14,000 feet, the snowfall there is not heavy. The air
is intensely dry and clear, and the daily and seasonal range of
temperature is extreme. Leh, the capital of Ladákh (11,500 feet), has an
average[Pg 65] rainfall (including snow) of about 3 inches. The mean
temperature is 43° Fahr., varying from 19° in January to 64° in July.
But these figures give no idea of the rigours of the severe but healthy
climate. The daily range is from 25 to 30 degrees, or double what we are
accustomed to in England. Once 17° below zero was recorded. In the rare
dry clear atmosphere the power of the solar rays is extraordinary.
“Rocks exposed to the sun may be too hot to lay the hand upon at the
same time that it is freezing in the shade.”

View larger image
Fig. 17. Average Barometric and Wind Chart for January.

View larger image
Fig. 18. Average Barometric and Wind Chart for July.

The Indian Zones—Meteorological factors.—The distribution of pressure
in India, determined mainly by[Pg 66] changes of temperature, and itself
determining the direction of the winds and the character of the weather,
is shown graphically in figures 17 and 18. The winter or north-east
monsoon does not penetrate into the Panjáb, where light westernly and
northernly winds prevail during the cold season. What rain is received
is due to land storms originating beyond the western frontier. The
branch of the summer or south-west monsoon which chiefly affects the
Panjáb is that which blows up the Bay of Bengal. The rain-clouds
striking the Eastern Himálaya are deflected to the west and forced up
the[Pg 67] Gangetic plain by south-westernly winds. The lower ranges of the
Panjáb Himálaya receive in this way very heavy downpours. The rain
extends into the plains, but exhausts itself and dies away pretty
rapidly to the south and west. The Bombay branch of the monsoon mostly
spends itself on the Gháts and in the Deccan. But a part of it
penetrates from time to time to the south-east Panjáb, and, if it is
sucked into the Bay current, the result is widespread rain.

Himalayan Zone.—The impressions which English people get of the climate
of the Himálaya, or in Indian phrase “the Hills,” are derived mainly
from stations like Simla and Murree perched at a height of from 6500 to
7500 feet on the outer ranges. The data of meteorologists are mainly
taken from the same localities. Places between 8000 and 10,000 feet in
height and further from the plains enjoy a finer climate, being both
cooler and drier in summer. But they are less accessible, and weakly
persons would find the greater rarity of the air trying.

In the first fortnight of April the plains become disagreeably warm, and
it is well to take European children to the Hills. The Panjáb Government
moves to Simla in the first fortnight of May. By that time Simla is
pretty warm in the middle of the day, but the nights are pleasant. The
mean temperature of the 24 hours in May and June is 65° or 66°, the mean
maximum and minimum being 78° and 59°. Thunderstorms with or without
hail are not uncommon in April, May, and June. In a normal year the
monsoon clouds drift up in the end of June, and the next three months
are “the Rains.” Usually it does not rain either all day or every day;
but sometimes for weeks together Simla is smothered in a blanket of grey
mist. Normally the rain comes in bursts with longer or shorter breaks
between. About[Pg 68] the third week of September the rains often cease quite
suddenly, the end being usually proclaimed by a thunderstorm. Next
morning one wakes to a new heaven and a new earth, a perfectly cloudless
sky, and clean, crisp, cool air. This ideal weather lasts for the next
three months. Even in December the days are made pleasant by bright
sunshine, and the range of temperature is much less than in the plains.
In the end of December or beginning of January the night thermometer
often falls lower at Ambála and Ráwalpindí than at Simla and Murree.
After Christmas the weather becomes broken, and in January and February
falls of snow occur. It is a disagreeable time, and English residents
are glad to descend to the plains. In March also the weather is often
unsettled. The really heavy falls of snow occur at levels much higher
than Simla. These remarks apply mutatis mutandis to Dharmsála,
Dalhousie, and Murree. Owing to its position right under a lofty
mountain wall Dharmsála is a far wetter place than Simla. Murree gets
its monsoon later, and the summer rainfall is a good deal lighter. In
winter it has more snow, being nearer the source of origin of the
storms. Himalayan valleys at an elevation of 5000 feet, such as the Vale
of Kashmír, have a pleasant climate. The mean temperature of Srínagar
(5255 feet) varies from 33° in January to 75° in July, when it is
unpleasantly hot, and Europeans often move to Gulmarg. Kashmír has a
heavy snowfall even in the Jhelam valley. Below 4000 feet, especially in
confined river valleys the Himalayan climate is often disagreeably hot
and stuffy.

Climate of the Plains.—The course of the seasons is the same in the
plains. The jaded resident finds relief when the rains cease in the end
of September. The days are still warm, but the skies are clear, the air[Pg 69]
dry, and the nights cool. November is rainless and in every way a
pleasant month. The clouds begin to gather before Christmas, but rain
often holds off till January. Pleasant though the early months of the
cold weather are, they lay traps for the unwary. In October and November
the daily range of temperature is very large, exceeding 30°, and the
fall at sunset very sudden. Care is needed to avoid a chill and the
fever that follows. Clear and dry though the air is, the blue of the
skies is pale owing to a light dust haze in the upper atmosphere. For
the same reason the Himalayan snows except after rain are veiled from
dwellers in the plains at a distance of 30 miles from the foot-hills.
The air in these months before the winter rains is wonderfully still. In
the three months after Christmas the Panjáb is the pathway of a series
of small storms from the west, preceded by close weather and occurring
usually at intervals of a few weeks. After a day or two of wet weather
the sky clears, and the storm is followed by a great drop in the
temperature. The traveller who shivers after a January rain-storm finds
it hard to believe that the Panjáb plain is a part of the hottest region
of the Old World which stretches from the Sahára to Delhi. If he had to
spend the period from May to July there he would have small doubts on
the subject. The heat begins to be unpleasant in April, when hot
westernly winds prevail. An occasional thunderstorm with hail relieves
the strain for a little. The warmest period of the year is May and June.
But the intense dry heat is healthier and to many less trying than the
mugginess of the rainy season. The dust-storms which used to be common
have become rarer and lighter with the spread of canal irrigation in the
western Panjáb. The rains ought to break at Delhi in the end of June and
at Lahore ten days or a fortnight later. There is often a long break
when[Pg 70] the climate is particularly trying. The nights are terribly hot.
The outer air is then less stifling than that of the house, and there is
the chance of a little comparative coolness shortly before dawn. Many
therefore prefer to sleep on the roof or in the verandah. September,
when the rains slacken, is a muggy, unpleasant, and unhealthy month. But
in the latter half of it cooler nights give promise of a better time.

Special features of Plain Zones.—The submontane zone has the most
equable and the pleasantest climate in the plains. It has a rainfall of
from 30 to 40 inches, five-sevenths or more of which belongs to the
monsoon period (June-September). The north-western area has a longer and
colder winter and spring. In the end of December and in January the keen
dry cold is distinctly trying. The figures in Statement I, for
Ráwalpindí and Pesháwar, are not very characteristic of the zone as a
whole. The average of the rainfall figures, 13 inches for Pesháwar and
32 for Ráwalpindí, would give a truer result. The monsoon rains come
later and are much less abundant than in the submontane zone. Their
influence is very feeble in the western and south-western part of the
area. On the other hand the winter rains, are heavier than in any other
part of the province. Delhi and Lahore represent the extreme conditions
of the central and south-eastern plains. The latter is really on the
edge of the dry south-western area. The eastern districts of the zone
have a shorter and less severe cold weather than the western, an earlier
and heavier monsoon, but scantier winter rains. The total rainfall
varies from 16 to 30 inches. The south-western zone, with a rainfall of
from 5 to 15 inches, is the driest part of India proper except northern
Sindh and western Rájputána. Neither monsoon current affects it much. At
Multán there are only about fifteen days in the whole year on which any
rain falls.[Pg 71]

CHAPTER VI

HERBS, SHRUBS, AND TREES

Affinities of Panjáb Flora.—It is hopeless to describe except in the
broadest outline the flora of a tract covering an area of 250,000 square
miles and ranging in altitude from a few hundred feet to a height 10,000
feet above the limit of flowering plants. The nature of the vegetation
of any tract depends on rainfall and temperature, and only secondarily
on soil. A desert is a tract with a dry substratum and dry air, great
heat during some part of the year, and bright sunshine. The soil may be
loam or sand, and as regards vegetation a sandy desert is the worst
owing to the rapid drying up of the subsoil after rain. In the third of
the maps appended to Schimper’s Plant Geography by far the greater
part of the area dealt with in this book is shown as part of the vast
desert extending from the Sahára to Manchuria. Seeing that the monsoon
penetrates into the province and that it is traversed by large snow-fed
rivers the Panjáb, except in parts of the extreme western and
south-western districts, is not a desert like the Sahára or Gobí, and
Schimper recognised this by marking most of the area as semi-desert.
Still the flora outside the Hills and the submontane tract is
predominantly of the desert type, being xerophilous or
drought-resisting. The adaptations which enable plants to survive in a
tract deficient in moisture are of various kinds. The roots may be
greatly developed to enable them to tap the subsoil moisture,[Pg 72] the
leaves may be reduced in size, converted into thorns, or entirely
dispensed with, in order to check rapid evaporation, they may be covered
with silky or felted hairs, a modification which produces the same
result, or their internal tissue may be succulent or mucilaginous. In
the plants of the Panjáb plains there is no difficulty in recognising
these features of a drought-resisting flora. Schimper’s map shows in the
north-east of the area a wedge thrust in between the plains’ desert and
the dry elevated alpine desert cut off from the influence of the monsoon
by the lofty barrier of the Inner Himálaya. This consists of two parts,
monsoon forest, corresponding roughly with the Himalayan area Cis Ráví
above the 5000 feet contour, and dry woodland of a semi-tropical stamp,
consisting, of the adjoining foot-hills and submontane tract. This wedge
is in fact treated as part of the zone, which in the map (after Drude)
prefixed to Willis’ Manual and Dictionary of the Flowering Plants and
Ferns, is called Indo-Malayan, and which embraces the Malayan
Archipelago and part of North Australia, Burma, and practically the
whole of India except the Panjáb, Sindh, and Rájputána. In Drude’s map
the three countries last mentioned are included in a large zone called
“the Mediterranean and Orient.” This is a very broad classification, and
in tracing the relationships of the Panjáb flora it is better to treat
the desert area of North Africa, which in Tripoli and Egypt extends to
the coast, apart from the Mediterranean zone. It is a familiar fact
that, as we ascend lofty mountains like those of the Himálaya, we pass
through belts or regions of vegetation of different types. The air
steadily becomes rarer and therefore colder, especially at night, and at
the higher levels there is a marked reduction in the rainfall. When the
alpine region, which in the Himálaya may be taken as beginning at 11,000
feet, is reached,[Pg 73] the plants have as a rule bigger roots, shorter
stems, smaller leaves, but often larger and more brilliantly coloured
flowers. These are adaptations of a drought-resisting kind.

Regions.—In this sketch it will suffice to divide the tract into six
regions:

Of course a flora does not fit itself into compartments, and the changes
of type are gradual.

Panjáb Dry Plain.—The affinities of the flora of the Panjáb plains
south of the Salt Range and the submontane tract are, especially in the
west, with the desert areas of Persia, Arabia, and North Africa, though
the spread of canal irrigation is modifying somewhat the character of
the vegetation. The soil and climate are unsuited to the growth of large
trees, but adapted to scrub jungle of a drought-resisting type, which at
one time covered very large areas from the Jamna to the Jhelam. The soil
on which this sparse scrub grew is a good strong loam, but the rainfall
was too scanty and the water-level too deep to admit of much cultivation
outside the valleys of the rivers till the labours of canal engineers
carried their waters to the uplands. East of the Sutlej the Bikaner
desert thrusts northwards a great wedge of sandy land which occupies a
large area in Baháwalpur, Hissár, Ferozepur, and Patiála. Soil of this
description is free of forest growth, and the monsoon rainfall in this
part of the province is sufficient to encourage an easy, but very
precarious, cultivation of autumn[Pg 74] millets and pulses. The great Thal
desert to the south of the Salt Range between the valleys of the Jhelam
and the Indus has a similar soil, but the scantiness of the rainfall has
confined cultivation within much narrower limits. Between the Sutlej and
the Jhelam the uplands between the river valleys are known locally as
Bárs. The largest of the truly indigenous trees of the Panjáb plains are
the farásh (Tamarix articulata) and the thorny kíkar (Acacia
Arabica). The latter yields excellent wood for agricultural implements,
and fortunately it grows well in sour soils. Smaller thorny acacias are
the nímbar or raunj (Acacia leucophloea) and the khair (Acacia
Senegal). The dwarf tamarisk, pilchí or jhao (Tamarix dioica), grows
freely in moist sandy soils near rivers. The scrub jungle consists
mostly of jand (Prosopis spicigera), a near relation of the Acacias,
jál or van (Salvadora oleoides), and the coral-flowered karíl or
leafless caper (Capparis aphylla). All these show their desert
affinities, the jand by its long root and its thorns, the jál by its
small leathery leaves, and the karíl by the fact that it has managed
to dispense with leaves altogether. The jand is a useful little tree,
and wherever it grows the natural qualities of the soil are good. The
sweetish fruit of the jál, known as pílu, is liked by the people,
and in famines they will even eat the berries of the leafless caper.
Other characteristic plants of the Panjáb plains are under Leguminosae,
the khip (Crotalaria burhia), two Farsetias (faríd kí búti), and the
jawása or camel thorn (Alhagi camelorum), practically leafless, but
with very long and stout spines; under Capparidaceae several Cleomes,
species of Corchorus (Tiliaceae), under Zygophyllaceae three
Mediterranean genera, Tribulus, Zygophyllum, and Fagonia, under
Solanaceae several Solanums and Withanias, and various salsolaceous
Chenopods known as lána.[Pg 75]

Fig. 19. Banian or Bor trees.

In the sandier tracts the ak (Calotropis procera, N.O.
Asclepiadaceae), the harmal (Peganum harmala, N.O. Rutaceae), and the
colocynth gourd (Citrullus colocynthis, N.O. Cucurbitaceae), which,
owing to the size of its roots, manages to flourish in the sands of
African and Indian deserts, grow abundantly. Common weeds of cultivation
are Fumaria parviflora, a near relation of the English fumitory, Silene
conoidea, and two Spergulas (Caryophyllaceae), and Sisymbrium Irio
(Cruciferae). A curious little Orchid, Zeuxine sulcata, is found growing
among the grass on canal banks. The American yellow poppy, Argemone
Mexicana, a noxious weed, has unfortunately established itself widely in
the Panjáb plain. Two trees of the order Leguminosae, the shisham or
tálí (Dalbergia Sissoo) and the siris (Albizzia lebbek), are
commonly planted on Panjáb roads. The true home[Pg 76] of the former is in
river beds in the low hills or in ravines below the hills. But it is a
favourite tree on roads and near wells throughout the province, and
deservedly so, for it yields excellent timber. The siris on the other
hand is an untidy useless tree. The kíkar might be planted as a
roadside tree to a greater extent. Several species of figs, especially
the pípal (Ficus religiosa) and bor or banian (Ficus Indica) are
popular trees.

Salt Range and North-West Plains.—-Our second region may be taken as
extending from the Pabbí hills on the east of the Jhelam in Gujrát to
our administrative boundary beyond the Indus, its southern limit being
the Salt Range. Here the flora is of a distinctly Mediterranean type.
Poppies are as familiar in Ráwalpindi as they are in England or Italy,
and Hypecoum procumbens, a curious Italian plant of the same order, is
found in Attock. The abundance of Crucifers is also a Mediterranean
feature. Eruca sativa, the oil-seed known as táramíra or jamián,
which sows itself freely in waste land and may be found growing even on
railway tracks in the Ráwalpindí division, is an Italian and Spanish
weed. Malcolmia strigosa, which spreads a reddish carpet over the
ground, and Malcolmia Africana are common Crucifers near Ráwalpindí. The
latter is a Mediterranean species. The Salt Range genera Diplotaxis and
Moricandia are Italian, and the peculiar Notoceras Canariensis found in
Attock is also a native of the Canary Islands. Another order,
Boraginaceae, which is very prominent in the Mediterranean region, is
also important in the North-West Panjáb, though the showier plants of
the order are wanting. One curious Borage, Arnebia Griffithii, seems to
be purely Asiatic. It has five brown spots on its petals, which fade and
disappear in the noonday sunshine. These are supposed to be drops of
sweat which fell from Muhammad’s forehead, hence the[Pg 77] plant is called
paighambarí phúl or the prophet’s flower. Among Composites Calendulas
and Carthamus oxyacantha or the pohlí, a near relation of the
Carthamus which yields the saffron dye, are abundant. Both are common
Mediterranean genera. Silybum Marianum, a handsome thistle with large
leaves mottled with white, extends from Britain to Ráwalpindí.
Interesting species are Tulipa stellata and Tulipa chrysantha. The
latter is a Salt Range plant, as is the crocus-like Merendera Persica,
and the yellow Iris Aitchisoni. A curious plant found in the same hills
is the cactus-like Boucerosia (N.O. Asclepiadaceae), recalling to
botanists the more familiar Stapelias of the same order. Another
leafless Asclepiad, Periploca aphylla, which extends westwards to Arabia
and Nubia and southwards to Sindh, is, like Boucerosia, a typical
xerophyte adapted to a very dry soil and atmosphere. The thorny Acacias,
A. eburnea and A. modesta (vern. phuláhí), of the low bare hills of
the N.W. Panjáb are also drought-resisting plants.

Submontane Region.—The Submontane region consists of a broad belt below
the Siwáliks extending from the Jamna nearly to the Jhelam, and may be
said to include the districts of Ambála, Karnál (part), Hoshyárpur,
Kángra (part), Hazára (part), Jalandhar, Gurdáspur, Siálkot, Gujrát
(part). In its flora there is a strong infusion of Indo-Malayan
elements. An interesting member of it is the Butea frondosa, a small
tree of the order Leguminosae. It is known by several names, dhák,
chichra, paláh, and palás. Putting out its large orange-red
flowers in April it ushers in the hot weather. It has a wide range from
Ceylon to Bengal, where it has given its name to the town of Dacca and
the battlefield of Plassy (Palási). From Bengal it extends all the way
to Hazára. There can be no doubt that a large part of the submontane
region was once dhák forest. Tracts[Pg 78] in the north of Karnál—Chachra,
in Jalandhar—Dardhák, and in Gujrát—Paláhí, have taken their names
from this tree. It coppices very freely, furnishes excellent firewood
and good timber for the wooden frames on which the masonry cylinders of
wells are reared, it exudes a valuable gum, its flowers yield a dye, and
the dry leaves are eaten by buffaloes. A tree commonly planted near
wells and villages in the submontane tract is the dhrek (Melia
azedarach, N.O. Meliaceae), which is found as far west as Persia and is
often called by English people the Persian lilac. The bahera
(Terminalia belerica, N.O. Combretaceae), a much larger tree, is
Indo-Malayan. Common shrubs are the marwan (Vitex negundo, N.O.
Verbenaceae), Plumbago Zeylanica (Plumbaginaceae), the bánsa or
bhekar (Adhatoda vasica, N.O. Acanthaceae). The last is Indo-Malayan.
Among herbs Cassias, which do not occur in Europe, are common. The
curious cactus-like Euphorbia Royleana grows abundantly and is used for
making hedges.

Sub-Himálaya.—A large part of the Sub-Himalayan region belongs to the
Siwáliks. The climate is fairly moist and subject to less extremes of
heat and cold than the regions described above. A strong infusion of
Indo-Malayan types is found and a noticeable feature is the large number
of flowering trees and shrubs. Such beautiful flowering trees as the
simal or silk-cotton tree (Bombax Malabaricum, N.O. Malvaceae), the
amaltás (Cassia fistula), Albizzia mollis and Albizzia stipulata,
Erythrina suberosa, Bauhinia purpurea and Bauhinia variegata, all
belonging to the order Leguminosae, are unknown in Europe, but common in
the Indo-Malayan region. This is true also of Oroxylum Indicum (N.O.
Bignoniaceae) with its remarkable long sword-like capsules, and of the
kamíla (Mallotus Philippinensis), which abounds in the low hills, but
may escape the traveller’s notice[Pg 79] as its flowers have no charm of form
or colour. He will in spring hardly fail to observe another Indo-Malayan
tree, the dháwí (Woodfordia floribunda, N.O. Lythraceae) with its
bright red flowers. Shrubs with conspicuous flowers are also common,
among which may be noted species of Clematis, Capparis spinosa, Kydia
calycina, Mimosa rubicaulis, Hamiltonia suaveolens, Caryopteris
Wallichiana, and Nerium Oleander. The latter grows freely in sandy
torrent beds. Rhus cotinus, which reddens the hillsides in May, is a
native also of Syria, Italy, and Southern France. Other trees to be
noticed are a wild pear (Pyrus pashia), the olive (Olea cuspidata), the
khair (Acacia catechu) useful to tanners, the tun (Cedrela toona),
whose wood is often used for furniture, the dháman (Grewia
oppositifolia, N.O. Tiliaceae), and several species of fig. The most
valuable products however of the forests of the lower hills are the
chír or chíl pine (Pinus longifolia), and a giant grass, the bamboo
(Dendrocalamus strictus), which attains a height of from 20 to 40 feet.
Shrubs which grow freely on stony hills are the sanattha or mendru
(Dodonaea viscosa, N.O. Sapindaceae), which is a valuable protection
against denudation, as goats pass it by, the garna, which is a species
of Carissa, and Plectranthus rugosus. Climbers are common. The great
Hiptage madablota (N.O. Malpighiaceae), the Bauhinia Vahlii or elephant
creeper, and some species of the parasitic Loranthus, deserve mention,
also Acacia caesia, Pueraria tuberosa, Vallaris Heynei, Porana
paniculata, and several vines, especially Vitis lanata with its large
rusty leaves. Characteristic herbs are the sweet-scented Viola patrinii,
the slender milkwort; Polygala Abyssinica, a handsome pea, Vigna
vexillata, a borage, Trichodesma Indicum, a balsam, Impatiens balsamina,
familiar in English gardens, the beautiful delicate little blue
Evolvulus alsinoides, the[Pg 80] showy purple convolvulus, Ipomaea hederacea,
and a curious lily, Gloriosa superba.

Fig. 20. Deodárs and Hill Temple.

Temperate Himálaya.—The richest part of the temperate Himalayan flora
is probably in the 7500-10,000 zone. Above 10,000 feet sup-alpine
conditions begin, and at 12,000 feet tree growth becomes very scanty and
the flora is distinctly alpine. The chír pine so common in
sub-Himalayan forests extends up to 6500 feet. At this height and 1000
feet lower the ban oak (Quercus incana), grey on the lower side of the
leaf, which is so common at Simla, abounds. Where the chíl stops, the
kail or blue pine (Pinus excelsa), after the deodár the most
valuable product of Himalayan forests, begins. Its zone may be taken as
from 7000 to 9000 feet. To the same zone belong the kelu or deodár
(Cedrus Libani), the glossy leaved mohru[Pg 81] oak (Quercus dilatata),
whose wood is used for making charcoal, and two small trees of the Heath
order, Rhododendron arborea and Pieris ovalifolia. The former in April
and May lightens up with its bright red flowers the sombre Simla
forests. The kharshu or rusty-leaved oak (Quercus semecarpifolia)
affects a colder climate than its more beautiful glossy-leaved relation,
and may almost be considered sub-alpine. It is common on Hattu, and the
oaks there present a forlorn appearance after rain with funereal mosses
dripping with moisture hanging from their trunks. The firs, Picea
morinda, with its grey tassels, and Abies Pindrow with its dark green
yew-like foliage, succeed the blue pine. Picea may be said to range from
8000 to 10,000 feet, and the upper limit of Abies is from 1000 to 2000
feet higher. These splendid trees are unfortunately of small commercial
value. The yew, Taxus baccata, is found associated with them. Between
5000 and 8000 feet, besides the oaks and other broad-leaved trees
already noticed, two relations of the dogwood, Cornus capitata and
Cornus macrophylla, a large poplar, Populus ciliata, a pear, Pyrus
lanata, a holly, Ilex dipyrena, an elm and its near relation, Celtis
australis, and species of Rhus and Euonymus, may be mentioned. Cornus
capitata is a small tree, but it attracts notice because the heads of
flowers surrounded by bracts of a pale yellow colour have a curious
likeness to a rose, and the fruit is in semblance not unlike a
strawberry. Above 8000 feet several species of maple abound.[Pg 82]
which has been introduced into English shrubberies. The great vine, The
chinár or Platanus orientalis, found as far west as Sicily, grows to
splendid proportions by the quiet waterways of the Vale of Kashmír. The
undergrowth in temperate Himalayan forests consists largely of
barberries, Desmodiums, Indigoferas, roses, brambles, Spiraeas,
Viburnums, honeysuckles with their near relation, Leycesteria formosa,[Pg 83]
Vitis Himalayana, whose leaves turn red in autumn, climbs up many of the
trees. Of the flowers it is impossible to give any adequate account. The
flora is distinctly Mediterranean in type; the orders in Collett’s
Flora Simlensis which are not represented in the Italian flora contain
hardly more than 5 per cent. of the total genera. The plants included in
some of these non-Mediterranean orders are very beautiful, for example,
the Begonias, the Amphicomes (Bignoniaceae), Chirita bifolia and
Platystemma violoides (Gesneraceae), and Hedychium (Scitamineae). More
important members of the flora are species of Clematis, including the
beautiful white Clematis montana, anemones, larkspurs, columbine,
monkshoods, St John’s worts, geraniums, balsams, species of Astragalus,
Potentillas, Asters, ragworts, species of[Pg 84] Cynoglossum, gentians and
Swertias, Androsaces and primroses, Wulfenia and louseworts, species of
Strobilanthes, Salvias and Nepetas, orchids, irises, Ophiopogon, Smilax,
Alliums, lilies, and Solomon’s seal. Snake plants (Arisaema) and their
relation Sauromatum guttatum of the order Araceae are very common in the
woods. The striped spathe in some species of Arisaema bears a curious
resemblance to the head of a cobra uplifted to strike. Orchids decrease
as one proceeds westwards, but irises are much more common in Kashmír
than in the Simla hills. The Kashmír fritillaries include the beautiful
Crown Imperial.

Fig. 21. Firs in Himálaya.

Fig. 22. Chinárs.

Fig. 23. Rhododendron campanulatum.

Alpine Himálaya.—In the Alpine Himálaya the scanty tree-growth is
represented by willows, junipers, and[Pg 85] birches. After 12,000 or 12,500
feet it practically disappears. A dwarf shrub, Juniperus recurva, is
found clothing hillsides a good way above the two trees of the same
genus. Other alpine shrubs which may be noticed are two rhododendrons,
which grow on cliffs at an elevation of 10,000 to 14,000 feet, R.
campanulatum and R. lepidotum, Gaultheria nummularioides with its
black-purple berry, and Cassiope fastigiata, all belonging to the order
Ericaceae. The herbs include beautiful primulas, saxifrages, and
gentians, and in the bellflower order species of Codonopsis and
Cyananthus. Among Composites may be mentioned the tansies, Saussureas,
and the fine Erigeron multiradiatus common in the forest above Narkanda.
In the bleak uplands beyond the Himálaya tree-growth is very scanty, but
in favoured localities willows and the pencil cedar, Juniperus
pseudosabina, are found. The people depend for fuel largely on a hoary
bush of the Chenopod order, Eurotia ceratoides. In places a profusion of
the red Tibetan roses, Rosa Webbiana, lightens up the otherwise dreary
scene.[Pg 86]

CHAPTER VII

FORESTS

Rights of State in Waste.—Under Indian rule the State claimed full
power of disposing of the waste, and, even where an exclusive right in
the soil was not maintained, some valuable trees, e.g. the deodár in
the Himálaya, were treated as the property of the Rája. Under the tenure
prevailing in the hills the soil is the Rája’s, but the people have a
permanent tenant right in any land brought under cultivation with his
permission. In Kulu the British Government asserted its ownership of the
waste. In the south-western Panjáb, where the scattered hamlets had no
real boundaries, ample waste was allotted to each estate, and the
remainder was claimed as State property.

Kinds of Forest.—The lands in the Panjáb over which authority, varying
through many degrees from full ownership unburdened with rights of user
down to a power of control exercised in the interests of the surrounding
village communities, may be roughly divided into

The first are forests of deodár, blue pine, fir, and oak in the
Himálaya above the level of 5000 feet. The hill[Pg 87] forests occupy the
lower spurs, the Siwáliks in Hoshyárpur, etc., and the low dry hills of
the north-west. A strong growth of chír pine (Pinus longifolia) is
often found in the Himálaya between 3000 and 5000 feet. Below 3000 feet
is scrub forest, the only really valuable product being bamboo. The
hills in the north-western districts of the Panjáb and N.W.F. Province,
when nature is allowed to have its way, are covered with low scrub
including in some parts a dwarf palm (Nannorhops Ritchieana), useful for
mat making, and with a taller, but scantier growth of phuláhí (Acacia
modesta) and wild olive. What remains of the scrub and grass jangal of
the plains is to be found chiefly in the Bár tracts between the Sutlej
and the Jhelam. Much of it has disappeared, or is about to disappear,
with the advance of canal irrigation. Dry though the climate is the Bár
was in good seasons a famous grazing area. The scrub consisted mainly of
jand (Prosopis spicigera), jál (Salvadora oleoides), the karíl
(Capparis aphylla) and the farásh (Tamarix articulata).

Management and Income of Forests.—The Forest Department of the Panjáb
has existed singe 1864, when the first Conservator was appointed. In
1911-12 it managed 8359 square miles in the Panjáb consisting of:

It was also in charge of 235 square miles of reserved forest in the
Hazára district of the N.W.F. Province, and of 364 miles of fine
mountain forest in the native State of Bashahr. In addition a few
reserved forests have been made over as grazing areas to the Military
Department, and Deputy Commissioners are in charge of a very large area
of unclassed forest.[Pg 88]

No forest can be declared “reserved” or “protected” unless it is owned
in whole or in part by the State. It is enough if the trees or some of
them are the property of the Government. In order to safeguard all
private rights a special forest settlement must be made before a forest
can be declared to be “reserved.” In the case of a protected forest it
is enough if Government is satisfied that the rights of the State and of
private persons have been recorded at a land revenue settlement. After
deducting income belonging to the year 1909-10 realized in 1910-11, the
average income of the two years ending 1911-12 was £81,805 (Rs.
1,227,082) and the average expenditure £50,954 (Rs. 764,309).

Sources of Income.—In the mountain forests the chief source of income
is the deodár, which is valuable both for railway sleepers and as
building timber. The blue pine is also of commercial value. Deodár,
blue pine, and some chír are floated down the rivers to depots in the
plains. Firwood is inferior to cedar and pine, and the great fir forests
are too remote for profitable working at present. There are fine
mountain forests in Chitrál, on the Safed Koh, and in Western
Wazíristán, but these have so far not even been fully explored. The
value of the hill forests may be increased by the success which has
attended the experimental extraction of turpentine from the resin of the
chír pine. The bamboo forests of Kángra are profitable. At present an
attempt is being made to acclimatize several species of Eucalyptus in
the low hills. The scrub jangal in the plains yields good fuel. As the
area is constantly shrinking it is fortunate that the railways have
ceased to depend on this source of supply, coal having to a great extent
taken the place of wood. To prevent shortage of fuel considerable areas
in the tracts commanded by the new canals are being reserved for
irrigated forests. A forest[Pg 89] of this class covering an area of 37 square
miles and irrigated from the Upper Bárí Doáb Canal has long existed at
Changa Manga in the Lahore district.

Forests in Kashmír.—The extensive and valuable Kashmír forests are
mountain and hill forests, the former, which cover much the larger area
yielding, deodár, blue pine, and firs, and the latter chír pine. The
total area exceeds 2600 square miles.[Pg 90]

CHAPTER VIII

BEASTS, BIRDS, FISHES, AND INSECTS

Fauna.—With the spread of cultivation and drainage the Panjáb plains
have ceased to be to anything like the old extent the haunt of wild
beasts and wild fowl. The lion has long been extinct and the tiger has
practically disappeared. Leopards are to be found in low hills, and
sometimes stray into the plains. Wolves are seen occasionally, and
jackals are very common. The black buck (Antilope cerricapra) can still
be shot in many places. The graceful little chinkára or ravine deer
(Gazella Bennetti) is found in sandy tracts, and the hogdeer or párha
(Cervus porcinus) near rivers. The nílgai (Boselaphus tragocamelus) is
less common. Monkeys abound in the hills and in canal-irrigated tracts
in the Eastern districts, where their sacred character protects them
from destruction, though they do much damage to crops. Peafowl are to be
seen in certain tracts, especially in the eastern Panjáb. They should
not be shot where the people are Hindus or anywhere near a Hindu shrine.
The great and lesser bustards and several kinds of sand grouse are to be
found in sandy districts. The grey partridge is everywhere, and the
black can be got near the rivers. The sísí and the chikor are the
partridges of the hills, which are also the home of fine varieties of
pheasants including the monál. Quail frequent the ripening fields in
April and late in September. Duck of various kinds abound where there
are jhíls, and snipe are to be got in marshy ground. The green[Pg 91]
parrots, crows, and vultures are familiar sights. Both the sharp-nosed
(Garialis Gangetica, vern. ghariál) and the blunt-nosed (Crocodilus
palustris, vern. magar) crocodiles haunt the rivers. The fish are
tasteless; the rohu and mahseer are the best. Poisonous snakes are
the karait, the cobra, and Russell’s viper. The first is sometimes
an intruder into houses. Lizards and mongooses are less unwelcome
visitors. White ants attack timber and ruin books, and mosquitoes and
sandflies add to the unpleasant features of the hot weather. The best
known insect pest is the locust, but visitations on a large scale are
rare. Of late years much more damage has been done by an insect which
harbours in the cotton bolls.

[Pg 92]

Fig. 24. Big game in Ladákh.

Key: 1, 3, 7, 9, Chiru or Tibetan Antelope. 2, Argalí or Ovis Ammon. 4,
6, 8, Bharal or Ovis nahura. 5, Yak or Bos grunniens. 10, 11, 12, Uriál
or Ovis Vignei. 13, Bear skin.

Game of the Mountains.—If sport in the plains has ceased to be first
rate, it is otherwise in the hills. Some areas and the heights at which
the game is to be found are noted below:

[Pg 93]

Fig. 25. Yáks.

[Pg 94]

Shooting in Hills

Shooting in Hills.—The finest shooting in the north-west Himálaya is
probably to be got in Ladákh and Baltistán, but the trip is somewhat
expensive and requires more time than may be available. In many areas
licenses have to be obtained, and the conditions limit the number of
certain animals, and the size of heads, that may be shot. For example,
the permit in Chamba may allow the shooting of two red bear and two
thár, and when these have been got the sportsman must turn his
attention to black bear and gural. Any one contemplating a shooting
expedition in the Himálaya should get from one who has the necessary
experience very complete instructions as to weapons, tents, clothing,
stores, etc.

Sport in the Plains

(a) Black Buck Shooting.—To get a good idea of what shooting in the
plains is like Major Glasford’s Rifle and Romance in the Indian Jungle
may be consulted. As regards larger game the favourite sport is black
buck shooting. A high velocity cordite rifle is dangerous to the country
people, and some rifle firing black powder should be used. It is well to
reach the home of the herd[Pg 95] soon after sunrise while it is still in the
open, and not among the crops. There will usually be one old buck in
each herd. He himself is not watchful, but his does are, and the herd
gallops off with great leaps at the first scent of danger, the does
leading and their lord and master bringing up the rear. If by dint of
careful and patient stalking you get to some point of vantage, say 100
yards from the big buck, it is worth while to shoot. Even if the bullet
finds its mark the quarry may gallop 50 yards before it drops. Good
heads vary from 20″ to 24″ or even more.

Fig. 26. Black buck.

(b) Small game in Plains.—The cold weather shooting begins with the
advent of the quail in the end of September and ends when they reappear
among the ripening wheat in April. The duck arrive from the Central
Asian lakes in November and duck and snipe shooting lasts till February
in districts where there are jhíls and swampy land. For a decent shot
30 couple of snipe is a fair bag. To get duck the jhíl should be
visited at dawn and again in the evening, and it is well to post several
guns in favourable positions in the probable line of flight. 40 or 50
birds would be a good morning’s bag. In drier tracts the bag will
consist of partridges and a hare or two, or, if the country is sandy,
some sand-grouse and perhaps a bustard.[Pg 96]

CHAPTER IX

THE PEOPLE: NUMBERS, RACES, AND LANGUAGES

Growth of Population.—It is probable that in the 64 years since
annexation the population of the Panjáb has increased by from 40 to 50
per cent. The first reliable census was taken in 1881. The figures for
the four decennial enumerations are:

Incidence of Population in Panjáb.—The estimated numbers of independent
tribes dwelling within the British sphere of influence is 1,600,000. The
incidence of the population on the total area of the Panjáb including
native States is 177 per square mile, which may be compared with 189 in
France and 287 in the British Isles. As the map shows, the density is
reduced by the large area of semi-desert country in the south-west and
by the mountainous tract in the north-east. The[Pg 97] distribution of the
population is the exact opposite of that which prevails in Great
Britain. There are only 174 towns as compared with 44,400 villages, and
nearly nine-tenths of the people are to be found in the latter. Some of
the so-called towns are extremely small, and the average population per
town is but 14,800 souls. There are no large towns in the European
sense. The biggest, Delhi and Lahore, returned respectively 232,837 and
228,687 persons.

View larger image
Fig. 27. Map showing density of population.

View larger image
Fig. 28. Map showing increase and decrease of
population.

Growth stopped by Plague.—The growth of the population between 1881 and
1891 amounted to 10 p.c. Plague,[Pg 98] which has smitten the Panjáb more
severely than any other province, appeared in 1896, and its effect was
seen in the lower rate of expansion between 1891 and 1901.
Notwithstanding great extensions of irrigation and cultivation in the
Rechna Doáb the numbers declined by 2 p.c. between 1901 and 1911. In the
ten years from 1901 to 1910 in the British districts alone over two
million people died of plague and the death-rate was raised to 12 p.c.
above the normal. It actually exceeded the birth-rate by 2 p.c. Of the
total deaths in the decade nearly one in four was due to plague.[Pg 99] The
part which has suffered most is the rich submontane tract east of the
Chenáb, Lahore and Gujránwála, and some of the south-eastern districts.
A glance at the map will show how large the loss of population has been
there. It is by no means entirely due to plague. The submontane
districts were almost over-populated, and many of their people have
emigrated as colonists, tenants, and labourers to the waste tracts
brought under cultivation by the excavation of the Lower Chenáb and
Jhelam canals. The districts which have received very marked additions
of population from this cause are Jhang (21 p.c.), Sháhpur (30 p.c.), and
Lyallpur (45 p.c.). Deaths from plague have greatly increased the
deficiency of females, which has always been a noteworthy feature. In
1911 the proportion had very nearly fallen to four females for every
five males.

Increase and Incidence in N.W.F. Province.—The incidence of the
population in the area covered by the five districts of the N.W.F.
Province is 164 per square mile. The district figures are given in the
map in the margin. The increase between 1901 and 1911 in these districts
was 7½ p.c. There have been no severe outbreaks of plague like those
which have decimated the population of some of the Panjáb districts.

Fig. 29. Map showing density of population in N.W.F.
Province.

General figures for the territory of the Mahárája of Kashmír are
meaningless. In the huge Indus valley the incidence is only 4 persons
per sq. mile. In Jammu and Kashmír it is 138. The map taken from the
Census[Pg 100] Report gives the details. The increase in the decade was on
paper 8½ p.c., distributed between 5¼ in Jammu, 12 in Kashmír, and
14 in the Indus valley. A great part of the increase in the last must be
put down to better enumeration.

Fig. 30. Map showing density of population in Kashmir.

Health and duration of life.—The climate of the Panjáb plains has
produced a vigorous, but not a long-lived, race. The mean age of the
whole population in the British districts is only 25. The normal
birth-rate of the Panjáb is about 41 per 1000, which exceeds the English
rate in the proportion of 5 to 3. In 1910 the recorded birth-rate in the
N.W.F. Province was 38 per 1000. Till plague appeared the Panjáb
death-rate averaged 32 or 33 per 1000, or more than double that of
England. The infantile mortality is enormous, and one out of every four
or five children fails to survive its first year. The death-rate in the
N.W.F. Province was 27 per 1000 in 1910. In the ten years ending 1910
plague pushed up the average death-rate in the Panjáb to 43½ per
1000. Even now malarial fever is a far worse foe than plague. The
average annual deaths in the ten years ending 1910 were:

[Pg 101]

Fever is very rife in October and November, and these are the most
unhealthy months in the year, March and April being the best. The
variations under fevers and plague from year to year are enormous. In
1907 the latter claimed 608,685 victims, and the provincial death-rate
reached the appalling figure of 61 per 1000. Next year the plague
mortality dropped to 30,708, but there were 697,058 deaths from fever.
There is unfortunately no reason to believe that plague has spent its
force or that the people as a whole will in the near future generally
accept the protective measures of inoculation and evacuation.
Vaccination, the prejudice against which has largely disappeared, has
robbed the small-pox goddess of many offerings. As a general cause of
mortality the effect of cholera in the Panjáb is now insignificant. But
it is still to be feared in the Kashmír valley, especially in the
picturesque but filthy summer capital. Syphilis is very common in the
hill country in the north-east of the province. Blindness and leprosy
are both markedly on the decrease. Both infirmities are common in
Kashmír, especially the former. The rigours of the climate in a large
part of the State force the people to live day and night for the seven
winter months almost entirely in dark and smoky huts, and it is small
wonder that their eyesight is ruined.

Occupations.—The Panjáb is preeminently an agricultural country, and
the same is true in an almost greater degree of the N.W.F. Province and
Kashmír. The typical holding is that of the small landowner tilling from
3 to 10 acres with his own hands with or without help from village
menials. The tenant class is increasing, but there are still three
owners to two tenants. Together they make up 50 p.c. of the population
of the Panjáb, and 5 p.c. is added for farm labourers. Altogether,
according to the census returns 58 p.c. of the population[Pg 102] depends for
its support on the soil, 20.5 on industries, chiefly the handicrafts of
the weaver, potter, leather worker, carpenter, and blacksmith, 9.4 on
trade, 2.5 on professions, and 9.6 on other sources of livelihood.

Measures taken to protect agriculturists.—In a country owned so largely
by small farmers, the first task of the Government must be to secure
their welfare and contentment. Before plague laid its grasp on the rich
central districts it was feared that they were becoming congested, and
the canal colonization schemes referred to in a later chapter were
largely designed to relieve them. But there is a much subtler foe to
whose insidious attacks small owners are liable, the temptation to abuse
their credit till their acres are loaded with mortgages and finally
lost. So threatening had this economic disease for years appeared that
at last in 1900 the Panjáb Alienation of Land Act was passed, which
forbade sales by people of agricultural tribes to other classes without
the sanction of the district officer, and greatly restricted the power
of mortgaging. The same restrictions are in force in the N.W.F.
Province. The Act is popular with those for whose benefit it was
devised, and has effected its object of checking land alienation and
probably to some extent discouraged extravagance. It has been
supplemented by a still more valuable measure, the Co-operative Credit
Societies Act. The growth of these societies in the Panjáb has been very
remarkable, a notable contrast to the very slow advance of the similar
movement in England. In 1913-14 there were 3261 village banks with
155,250 members and a working capital of 133¾ lakhs or £885,149,
besides 38 central banks with a capital of 42¾ lakhs or about
£285,000. Village banks held deposits amounting to nearly 37 lakhs,
more than half of which was received from non-members, and lent out
71½ lakhs in the year to their members.[Pg 103]

Tribal Composition.—Table I based on the Census returns shows the
percentages of the total population belonging to the chief tribes. The
classification into “land-holding, etc.” is a rough one.

Fig. 31. Jat Sikh Officers (father and son).

Jats.—The Panjáb is par excellence the home of the Jats. Everywhere
in the plains, except in the extreme north-west corner of the province,
they form[Pg 104] a large element in the population. In the east they are
Hindus, in the centre Sikhs and Muhammadans, and in the west
Muhammadans. The Jat is a typical son of the soil, strong and sturdy,
hardworking and brave, a fine soldier and an excellent farmer, but
slow-witted and grasping. The Sikh Jat finds an honourable outlet for
his overflowing energy in the army and in the service of the Crown
beyond the bounds of India. When he misses that he sometimes takes to
dacoity. Unfortunately he is often given to strong drink, and, when his
passions or his greed are aroused, can be exceedingly brutal. Jat in the
Western Panjáb is applied to a large number of tribes, whose ethnical
affinities are somewhat dubious.

Rájputs.—Rájputs are found in considerable numbers all over the
province except in a few of the western and south-western districts. As
farmers they are much hampered by caste rules which forbid the
employment of their women in the fields, and the prohibition of widow
remarriage is a severe handicap. They are generally classed as poor
cultivators, and this is usually, but by no means universally, a true
description. The Dogra Rájputs of the low hills are good soldiers. They
are numerous in Kángra and in the Jammu province of Kashmír.

Brahmans.—The Brahmans of the eastern plains and north-eastern hills
are mostly agriculturists, and the Muhiál Brahman of the north-western
districts is a landowner and a soldier. In the hills the Brahman is
often a shopkeeper. The priestly Brahman is found everywhere, but his
spiritual authority has always been far less in the Panjáb than in most
parts of India.

Biluches.—When the frontier was separated off the Biluch district of
Dera Ghází Khán with its strong tribal organization under chiefs or
tumandárs was left in the Panjáb. The Biluches are a frank, manly,
truthful[Pg 105] race, free from fanaticism and ready as a rule to follow their
chiefs. They are fine horsemen. Unfortunately it is difficult to get
them to enlist.

Patháns.—Both politically and numerically the Patháns are the
predominant tribe in the N.W.F. Province, and are of importance in parts
of the Panjáb districts of Attock and Mianwálí. The Pathán is a democrat
and often a fanatic, more under the influence of mullahs than of the
maliks or headmen of his tribe. He has not the frank straightforward
nature of the Biluch, is untiring in pursuit of revenge, and is not free
from cruelty. But, when he has eaten the Sarkár’s salt, he is a very
brave and dashing soldier, and he is a faithful host to anyone whom he
has admitted under his roof.

Awáns.—The home of the Awán in the Panjáb is the Salt Range and the
parts of Attock and Mianwálí, lying to the north of it, and this tract
of country is known as the Awánkárí. In the N.W.F. Province they are,
after the Patháns, by far the largest tribe, and are specially numerous
in Pesháwar and Hazára.

Shekhs.—Of the Shekhs about half are Kureshís, Sadíkís, and Ansárís of
foreign origin and high social standing. The rest are new converts to
Islám, often of the sweeper caste originally.

Saiyyids.—Saiyyids are unsatisfactory landowners, and are kept going by
the offerings of their followers. They are mostly Shias. It is not
necessary to believe that they are all descended from the Prophet’s
son-in-law, Ali. A native proverb with pardonable exaggeration says:
“The first year I was a weaver (Juláha), the next year a Shekh. This
year, if prices rise, I shall be a Saiyyid.”

Trading Castes.—Aroras are the traders of the S.W. Panjáb and of the
N.W.F. Province. They share the Central Panjáb with the Khatrís, who
predominate in the north-western districts. The Khatrí of the
Ráwalpindí[Pg 106] division is often a landowner and a first-class fighting
man. Some of our strongest Indian civil officials have been Aroras. In
the Delhi division the place of the Arora and Khatrí is taken by the
Bania, and in Kángra by the Súd or the Brahman. Khojas and Paráchas are
Muhammadan traders.

Artizans and Menials.—Among artizans and menials Sunárs (goldsmiths),
Rájes (masons), Lohárs (blacksmiths), and Tarkháns (carpenters) take the
first rank.

Impure Castes.—The vast majority of the impure castes, the
“untouchables” of the Hindu religion, are scavengers and workers in
leather. The sweeper who embraces Islám becomes a Musallí. The Sikh
Mazhbís, who are the descendants of sweeper converts, have done
excellent service in our Pioneer regiments. The Hindu of the Panjáb in
his avoidance of “untouchables” has never gone to the absurd lengths of
the high caste Madrásí, and the tendency is towards a relaxation of
existing restrictions.

Mendicants.—Men of religion living on charity, wandering fakírs, are
common sights, and beggars are met with in the cities, who sometimes
exhibit their deformities with unnecessary insistence.

Kashmírís.—According to the census return the number of Kashmírí
Musulmáns, who make up 60 p.c. of the inhabitants of the Jhelam valley,
was 765,442. They are no doubt mostly descendants of various Hindu
castes, perhaps in the main of Hill Brahmans, but Islám has wiped out
all tribal distinctions. Sir Walter Lawrence wrote of them: “The
Kashmírí is unchanged in spite of the splendid Moghal, the brutal
Afghán, and the bully Sikh. Warriors and statesmen came and went; but
there was no egress, and no wish … in normal times to leave their
homes. The outside world was far, and from all accounts inferior to the
pleasant valley…. So[Pg 107] the Kashmírís lived their self-centred life,
conceited, clever, and conservative.”

The Hindu Kashmírí Pandits numbered 55,276.

Tribes of Jammu.—Agricultural Brahmans are numerous in the Jammu
province. Thakkars and Meghs are important elements of the population of
the outer hills. The former are no doubt by origin Rájputs, but they
have cast off many Rájput customs. The Meghs are engaged in weaving and
agriculture, and are regarded as more or less impure by the higher
castes.

Fig. 32. Blind Beggar.

Gújars.—Gújars in the Mahárája’s territories are almost always
graziers. In 1911 they numbered 328,003.

Dard Tribes of Astor and Gilgit.—The people of Astor and Gilgit are
Dards speaking Shina and professing Islám. Sir Aurel Stein wrote of
them: “The Dard[Pg 108] race which inhabits the valleys N. of (the Inner
Himálaya) as far as the Hindu Kush is separated from the Kashmírí
population by language as well as by physical characteristics…. There
is little in the Dard to enlist the sympathies of the casual observer.
He lacks the intelligence, humour, and fine physique of the Kashmírí,
and, though undoubtedly far braver than the latter, has none of the
independent spirit and manly bearing which draw us towards the Pathán
despite all his failings. But I can never see a Dard without thinking of
the thousands of years of struggle they have carried on with the harsh
climate and the barren soil of their mountains[3].”

Fig. 33. Dards.

Kanjútís.—The origin of the Kanjútís of Hunza is uncertain, and so are
the relationships of their language.[Pg 109]

Mongoloid Population of Ladákh.—The population of Ladákh and Báltistán
is Mongoloid, but the Báltís (72,439) have accepted Islám and polygamy,
while the Ladákhís have adhered to Buddhism and polyandry.

View larger image
Fig. 34. Map showing races.

Ethnological theories.—In The People of India the late Sir Herbert
Risley maintained that the inhabitants of Rájputána, nearly the whole of
the Panjáb, and a large part of Kashmír, whatever their caste or social
status, belonged with few exceptions to a single racial type, which he
called Indo-Aryan. The Biluches of Dera Ghází Khán and the Patháns of
the N.W.F. Province formed part of another group which he called
Turko-Iranian. The people of a strip of territory on[Pg 110] the west of the
Jamna he held to be of the same type as the bulk of the inhabitants of
the United Provinces, and this type he called Aryo-Dravidian. Finally
the races occupying the hills in the north-east and the adjoining part
of Kashmír were of Mongol extraction, a fact which no one will dispute.
Of the Indo-Aryan type Sir Herbert Risley wrote: “The stature is mostly
tall, complexion fair, eyes dark, hair on face plentiful, head long,
nose narrow and prominent, but not specially long.” He believed that the
Panjáb was occupied by Aryans, who came into the country from the west
or north-west with their wives and children, and had no need to contract
marriages with the earlier inhabitants. The Aryo-Dravidians of the
United Provinces resulted from a second invasion or invasions, in which
the Aryan warriors came alone and had to intermarry with the daughters
of the land, belonging to the race which forms the staple of the
population of Central India and Madras. This theory was based on
measurements of heads and noses, and it seems probable that deductions
drawn from these physical characters are of more value than any evidence
based on the use of a common speech. But it is hard to reconcile the
theory with the facts of history even in the imperfect shape in which
they have come down to us, or to believe that Sakas, Yuechí, and White
Huns (see historical section) have left no traces of their blood in the
province. If such there are, they may perhaps be found in some of the
tribes on both sides of the Salt Range, such as Gakkhars, Janjúas, Awáns
Tiwánas, Ghebas, and Johdras, who are fine horsemen and expert
tent-peggers, not “tall heavy men without any natural aptitude for
horsemanship,” as Sir Herbert Risley described his typical Panjábí (p.
59 of his book).

View larger image
Fig. 35. Map showing distribution of languages.

Languages.—In the area dealt with in this book no less than eleven
languages are spoken, and the dialects[Pg 111] are very numerous. It is only
possible to tabulate the languages and indicate on the map the
localities in which they are spoken. For the Panjáb the figures of the
recent census are:

[Pg 112]

The eastern part of the Indus valley in Kashmír forming the provinces of
Ladákh and Báltistán is occupied by a Mongol population speaking
Tibeto-Chinese dialects. Kashmírí is the language of Kashmír Proper, and
various dialects of the Shina-Khowár group comprehensively described as
Kohistání are spoken in Astor, Gilgit, and Chilás, and to the west of
Kashmír territory in Chitrál and the Kohistán or mountainous country at
the top of the Swát river valley. Though Kashmírí and the Shina-Khowár
tongues belong to the Aryan group, their basis is supposed to be
non-Sanskritic, and it is held that there is a strong non-Sanskritic or
Pisácha element also in Lahndí or western Panjábí, which is also the
prevailing speech in the Hazára and Dera Ismail Khán districts of the
N.W.F. Province, and is spoken in part of the Jammu province of Kashmír.
Pashtu is the common language in Pesháwar, Kohát, and Bannu, and is
spoken on the western frontiers of Hazára and Dera Ismail Khán, and in
the independent tribal territory in the west between the districts of
the N.W.F. Province and the Durand Line and immediately adjoining the
Pesháwar district on the north. Rájasthání is a collective name for the
dialects of Rájputána, which overflow[Pg 113] into the Panjáb, occupying a
strip along the southern frontier from Baháwalpur to Gurgáon. The
infiltration of English words and phrases into the languages of the
province is a useful process and as inevitable as was the enrichment of
the old English speech by Norman-French. But for the present the results
are apt to sound grotesque, when the traveller, who expects a train to
start at the appointed time, is told: “tren late hai, lekin singal down
hogaya” (the train is late, but the signal has been lowered), or the
criticism is passed on a popular officer: “bahut affable hai, lekin
hand shake nahín kartá” (very affable, but doesn’t shake hands).[Pg 114]

CHAPTER X

THE PEOPLE (continued): RELIGIONS

Religions in N.W.F. Province.—In the N.W.F. Province an overwhelming
majority of the population professes Islám. In 1911 there were 2,039,994
Musalmáns as compared with 119,942 Hindus, 30,345 Sikhs, and 6585
Christians.

Religions in Kashmír.—In Kashmír the preponderance of Muhammadans is
not so overwhelming. The figures are:

The Hindus belong mostly to the Jammu province, where nearly half of the
population professes that faith. The people of Kashmír, Báltistán, Astor
and Gilgit, Chilás and Hunza Nagár, are Musalmáns. The Ladákhís are
Buddhists.

Religions in Panjáb.—The distribution by religions of the population of
the Panjáb and its native States in 1911 was:

[Pg 115]

View larger image
Fig. 36. Map showing distribution of religions.

The strength of the Muhammadans is in the districts west of the Biás and
the Sutlej below its junction with the Biás. 83 p.c. of the subjects of
the Nawáb of Baháwalpur are also Muhammadans. In all this western region
there are few Hindus apart from the shopkeepers and traders. On the
other hand the hill country in the north-east is purely Hindu, except on
the borders of Tibet, where the scanty population professes Buddhism.
While Hinduism is the predominant faith in the south-east, quite a
fourth of the people there are Musalmáns. Sikhs nowhere form a majority.
The districts in the[Pg 116] eastern part of the Central Plains where they
constitute more than one-fifth of the population are indicated in the
map. In six districts, Lahore, Montgomery, Gujránwála, Lyallpur,
Hoshyárpur, and Ambála the proportion is between 10 and 20 p.c.

Fig. 37. Raghunáth Temple, Jammu.

Growth and Decline in numbers.—There was a slight rise in the number of
Muhammadans between 1901 and 1911. Their losses in the central
districts, where the plague scourge has been heaviest, were
counterbalanced by gains in the western tract, where its effect has been
slight. On the other hand the decrease under Hindus[Pg 117] amounts to nearly
15 p.c. The birth-rate is lower and the death-rate higher among Hindus
than among Musalmáns, and their losses by plague in the central and some
of the south-eastern districts have been very heavy. A change of
sentiment on the part of the Sikh community has led to many persons
recording themselves as Sikhs who were formerly content to be regarded
as Hindus. It must be remembered that one out of four of the recorded
Hindus belongs to impure castes, who even in the Panjáb pollute food and
water by their touch and are excluded from the larger temples. Since
1901 a considerable number of Chúhras or Sweepers have been converted to
Islám and Christianity.

Fig. 38. Golden Temple, Amritsar.

Sikhs.—Notwithstanding heavy losses by plague Sikhs have increased by
37 p.c. A great access of zeal has led to many more Sikhs becoming
Kesdhárís. Sajhdhárís or[Pg 118] Múnas, who form over one-fifth of the
whole Sikh community, were in 1901 classed as Hindus. They are followers
of Bába Nának, cut their hair, and often smoke. When a man has taken the
“pahul,” which is the sign of his becoming a Kesdhárí or follower of
Guru Govind, he must give up the hukka and leave his hair unshorn. The
future of Sikhism is with the Kesdhárís.

Fig. 39. Mosque in Lahore City.

Muhammadans.—In the eastern districts the conversions to Islám were
political, and Hindu and Muhammadan Rájputs live peaceably together in
the same village. The Musalmáns have their mosque for the worship of
Allah, but were, and are still, not quite sure that it is prudent wholly
to neglect the godlings. The conversion of the western Panjáb was the
result largely of missionary effort. Pírí murídí is a great
institution there. Every man should be the “muríd” or pupil of some
holy man[Pg 119] or pír, who combines the functions in the Roman Catholic
Church of spiritual director in this world and the saint in heaven. The
pír may be the custodian of some little saint’s tomb in a village, or
of some great shrine like that of Baba Faríd at Pákpattan, or Baháwal
Hakk at Multán, or Taunsa Sharif in Dera Ghází Khán, or Golra in
Ráwalpindí. His own holiness may be more official than personal. About
1400 A.D. the Kashmírís were offered by their Sultán Sikandar the choice
between conversion and exile, and chose the easier alternative. Like the
western Panjábís they are above all things saint-worshippers. The
ejaculations used to stimulate effort show this. The embankment builder
in the south-western Panjáb invokes the holy breath of Baháwal Hakk, and
the Kashmírí boatman’s cry “Yá Pír, dast gír,” “Oh Saint, lend me a
hand,” is an appeal to their national saint.

Effect of Education.—The Musalmáns of the western Panjáb have a great
dislike to Sikhs, dating from the period of the political predominance
of the latter. So far the result of education has been to accentuate
religious differences and animosities. Both Sikhs and Musalmáns are
gradually dropping ideas and observances retained in their daily life
after they ceased to call themselves Hindus. On the other hand, within
the Hindu fold laxity is now the rule rather than the exception, and the
neglect of the old ritual and restrictions is by no means confined to
the small but influential reforming minority which calls itself Árya
Samáj.

Christians.—The number of Christians increased threefold between 1901
and 1911. The Presbyterian missionaries have been especially successful
in attracting large numbers of outcastes into the Christian Church.

Fig. 40. God and Goddess, Chamba.

Hinduism in the Panjáb.—Hinduism has always been, and to-day is more
than ever, a very elastic term. The[Pg 120] Census Superintendent, himself a
high caste Hindu, wrote: “The definition which would cover the Hindu of
the modern times is that he should be born of parents not belonging to
some recognised religion other than Hinduism, marry within the same
limits, believe in God, respect the cow, and cremate the dead.” There is
room in its ample folds for the Árya Samájist, who rejects idol worship
and is divesting himself of caste prejudices and marriage restrictions,
and the most orthodox Sanátan dharmist, who carries out the whole
elaborate daily ritual of the Brahmanical religion, and submits to all
its complicated rules; for the ordinary Hindu trader, who is equally
orthodox by profession, but whose ordinary religious exercises are
confined to bathing in the morning; for the villager of the eastern
districts, who often has[Pg 121] the name of Parameshvar or the Supreme Lord on
his lips, but who really worships the godlings, Gúgá Pír, Sarwar or
Sultán Pír, Sítla (the small-pox goddess), and others, whose little
shrines we see round the village site; and for the childish idolaters of
Kulu, who carry their local deities about to visit each other at fairs,
and would see nothing absurd in locking them all up in a dungeon if rain
held off too long.

Fig. 41. A Kulu godling and his attendants.

[Pg 122]

CHAPTER XI

THE PEOPLE (continued): EDUCATION

Educational progress.—According to the census returns of 1911 there are
not four persons per 100 in the province who are “literate” in the sense
of being able to read and write a letter. The proportion of literacy
among Hindus and Sikhs is three times as great as among Muhammadans. In
1911-12 one boy in six of school-going age was at school or college and
one girl in 37. This may seem a meagre result of sixty years of work,
for the Government and Christian missionaries, who have had an
honourable connection with the educational history of the province,
began their efforts soon after annexation, and a Director of Public
Instruction was appointed as long ago as 1856. But a country of small
peasant farmers is not a very hopeful educational field, and the rural
population was for long indifferent or hostile. If an ex-soldier of the
Khálsa had expressed his feelings, he would have used words like those
of the “Old Pindárí” in Lyall’s poem, while the Muhammadan farmer, had
he been capable of expressing his hostility, might have argued that the
teaching his son could get in a village school would help him not at all
in his daily work. Things are better now. We have improved our scheme of
teaching, and of late raised the pay of the teachers, which is, however,
still hardly adequate. Till a better class of teachers can be secured
for primary schools, the best[Pg 123] educational theories will not bear fruit
in practice. The old indifference is weakening, and the most hopeful
sign is the increasing interest taken in towns in female education, a
matter of the first importance for the future of the country.

Present position.—The present position is as follows:—The Government
has made itself directly or indirectly responsible for the education of
the province. At the headquarters of each district there is a high
school for boys controlled by the Education Department. In each district
there are Government middle schools, Anglo-vernacular or Vernacular,
and primary schools, managed by the Municipal Committees and District
Boards. Each middle school has a primary, and each high school a primary
and a middle, department. For the convenience of pupils who cannot
attend school while living at home hostels are attached to many middle
and high schools. Fees are very moderate. In middle schools, where the
income covers 56 p.c. of the expenditure, they range from R. 1 (16
pence) monthly in the lowest class in which they are levied to Rs. 4 (5
shillings) in the highest class. In rural primary schools the children
of agriculturists are exempt because they pay local rate, and others,
when not exempt on the score of poverty, pay nominal fees. Besides the
Government schools there are aided schools of the above classes usually
of a sectarian character, and these, if they satisfy the standards laid
down, receive grants. There is a decreasing, but still considerable,
class of private schools, which make no attempt to satisfy the
conditions attached to these grants. The mullah in the mosque teaches
children passages of the Kurán by rote, or the shopkeeper’s son is
taught in a Mahájaní school native arithmetic and the curious script in
which accounts are kept. A boys’ school of a special kind is the Panjáb
Chiefs’ College at Lahore,[Pg 124] intended for the sons of princes and men of
high social position.

Technical Schools.—In an agricultural country like the Panjáb there is
not at present any large field for technical schools. The best are the
Mayo School of Art and the Railway Technical School at Lahore. The
latter is successful because its pupils can readily find employment in
the railway workshops. Mr Kipling, the father of the poet, when
principal of the former, did much for art teaching, and the present
principal, Bhai Rám Singh, is a true artist. The Government Engineering
School has recently been remodelled and removed to Rasúl, where the
head-works of the Lower Jhelam canal are situated.

Fig. 42. A School in the time preceding annexation.
(From a picture book said to have been prepared for the Mahárája Dalíp
Singh.)

Female Education.—Female education is still a tender plant, but of late
growth has been vigorous. The Victoria[Pg 125] May School in Lahore founded in
1908 has developed into the Queen Mary College, which provides an
excellent education for girls of what may be called the upper middle
class. There is a separate class for married ladies. Hitherto they have
only been reached by the teaching given in their own homes by missionary
ladies, whose useful work is now being imitated by the Hindu community
in Lahore. There is an excellent Hindu Girls’ Boarding School in
Jalandhar. The Sikhs and the body of reformers known as the Dev Samáj
have good girls’ schools at Ferozepore. The best mission schools are the
Kinnaird High School at Lahore and the Alexandra School at Amritsar. The
North India School of Medicine for Women at Ludhiána, also a missionary
institution, does admirable work. In the case of elementary schools the
difficulty of getting qualified teachers is even greater than as regards
boys’ schools.

Education of European Children.—There are special arrangements for the
education of European and Anglo-Indian children. In this department the
Roman Catholics have been active and successful. The best schools are
the Lawrence Asylum at Sanáwar, Bishop Cotton’s School, Auckland House,
and St Bede’s at Simla, St Denys’, the Lawrence Asylum, and the Convent
School at Murree.

The Panjáb University.—The Panjáb University was constituted in 1882,
but the Government Arts College and Oriental College, the Medical
College and the Law School at Lahore, which are affiliated with it, are
of older date. The University is an examining body like London
University. Besides the two Arts Colleges under Government management
mentioned above there are nine private Arts Colleges aided by Government
grants and affiliated to the University. Four of these are in Lahore,
two, the Dayanand Anglo-Vedic and[Pg 126] the Diál Singh Colleges, are Hindu
institutions, one, the Islámia College, is Muhammadan, the fourth is the
popular and efficient Forman Christian College. Four out of five art
students read in Lahore. Of the Arts colleges outside Lahore the most
important is the St Stephen’s College at Delhi. The Khálsa School and
College at Amritsar is a Sikh institution. The Veterinary College at
Lahore is the best of its kind in India, and the Agricultural College at
Lyallpur is a well-equipped institution, which at present attracts few
pupils, but may play a very useful rôle in the future. There is little
force in the reproach that we built up a super-structure of higher
education before laying a broad foundation of primary education. There
is more in the charge that the higher educational food we have offered
has not been well adapted to the intellectual digestions of the
recipients.

Education in N.W.F. Province, Native States, and I Kashmír.—The Panjáb
Native States and Kashmír are much more backward as regards education
than the British Province. As is natural in a tract in which the
population is overwhelmingly Musalmán by religion and farming by trade
the N.W.F. Province lags behind the Panjáb. Six colleges in the States
and the N.W.F. Province are affiliated to the Panjáb University.[Pg 127]

CHAPTER XII

ROADS AND RAILWAYS

Roads.—The alignment of good roads in the plains of the Panjáb is easy,
and the deposits of calcareous nodules or kankar often found near the
surface furnish good metalling material. In the west the rainfall is so
scanty and in many parts wheeled traffic so rare that it is often wise
to leave the roads unmetalled. There are in the Panjáb over 2000 miles
of metalled, and above 20,000 miles of unmetalled roads. The greatest
highway in the world, the Grand Trunk, which starts from Calcutta and
ends at Pesháwar, passes through the province from Delhi in the
south-east to Attock in the extreme north-west corner, and there crosses
the Indus and enters the N.W.F. Province. The greater part of the
section from Karnál to Lahore had been completed some years before the
Mutiny, that from Lahore to Pesháwar was finished in 1863-64. A great
loop road connects our arsenal at Ferozepore with the Grand Trunk Road
at Lahore and Ludhiána. The fine metalled roads from Ambála to Kálka,
and Kálka to Simla have lost much of their importance since the railway
was brought to the hill capital. Beyond Simla the Kálka-Simla road is
carried on for 150 miles to the Shipkí Pass on the borders of Tibet,
being maintained as a very excellent hill road adapted to mule carriage.
A fine tonga road partly in the plains and partly in the hills joins
Murree with Ráwalpindí.[Pg 128] From Murree it drops into the Jhelam valley
crossing the river and entering Kashmír at Kohála. It is carried up the
gorge of the Jhelam to Báramúla and thence through the Kashmír valley to
Srínagar. A motor-car can be driven all the way from Ráwalpindí to
Srínagar. In the N.W.F. Province a great metalled road connects
Pesháwar, Kohát, Bannu, and Dera Ismail Khán.

Fig. 43. Poplar lined road to Srínagar.

Railways. Main Lines.—It is just over fifty years since the first
railway, a short line joining Lahore and Amritsar, was opened in 1862.
Three years later Lahore was linked up with Multán and the small
steamers which then plied on the Indus. Amritsar was connected with
Delhi in 1870, and Lahore with Pesháwar in 1883. The[Pg 129] line from Pesháwar
to Lahore, and branching thence to Karáchí and Delhi may be considered
the Trunk Line. The railway service has been enormously developed in the
past thirty years. In 1912 there were over 4000 miles of open lines.
There are now three routes from Delhi to Lahore:

View larger image
Fig. 44. Map showing railways.

(a) The N.W. Railway via Meerut and Saháranpur[Pg 130] (on east of Jamna),
and Ambála, Ludhiána, Jalandhar, Amritsar;

(b) The Southern Panjáb Railway via Jind, Rohtak, Bhatinda, and
Ferozepore;

(c) The Delhi-Ambála-Kálka branch of the East Indian Rallway from
Delhi through Karnál to Ambála, and thence by the N.W. Railway. This is
the shortest route.

The Southern Panjáb Railway also connects Delhi with Karáchí through its
junction with the N.W. Railway at Samasata to the south of Baháwalpur.
Another route is by a line passing through Rewárí and the Merta
junction. Karáchí is the natural seaport of the central and western
Panjáb. The S.P. Railway now gives an easy connection with Ferozepore
and Ludhiána, and the enormous export of wheat, cotton, etc. from the
new canal colonies is carried by several lines which converge at
Khanewál, a junction on the main line, a little north of Multán.

Railways. Minor Lines.—The Sind Ságar branch starting from Lála Musa
between Lahore and Amritsar with smaller lines taking off further north
at Golra and Campbellpur serves the part of the province lying north of
the Salt Range. These lines converge at Kundian in the Mianwálí
district, and a single line runs thence southwards to points on the
Indus opposite Dera Ismail Khán and Dera Ghází Khán, and turning
eastwards rejoins the trunk line at Sher Sháh near Multán. There are a
number of branch lines in the plains, some owned by native States.
Strategically a very important one is that which crossing the Indus by
the Khushálgarh bridge unites Ráwalpindí with Kohát. The only hill
railway is that from Kálka to Simla. A second is now under construction
which, when completed, will connect Ráwalpindí with Srínagar. All these
lines with the[Pg 131] exception of the branch of the E.I. Railway mentioned
above are worked by the staff of the N. W. State Railway, whose manager
controls inside and outside the Panjáb some 5000 miles of open line. The
interest earned in 1912 was 4½ p.c., a good return when it is
considered that the parts of the system to the north of the Salt Range
and the Sind Ságar railway were built primarily for strategic reasons.[Pg 132]

CHAPTER XIII

CANALS

Importance of Canals.—One need have no hesitation in placing among the
greatest achievements of British rule in the Panjáb the magnificent
system of irrigation canals which it has given to the province. Its
great alluvial plain traversed by large rivers drawing an unfailing
supply of water from the Himalayan snows affords an ideal field for the
labours of the canal engineer. The vastness of the arid areas which
without irrigation yield no crops at all or only cheap millets and
pulses makes his works of inestimable benefit to the people and a source
of revenue to the State.

Canals before annexation.—In the west of the province we found in
existence small inundation canals dug by the people with some help from
their rulers. These only ran during the monsoon season, when the rivers
were swollen. In 1626 Sháhjahán’s Persian engineer, Ali Mardán Khán,
brought to Delhi the water of the canal dug by Firoz Sháh as a monsoon
channel and made perennial by Akbar. But during the paralysis of the
central power in the eighteenth century the channels became silted up.
The same able engineer dug a canal from the Ráví near Mádhopur to water
the royal gardens at Lahore. What remained of this work at annexation
was known as the Haslí.

Extent of Canal Irrigation.—In 1911-12, when the deficiency of the
rainfall made the demand for water[Pg 133] keen, the canals of the Panjáb and
the N.W.F. Province irrigated 8½ millions of acres. The figures are:

Panjáb

N.W. Frontier Province

On the Sirhind Canal, on which the demand fluctuates greatly with the
character of the season, the area was twice the normal. The three canals
of the Triple Project will, when fully developed, add 1,871,000 acres to
the irrigated area of the Panjáb, and the Upper Swát Canal will increase
that of the N.W.F. Province by 381,000 acres. The canals will therefore
in a year of drought be able to water over ten millions of acres without
taking account of possible extensions if a second canal should be drawn
from the Sutlej. The money spent from imperial funds on Panjáb canals
has exceeded twelve millions sterling, and no money has ever been better
spent. In, when the area irrigated was a good deal less than in, the
value of the crops raised by the use of canal water was estimated at
about 207 millions of rupees or nearly £14,000,000. It is only possible
to note very briefly the steps by which this remarkable result has been
achieved.[Pg 134]

View larger image
Fig. 45. Map—Older Canals.

[Pg 135]

Western Jamna Canal.—Soon after the assumption of authority at Delhi in
1803 the question of the old Canal from the Jamna was taken up. The
Delhi Branch was reopened in 1819, and the Hánsí Branch six years later.
In the famine year nearly 400,000 acres were irrigated. For more than
half a century that figure represented the irrigating capacity of the
canal. The English engineers in the main retained the faulty Moghal
alignment, and waterlogging of the worst description developed. The
effect on the health of the people was appalling. After long delay the
canal was remodelled. The result has been most satisfactory in every
way. In the last decade of the nineteenth century the Sirsa Branch and
the Nardak Distributary were added, to carry water to parts of the
Karnál and Hissár districts where any failure of the monsoon resulted in
widespread loss of crops. If a scheme to increase the supply can be
carried out, further extension in tracts now very liable to famine will
become possible. In the six years ending the interest earned exceeded 8
p.c.

Upper Bárí Doáb Canal.—The headworks of the Upper Bárí Doáb Canal are
above Mádhopur near the point where the Ráví leaves the hills. The work
was started soon after annexation, but only finished in 1859. Irrigation
has grown from 90,000 acres in to 533,000 in, 861,000 in 1900-1, and
1,157,000 in. The later history of the canal consists mainly of great
extensions in the arid Lahore district, and the irrigation there is now
three-fifths of the whole. In parts of Amritsar, and markedly near the
city, waterlogging has become a grave evil, but remedial measures have
now been undertaken. The interest earned on the capital expenditure in
the six years ending averaged 11½ p.c.

Sirhind Canal.—A quarter of a century passed after[Pg 136] the Upper Bárí Doáb
Canal began working before the water of the Sutlej was used for
irrigation. The Sirhind Canal weir is at Rupar where the river emerges
from the Siwáliks. Patiála, Jínd, and Nábha contributed to the cost, and
own three of the five branches. But the two British branches are
entitled to nearly two-thirds of the water, which is utilized in the
Ludhiána and Ferozepore districts and in the Farídkot State. The soil of
the tract commanded is for the most part a light sandy loam, and in
years of good rainfall it repays dry cultivation. The result is that the
area watered fluctuates largely. But in the six years ending the
interest earned averaged 7 p.c., and the power of expansion in a bad
year is a great boon to the peasantry.

Canal extensions in Western Panjáb.—In the last quarter of a century
the chief task of the Canal Department in the Panjáb has been the
extension of irrigation to the Rechna and Jech Doábs and the lower part
of the Bárí Doáb. All three contained large areas of waste belonging to
the State, mostly good soil, but incapable of cultivation owing to the
scanty rainfall. Colonization has therefore been an important part of
all the later canal projects. The operations have embraced the
excavation of five canals.

Lower Chenáb Canal.—The Lower Chenáb Canal is one of the greatest
irrigation works in the world, the area commanded being 3-1/3 million
acres, the average discharge four or five times that of the Thames at
Teddington, and the average irrigated area 2¼ million acres. There
are three main branches, the Rakh, the Jhang, and the Gugera. The supply
is secured by a great weir built across the Chenáb river at Khánkí in
the Gujránwála district, and the irrigation is chiefly in the
Gujránwála, Lyallpur, and Jhang districts. In the four years ending the
average interest[Pg 137] earned was 28 p.c., and in future the rate should
rarely fall below 30 p.c. The capital expenditure has been a little over
£2,000,000. The interest charges were cleared about five years after the
starting of irrigation, and the capital has already been repaid to the
State twice over.

View larger image
Fig. 46. Map—Canals.

Lower Jhelam Canal.—The Lower Jhelam Canal, which waters the tract
between the Jhelam and Chenáb in the Sháhpur and Jhang districts, is a
smaller and less profitable work. The culturable commanded area is about
one million acres. The head-works are at Rasúl in the Gujrát district.
Irrigation began in 1901. In the[Pg 138] four years ending 1911-12 the average
area watered was 748,000 acres and the interest earned exceeded 10 p.c.

Triple Project—Upper Jhelam and Upper Chenáb Canals and Lower Bárí Doáb
Canal.—The Lower Chenáb Canal takes the whole available supply of the
Chenáb river. But it does not command a large area in the Rechna Doáb
lying in the west of Gujránwála, in which rain cultivation is very risky
and well cultivation is costly. No help can be got from the Ráví, as the
Upper Bárí Doáb Canal exhausts its supply. Desirable as the extension of
irrigation in the areas mentioned above is, the problem of supplying it
might well have seemed insuperable. The bold scheme known as the Triple
Project which embraces the construction of the Upper Jhelam, Upper
Chenáb, and Lower Bárí Doáb Canals, is based on the belief that the
Jhelam river has even in the cold weather water to spare after feeding
the Lower Jhelam Canal. The true raison d’être of the Upper Jhelam
Canal, whose head-works are at Mangla in Kashmír a little north of the
Gujrát district, is to throw a large volume of water into the Chenáb at
Khánkí, where the Lower Chenáb Canal takes off, and so set free an equal
supply to be taken out of the Chenáb higher up at Merála in Siálkot,
where are the head-works of the Upper Chenáb Canal. But the Upper Jhelam
Canal will also water annually some 345,000 acres in Gujrát and Sháhpur.
The Upper Chenáb Canal will irrigate 648,000 acres mostly in Gujránwála,
and will be carried across the Ráví by an aqueduct at Balloke in the
south of Lahore. Henceforth the canal is known as the Lower Bárí Doáb,
which will water 882,000 acres, mostly owned by the State, in the
Montgomery and Multán districts. On the other two canals the area of
Government land is not large. The Triple Project is approaching
completion, and irrigation from the Upper Chenáb[Pg 139] Canal has begun. The
engineering difficulties have been great, and the forecast does not
promise such large gains as even the Lower Jhelam Canal. But a return of
7½ p.c. is expected.

Monsoon or Inundation Canals.—The numerous monsoon or inundation
canals, which take off from the Indus, Jhelam, Chenáb, Ráví, and Sutlej,
though individually petty works, perform an important office in the
thirsty south-western districts. By their aid a kharíf crop can be
raised without working the wells in the hot weather, and with luck the
fallow can be well soaked in autumn, and put under wheat and other
spring crops. For the maturing of these crops a prudent cultivator
should not trust to the scanty cold weather rainfall, but should
irrigate them from a well. The Sidhnai has a weir, but may be included
in this class, for there is no assured supply at its head in the Ráví in
the winter. In 1910-11 the inundation canals managed by the State
watered 1,800,000 acres. There are a number of private canals in
Ferozepore, Sháhpur, and the hill district of Kángra. In Ferozepore the
district authorities take a share in the management.

Colonization of Canal Lands.—The colonization of huge areas of State
lands has been an important part of new canal schemes in the west of the
Panjáb. When the Lower Chenáb Canal was started the population of the
vast Bár tract which it commands consisted of a few nomad cattle owners
and cattle thieves. It was a point of honour to combine the two
professions. Large bodies of colonists were brought from the crowded
districts of the central Panjáb. The allotments to peasants usually
consisted of 55 acres, a big holding for a man who possibly owned only
four or five acres in his native district. There were larger allotments
known as yeoman and capitalist grants, but the peasants are[Pg 140] the only
class who have turned out quite satisfactory farmers. Colonization began
in 1892 and was practically complete by 1904, when over 1,800,000 acres
had been allotted. To save the peasants from the evils which an
unrestricted right of transfer was then bringing on the heads of many
small farmers in the Panjáb it was decided only to give them permanent
inalienable tenant right. The Panjáb Alienation of Land Act, No. XIII of
1900, has supplied a remedy generally applicable, and the peasant
grantees are now being allowed to acquire ownership on very easy terms.
The greater part of the colony is in the new Lyallpur district, which
had in 1911 a population of 857,511 souls.

On the Lower Jhelam Canal the area of colonized land exceeds 400,000
acres. A feature of colonization on that canal is that half the area is
held on condition of keeping up one or more brood mares, the object
being to secure a good class of remounts. Succession to these grants is
governed by primogeniture. On the Lower Bárí Doáb Canal a very large
area is now being colonized.

Canals of the N.W.F. Province.—Hemmed in as the N.W.F. Province is
between the Indus and the Hills, its canals are insignificant as
compared with the great irrigation works of the Panjáb. The only ones of
any importance are in the Pesháwar Valley. These draw their supplies
from the Kábul, Bára, and Swát rivers, but the works supplied by the
first two streams only command small areas. The Lower Swát Canal was
begun in 1876, but the tribesmen were hostile and the diggers had to
sleep in fortified enclosures. The work was not opened till 1885. A reef
in the river has made it possible to dispense with a permanent weir. The
country is not an ideal one for irrigation, being much cut up by
ravines. But a large area has been brought[Pg 141] under command, and the
irrigation has more than once exceeded 170,000 acres. In 1911-12 it was
157,650 acres, and the interest earned was 9¾ p.c. The Upper Swát
Canal, which was opened in April 1914, was a more ambitious project,
involving the tunnelling at the Málakand of 11,000 feet of solid rock.
The commanded area is nearly 450,000 acres, including 40,000 beyond our
administrative frontier. The estimated cost is Rs. 18,240,000 or over
£1,200,000 and the annual irrigation expected is 381,562 acres.

View larger image
Fig. 47. Map of Canals of Pesháwar district.

[Pg 142]

CHAPTER XIV

AGRICULTURE AND CROPS

Classification by Zones.—In order to give an intelligible account of
the huge area embraced by the Panjáb, N.W.F. Province, and Kashmír it is
necessary to make a division of the area into zones. Classification must
be on very broad lines based on differences of altitude, rainfall, and
soil, leading to corresponding differences in the cultivation and the
crops. For statistical purposes districts must be taken as a whole,
though a more accurate classification would divide some of them between
two zones.

Classes of Cultivation.—The broadest division of cultivation is into
irrigated and unirrigated, the former including well (cháhí), canal
(nahrí), and ábí. The last term describes a small amount of land
watered from tanks or jhíls in the plains and a larger area in the
hills irrigated by kuhls or small artificial channels. “Unirrigated”
embraces cultivation dependent on rain (bárání) or on flooding or
percolation from rivers (sailáb). (See Table II.)

Harvests.—There are two harvests, the autumn or kharíf, and the
spring or rabí. The autumn crops are mostly sown in June and July and
reaped from September to December. Cotton is often sown in March. Cane
planted in March and cut in January and February is counted as a
kharíf crop. The spring crops are sown from the latter part of
September to the end of December.[Pg 143] They are reaped in March and April.
Roughly in the Panjáb three-fifths of the crops belong to the spring
harvest. In the N.W.F. Province the proportion is somewhat higher. In
Kashmír the autumn crop is by far the more important.

Fig. 48. Persian Wheel Well and Ekka.

Implements of Husbandry and Wells.—The implements of husbandry are
simple but effective in a land where as a rule there is no advantage in
stirring up the soil very deep. With his primitive plough (hal) and a
wooden clodcrusher (sohága) the peasant can produce a tilth for a crop
like cane which it would be hard to match in England. There are two
kinds of wells, the charsa or rope and bucket well and the harat or
Persian wheel.

Rotations.—The commonest rotation in ordinary loam soils is to put in a
spring and autumn crop in succession[Pg 144] and then let the land lie fallow
for a year. Unless a good deal of manure is available this is the course
to follow, even in the case of irrigated land. Some poor hard soils are
only fit for crops of coarse rice sown after the embanked fields have
been filled in the monsoon by drainage from surrounding waste. Other
lands are cropped only in the autumn because the winter rainfall is very
scanty. Flooded lands are often sown only for the spring harvest.

Fig. 49. A drove of goats—Lahore.

Cattle, Sheep, and Goats.—In 1909 there were in the British districts
of the Panjáb 4¼ million bullocks and 625,000 male buffaloes
available to draw 2,169,000 ploughs and 288,000 carts, thresh the corn,
and work a quarter of a million wells, besides sugar, oil, and flour
mills. The cattle of the hills, N.W. Panjáb, and riverain tracts are
undersized, but in the uplands of the Central Panjáb and S.E. districts
fine oxen are used. The horned cattle share 18 millions of pasture land,
much[Pg 145] extremely poor, with 4 million sheep and 5½ million goats.
Hence the enormous area devoted to fodder crops.

Zones.—Six zones can be distinguished, but, as no district is wholly
confined to the mountain zone, it must for statistical purposes be
united to the submontane zone:

[Pg 146]

Mountain and Submontane Zones.—In the Mountain Zone the fields are
often very minute, consisting of narrow terraces supported by stone
revetments built up the slopes of hills. That anyone should be ready to
spend time and labour on such unpromising material is a sign of pressure
of population on the soil, which is a marked feature of some hill
tracts.

Fig. 50. A steep bit of hill cultivation, Hazára.

Below 8000 feet the great crop is maize. Potatoes have been introduced
near our hill stations. The chief pulse of the mountain zone is kulath
(Dolichos biflorus), eaten by the very poor. Wheat ascends to 8000 or
9000 feet, and at the higher levels is reaped in August. Barley is grown
at much greater heights. Buckwheat (úgal,[Pg 147] trúmba, dráwí),
amaranth (chauláí, ganhár, sariára), and a tall chenopod (bathu)
are grown in the mountain zone. Buckwheat is common on poor stony lands.

Fig. 51. Preparing rice field in the Hills.

The only comparatively flat land is on the banks above river beds, which
are devoted to rice cultivation, the water being conducted to the
embanked fields by an elaborate system of little canals or kuhls. This
is the only irrigation in the mountains, and is much valued. The
Submontane Zone has a rainfall of from 30 to 40 inches. Well irrigation
is little used and the dry crops are generally secure. Wheat and maize
are the great staples, but gram and charí, i.e. jowár grown for
fodder, are also important. Some further information about Kashmír
agriculture will be found in a later chapter. For[Pg 148] full details about
classes of cultivation and crops in all the zones Tables II, III and IV
should be consulted.

North Central Panjáb Plain.—The best soils and the finest tillage are
to be found in the North Central Zone. Gujrát has been included in it,
though it has also affinities in the north with the North-West area, and
in the south with the South-Western plain. The rainfall varies from 25
to 35 inches. One-third of the cultivated area is protected by wells,
and the well cultivation is of a very high class in Ludhiána and
Jalandhar, where heavily manured maize is followed by a fine crop of
wheat, and cane is commonly grown. In parts of Siálkot and Gujrát the
well cultivation is of a different type, the area served per well being
large and the object being to protect a big acreage of wheat in the
spring harvest. The chief crops in this zone are wheat and charí. The
latter is included under “Other Fodder” in Tables III and IV.

North-Western Area.—The plateau north of the Salt Range has a very
clean light white sandy loam soil requiring little ploughing and no
weeding. It is often very shallow, and this is one reason for the great
preference for cold weather crops. Kharíf crops are more liable to be
burned up. Generally speaking the rainfall is from 15 to 25 inches, the
proportion falling in the winter and spring being larger than elsewhere.
There is, except in Pesháwar and Bannu, where the conditions involve a
considerable divergence from the type of this zone, practically no canal
irrigation. The well irrigation is unimportant and in most parts
consists of a few acres round each well intensively cultivated with
market-gardening crops. The dry crops are generally very precarious. In
Mianwálí the Indus valley is a fine tract, but the harvests fluctuate
greatly with the extent of the floods. The Thal in Mianwálí to the south
of the Sind Ságar railway is really a part of the next zone.[Pg 149]

The South-Western Plains.—This zone contains nine districts. With the
exception of the three on the north border of the zone they have a
rainfall of from 5 to 10 inches. Of these six arid districts, only one,
Montgomery, has any dry cultivation worth mentioning. In the zone as a
whole three-fourths of the cultivation is protected by canals or wells,
or by both. In the lowlands near the great rivers cultivation depends on
the floods brought to the land direct or through small canals which
carry water to parts which the natural overflow would not reach. In the
uplands vast areas formerly untouched by the plough have been brought
under tillage by the help of perennial canals, and the process of
reclamation is still going on. The Thal is a large sandy desert which
becomes more and more worthless for cultivation as one proceeds
southwards. In the north the people have found out of late years that
this unpromising sand can not only yield poor kharíf crops, but is
worth sowing with gram in the spring harvest. The expense is small, and
a lucky season means large profits. In Dera Ghází Khán a large area of
“pat” below the hills is dependent for cultivation on torrents. The
favourite crop in the embanked fields into which the water is diverted
is jowár.

The South-Eastern Plains.—In the south-eastern Panjáb except in Hissár
and the native territory on the border of Rájputána, the rainfall is
from 20 to 30 inches. In Hissár it amounts to some 15 inches. These are
averages; the variations in total amount and distribution over the
months of the year are very great. In good seasons the area under dry
crops is very large, but the fluctuations in the sown acreage are
extraordinary, and the matured is often far below the sown area. The
great crops are gram and mixtures of wheat or barley with gram in the
spring, and bájra in the autumn, harvest. Well cultivation is not of
much importance[Pg 150] generally, though some of it in the Jamna riverain is
excellent. The irrigated cultivation depends mainly on the Western Jamna
and Sirhind canals, and the great canal crops are wheat and cotton. This
is the zone in which famine conditions are still most to be feared.

In the Panjáb as a whole about one-third of the cultivated area is
yearly put under wheat, which with bájra and maize is the staple food
of the people. A large surplus of wheat and oil-seeds is available for
export.[Pg 151]

Fig. 52. Carved doorway.

[Pg 152]

CHAPTER XV

HANDICRAFTS AND MANUFACTURES

Handicrafts.—The chief handicrafts of the province are those of the
weaver, the shoemaker, the carpenter, the potter, and the worker in
brass and copper. The figures of the 1911 census for each craft
including dependents were: weavers 883,000; shoemakers 540,000;
carpenters 381,000; potters and brickmakers 349,000; metalworkers
240,000. The figures for weavers include a few working in factories. The
hand-spun cotton-cloth is a coarse strong fabric known as “khaddar”
with a single warp and weft. “Khes” is a better article with a double
warp and weft. “Súsí” is a smooth cloth with coloured stripes used for
women’s trousers. A superior kind of checked “khes” known as
“gabrún” is made at Ludhiána. The native process of weaving is slow
and the weavers are very poor. The Salvation Army is trying to introduce
an improved hand loom. Fine “lungís” or turbans of cotton with silk
borders are made at Ludhiána, Multán, Pesháwar, and elsewhere. Effective
cotton printing is carried on by very primitive methods at Kot Kamália
and Lahore. Ludhiána and Lahore turn out cotton darís or rugs. Coarse
woollen blankets or loís are woven at various places, and coloured[Pg 153]
felts or namdas are made at Ludhiána, Khusháb, and Pesháwar. Excellent
imitations of Persian carpets are woven at Amritsar, and the Srínagar
carpets do credit to the Kashmírís’ artistic[Pg 154] taste. The best of the
Amritsar carpets are made of pashm, the fine underwool of the Tibetan
sheep, and pashmína is also used as a material for choghas
(dressing-gowns), etc. Coarse woollen cloth or pattu is woven in the
Kángra hills for local use. At Multán useful rugs are made whose fabric
is a mixture of cotton and wool. More artistic are the Biluch rugs made
by the Biluch women with geometrical patterns. These are excellent in
colouring. They are rather difficult to procure as they are not made for
sale. The weaving of China silk is a common industry in Amritsar,
Baháwalpur, Multán, and other places. The phulkárí or silk embroidery
of the village maidens of Hissár and other districts of the Eastern
Panjáb, and the more elaborate gold and silver wire embroideries of the
Delhi bazárs, are excellent. The most artistic product of the plains
is the ivory carving of Delhi. As a wood-carver the Panjábí is not to be
compared with the Kashmírí. His work is best fitted for doorways and the
bow windows or bokhárchas commonly seen in the streets of old towns.
The best carvers are at Bhera, Chiniot, Amritsar, and Batála. The
European demand has produced at Simla and other places an abundant
supply of cheap articles of little merit. The inlaid work of Chiniot and
Hoshyárpur is good, as is the lacquer-work of Pákpattan. The papier
maché work of Kashmír has much artistic merit (Fig. 55), and some of the
repoussé silver work of Kashmír is excellent.

Fig. 53. Shoemaker’s craft.

The craft of the thathera or brass worker is naturally most prominent
in the Eastern Panjáb, because Hindus prefer brass vessels for cooking
purposes. Delhi is the great centre, but the trade is actively carried
on at other places, and especially at Jagádhrí.

Fig. 54. Carved windows.

[Pg 155]

Unglazed pottery is made practically in every village. The blue
enamelled pottery of Multán and the glazed[Pg 156] Delhi china ware are
effective. The manufacture of the latter is on a very petty scale.

Fig. 55. Papier maché work of Kashmír.

Factories.—The factory industries of the Panjáb are still very small.
In 1911 there were 268 factories employing 28,184 hands. The typical
Panjáb factory is a little cotton ginning or pressing mill. The grinding
of flour and husking of rice are sometimes part of the same business.
The number of these mills rose in the 20 years ending 1911 from 12 to
202, and there are complaints that there are now too many factories.
Cotton-spinning has not been very successful and the number of mills in
1911, eight, was the same as in 1903-4. The weaving is almost entirely
confined to yarn of low counts. Part is used by the hand-loom weavers
and part is exported to the United Provinces. Good woollen fabrics are[Pg 157]
turned out at a factory at Dháriwál in the Gurdáspur district. There
were in 1911 fifteen flour mills, ten ironworks, three breweries, and
one distillery.

Fig. 56. The Potter.
(From a picture book said to have been prepared for Mahárája Dalíp
Singh.)

Joint-Stock Companies.—The Panjáb has not reached the stage where the
joint-stock business successfully takes the place of the family banking
or factory business. In 1911 there were 194 joint-stock companies. But
many of these were provident societies, the working of which has been
attended with such abuses that a special act has been passed for their
control. A number of banks and insurance companies have also sprung up
of late years. Of some of these the paid up capital is absurdly small,
and the recent collapse of the largest and of two[Pg 158] smaller native banks
has drawn attention to the extremely risky nature of the business done.
Of course European and Hindu family banking businesses of the old type
stand on quite a different footing. Some of the cotton and other mills
are joint-stock concerns.[Pg 159]

CHAPTER XVI

EXPORTS AND IMPORTS

Trade.—In 1911-12 the exports from the Panjáb, excluding those by land
to Central Asia, Ladákh, and Afghánistán, were valued at Rs.
27,63,21,000 (£18,421,000), of which 61 p.c. went to Karáchí and about
10 p.c. to Calcutta and Bombay. Of the total 27 p.c. consisted of wheat,
nearly the whole of which was dispatched to Karáchí. All other grains
and pulses were about equal in value to the wheat. “Gram and other
pulses” (18 p.c. of total exports) was the chief item. Raw cotton
accounts for 15, and oil-seeds for 10 p.c. The imports amounted in value
to Rs. 30,01,28,000 (£20,008,000), little more than one-third being
received from Karáchí. Cotton piece goods (Foreign 22, Indian 8½
p.c.) make up one-third of the total. The other important figures are
sugar 12, and metals 11 p.c. The land trade with Afghánistán, Central
Asia, and Ladákh is insignificant, but interesting as furnishing an
example of modes of transport which have endured for many centuries, and
of the pursuit of gain often under appalling physical difficulties.[Pg 160]

CHAPTER XVII

HISTORY—PRE-MUHAMMADAN PERIOD, 500 B.C.—1000 A.D.

In Hindu period relations of Panjáb were with western kingdoms.—The
large tract included in the British province of the Panjáb which lies
between the Jamna and the Ghagar is, having regard to race, language,
and past history, a part of Hindustán. Where “Panjáb” is used without
qualification in this section the territories west of the Ghagar and
south of Kashmír are intended. The true relations of the Panjáb and
Kashmír during the Hindu period were, except for brief intervals, with
Persia, Afghánistán, and Turkistán rather than with the great kingdoms
founded in the valley of the Ganges and the Jamna.

Normal division into petty kingdoms and tribal confederacies.—The
normal state of the Panjáb in early times was to be divided into a
number of small kingdoms and tribal republics. Their names and the areas
which they occupied varied from time to time. Names of kingdoms that
have been rescued from oblivion are Gandhára, corresponding to Pesháwar
and the valley of the Kábul river, Urasa or Hazára, where the name is
still preserved in the Orash plain, Táxila, which may have corresponded
roughly to the present districts of Ráwalpindí and Attock with a small
part of Hazára, Abhisara or the low hills of Jammu, Kashmír, and
Trigartta, with its capital Jalandhara, which occupied most of the
Jalandhar division[Pg 161] north of the Sutlej and the states of Chamba, Suket,
and Mandí. The historians of Alexander’s campaigns introduce us also to
the kingdoms of the elder Poros on both banks of the Jhelam, of the
younger Poros east of the Chenáb, and of Sophytés (Saubhutí) in the
neighbourhood of the Salt Range. We meet also with tribal confederacies,
such as in Alexander’s time those of the Kathaioi on the upper, and of
the Malloi on the lower, Ráví.

Invasion by Alexander, 327-325 B.C.—The great Persian king, Darius, in
512 B.C. pushed out the boundary of his empire to the Indus, then
running in a more easternly course than to-day[4]. The army with which
Xerxes invaded Greece included a contingent of Indian bowmen[5]. When
Alexander overthrew the Persian Empire and started on the conquest of
India, the Indus was the boundary of the former. His remarkable campaign
lasted from April, 327 B.C., when he led an army of 50,000 or 60,000
Europeans across the Hindu Kush into the Kábul valley, to October, 325,
when he started from Sindh on his march to Persia through Makrán. Having
cleared his left flank by a campaign in the hills of Buner and Swát, he
crossed the Indus sixteen miles above Attock near Torbela. The King of
Táxila, whose capital was near the Margalla pass on the north border of
the present Ráwalpindí district, had prudently submitted as soon as the
Macedonian army appeared in the Kábul valley. From the Indus Alexander
marched to Táxila, and thence to the Jhelam (Hydaspes), forming a camp
near the site now occupied by the town of that name in the country of
Poros. The great army of the Indian king was drawn up to dispute the
passage probably not very[Pg 162] far from the eastern end of the present
railway bridge. Favoured by night and a monsoon rain-storm—it was the
month of July, 326 B.C.—Alexander succeeded in crossing some miles
higher up into the Karrí plain under the low hills of Gujrát. Here,
somewhere near the line now occupied by the upper Jhelam Canal, the
Greek soldiers gave the first example of a feat often repeated since,
the rout of a large and unwieldy Indian army by a small, but mobile and
well-led, European force. Having defeated Poros, Alexander crossed the
Chenáb (Akesines), stormed Sángala, a fort of the Kathaioi on the upper
Ráví (Hydraotes) and advanced as far as the Biás (Hyphasis). But the
weary soldiers insisted that this should be the bourn of their eastward
march, and, after setting up twelve stone altars on the farther side,
Alexander in September, 326 B.C., reluctantly turned back. Before he
left the Panjáb he had hard fighting with the Malloi on the lower Ráví,
and was nearly killed in the storm of one of their forts. Alexander
intended that his conquests should be permanent, and made careful
arrangements for their administration. But his death in June, 323 B.C.,
put an end to Greek rule in India. Chandra Gupta Maurya expelled the
Macedonian garrisons, and some twenty years later Seleukos Nicator had
to cede to him Afghánistán.

Maurya Dominion and Empire of Aşoka, 323-231 B.C.—Chandra Gupta is
the Sandrakottos, to whose capital at Pataliputra (Patna) Seleukos sent
Megasthenes in 303 B.C. The Greek ambassador was a diligent and truthful
observer, and his notes give a picture of a civilized and complex system
of administration. If Chandra Gupta was the David, his grandson,
Aşoka, was the Solomon of the first Hindu Empire. His long reign,
lasting from 273 to 231 B.C., was with one exception a period of
profound peace deliberately maintained by an emperor who, after[Pg 163] his
conversion to the teaching of Gautama Buddha, thought war a sin.
Aşoka strove to lead his people into the right path by means of pithy
abstracts of the moral law of his master graven on rocks and pillars. It
is curious to remember that this missionary king was peacefully ruling a
great empire in India during the twenty-four years of the struggle
between Rome and Carthage, which we call the first Punic War. Of the
four Viceroys who governed the outlying provinces of the empire one had
his headquarters at Táxila. One of the rock edicts is at Mansehra in
Hazára and another at Sháhbázgarhí in Pesháwar. From this time and for
many centuries the dominant religion in the Panjáb was Buddhism, but the
religion of the villages may then have been as remote from the State
creed as it is to-day from orthodox Brahmanism.

Graeco-Bactrian and Graeco-Parthian Rule.—The Panjáb slipped from the
feeble grasp of Aşoka’s successors, and for four centuries it looked
not to the Ganges, but to the Kábul and the Oxus rivers.

Fig. 57. Coin—obverse and reverse of Menander.

Up to the middle of the first century of our era it was first under
Graeco-Bactrian, and later under Graeco-Parthian, rule directly, or
indirectly through local rulers with Greek names or Sáka Satraps. The
Sákas, one of the central Asian shepherd hordes, were pushed out of
their pastures on the upper Jaxartes by another horde,[Pg 164] the Yuechí.
Shadowy Hellenist Princes have left us only their names on coins; one
Menander, who ruled about 150 B.C., is an exception. He anticipated the
feats of later rulers of Kábul by a temporary conquest of North-Western
India, westwards to the Jamna and southwards to the sea.

The Kushán Dynasty.—The Yuechí in turn were driven southward to the
Oxus and the Kábul valley and under the Kushán dynasty established their
authority in the Panjáb about the middle of the first century. The most
famous name is that of Kanishka, who wrested from China Kashgár,
Yarkand, and Khotan, and assembled a notable council of sages of the law
in Kashmír. His reign may be dated from 120 to 150 A.D. His capital was
at Purushapura (Pesháwar), near which he built the famous relic tower of
Buddha, 400 feet high. Beside the tower was a large monastery still
renowned in the ninth and tenth centuries as a home of sacred learning.
The rule of Kushán kings in the Panjáb lasted till the end of the first
quarter of the third century. To their time belong the Buddhist
sculptures found in the tracts near their Pesháwar capital (see also
page 204).

The Gupta Empire.—Of the century preceding the establishment in 320
B.C. of the Gupta dynasty at Patna we know nothing. The Panjáb probably
again fell under the sway of petty rájas and tribal confederacies,
though the Kushán rule was maintained in Pesháwar till 465 A.D., when it
was finally blotted out by the White Huns. These savage invaders soon
after defeated Skanda Gupta, and from this blow the Gupta Empire never
recovered. At the height of its power in 400 A.D. under Chandra Gupta
II, known as Vikramaditya, who is probably the original of the
Bikramajít of Indian legends, it may have reached as far west as the
Chenáb.

The White Huns or Ephthalites.—In the beginning of[Pg 165] the sixth century
the White Hun, Mahirakula, ruled the Panjáb from Sakala, the modern
Siálkot. He was a worshipper of Şiva, and a deadly foe of the
Buddhist cult, and has been described as a monster of cruelty.

The short-lived dominion of the White Huns was destroyed by the Turks
and Persians about the year 565 A.D.

Panjáb in seventh century A.D.—From various sources, one of the most
valuable being the Memoirs of the Chinese Buddhist pilgrim Hiuen Tsang,
who travelled in India from 630 to 644 A.D., we know something of
Northern India in the first half of the seventh century. Hiuen Tsang was
at Kanauj as a guest of a powerful king named Harsha, whose first
capital was at Thanesar, and who held a suzerainty over all the rájas
from the Brahmaputra to the Biás. West of that river the king of Kashmír
was also overlord of Táxila, Urasa, Parnotsa (Punch), Rájapurí (Rajaurí)
and Sinhapura, which seems to have included the Salt Range. The Pesháwar
valley was probably ruled by the Turkí Shahiya kings of Kábul. The rest
of the Panjáb was divided between a kingdom called by Hiuen Tsang
Tsekhia, whose capital was somewhere near Siálkot, and the important
kingdom of Sindh, in which the Indus valley as far north as the Salt
Range was included. Harsha died in 647 A.D. and his empire collapsed.

Kashmír under Hindu Kings.—For the next century China was at the height
of its power. It established a suzerainty over Kashmír, Udyána (Swát),
Yasín, and Chitrál. The first was at this period a powerful Hindu
kingdom. Its annals, as recorded in Kalhana’s Rájataranginí, bear
henceforward a real relation to history. In 733 A.D. King Muktapida
Lálitáditya received investiture from the Chinese Emperor. Seven years
later he defeated the King of Kanauj on the Ganges. A ruler who[Pg 166] carried
his arms so far afield must have been very powerful in the Northern
Panjáb. The remains of the wonderful Mártand temple, which he built in
honour of the Sun God, are a standing memorial of his greatness. The
history of Kashmír under its Hindu kings for the next 400 years is for
the most part that of a wretched people ground down by cruel tyrants. A
notable exception was Avantidharman—855-883 A.D.—whose minister,
Suyya, carried out very useful drainage and irrigation works.

Fig. 58. Mártand Temple.

The Panjáb, 650-1000 A.D.—We know little of Panjáb history in the 340
years which elapsed between the death of Harsha and the beginning of the
Indian raids of the Sultans of Ghazní in 986-7 A.D. The conquest of the
kingdom of Sindh by the Arab general, Muhammad Kásim, occurred some
centuries earlier, in 712 A.D. Multán, the city of the Sun-worshippers,
was occupied, and part[Pg 167] at least of the Indus valley submitted to the
youthful conqueror. He and his successors in Sindh were tolerant rulers.
No attempt was made to occupy the Central Panjáb, and when the Turkish
Sultán, Sabaktagin, made his first raid into India in 986-7 A.D., his
opponent was a powerful rája named Jaipál, who ruled over a wide
territory extending from the Hakra to the frontier hills on the
north-west. His capital was at Bhatinda. Just about the time when the
rulers of Ghazní were laying the train which ended at Delhi and made it
the seat of a great Muhammadan Empire, that town was being founded in
993-4 A.D. by the Tunwar Rájputs, who then held sway in that
neighbourhood.[Pg 168]

CHAPTER XVIII

HISTORY (continued). THE MUHAMMADAN PERIOD, 1000-1764 A.D.

The Ghaznevide Raids.—In the tenth century the Turks were the
janissaries of the Abbaside Caliphs of Baghdád, and ambitious soldiers
of that race began to carve out kingdoms. One Alptagin set up for
himself at Ghazní, and was succeeded in 976 A.D. by his slave
Sabaktagin, who began the long series of Indian raids which stained with
blood the annals of the next half-century. His son, Mahmúd of Ghazní, a
ruthless zealot and robber abroad, a patron of learning and literature
at home, added the Panjáb to his dominions. In the first 26 years of the
eleventh century he made seventeen marauding excursions into India. In
the first his father’s opponent, Jaipál, was beaten in a vain effort to
save Pesháwar. Ten years later his successor, Anandpál, at the head of a
great army, again met the Turks in the Khaibar. The valour of the
Ghakkars had practically won the day, when Anandpál’s elephant took
fright, and this accident turned victory into rout. In one or other of
the raids Multán and Lahore were occupied, and the temples of Kángra
(Nagarkot) and Thanesar plundered. In 1018 the Turkish army marched as
far east as Kanauj. The one permanent result of all these devastations
was the occupation of the Panjáb. The Turks made Lahore the capital.[Pg 169]

Decline of Buddhism.—The iconoclastic raids of Mahmúd probably gave the
coup de grâce to Buddhism. Its golden age may be put at from 250 B.C.
to 200 A.D. Brahmanism gradually emerged from retirement and reappeared
at royal courts. It was quite ready to admit Buddha to its pantheon, and
by so doing it sapped the doctrine he had taught. The Chinese pilgrim,
Fahien, in the early part of the fifth century could still describe
Buddhism in the Panjáb as “very flourishing,” and he found numerous
monasteries. The religion seems however to have largely degenerated into
a childish veneration of relics.

Conquest of Delhi.—For a century and a quarter after the death of
Mahmúd in 1030 A.D. his line maintained its sway over a much diminished
empire. In 1155 the Afghán chief of Ghor, Alá ud dín, the “World-burner”
(Jahán-soz), levelled Ghazní with the ground. For a little longer the
Ghaznevide Turkish kings maintained themselves in Lahore. Between 1175
and 1186 Muhammad Ghorí, who had set up a new dynasty at Ghazní,
conquered Multán, Peshawar, Siálkot, and Lahore, and put an end to the
line of Mahmúd. The occupation of Sirhind brought into the field Prithví
Rája, the Chauhán Rájput king of Delhi. In 1191 he routed Muhammad Ghorí
at Naráina near Karnál. But next year the Afghán came back with a huge
host, and this time on the same battlefield fortune favoured him.
Prithví Rája was taken and killed, and Muhammad’s slave, Kutbuddín
Aibak, whom he left to represent him in India, soon occupied Delhi. In
1203 Muhammad Ghorí had to flee for his life after a defeat near the
Oxus. The Ghakkars seized the chance and occupied Lahore. But the old
lion, though wounded, was still formidable. The Ghakkars were beaten,
and, it is said, converted. A year or two later they murdered their
conqueror in his tent near the Indus.[Pg 170]

Turkish and Afgháns Sultáns of Delhi.—He had no son, and his strong
viceroy, Kutbuddín Aibak, became in 1206 the first of the 33 Muhammadan
kings, who in five successive dynasties ruled from Delhi a kingdom of
varying dimensions, till the last of them fell at Pánipat in 1526, and
Bábar, the first of the Moghals, became master of their red fort palace.
The blood-stained annals of these 320 years can only be lightly touched
on. Under vigorous rulers like the Turkí Slave kings, Altamsh
(1210-1236) and Balban (1266-1287), a ferocious and masterful boor like
Alá ud dín Khaljí (1296-1316), or a ferocious but able man of culture
like Muhammad Tughlak (1325-1351), the local governors at Lahore and
Multán were content to be servants. In the frequent intervals during
which the royal authority was in the hands of sottish wastrels, the
chance of independence was no doubt seized.

Mongol Invasions.—In 1221 the Mongol cloud rose on the north-west
horizon. The cruelty of these camel-riding Tatars and the terror they
inspired may perhaps be measured by the appalling picture given of their
bestial appearance. In 1221, Chingiz Khán descended on the Indus at the
heels of the King of Khwarizm (Khiva), and drove him into Sindh. Then
there was a lull for twenty years, after which the Mongol war hordes
ruined and ravaged the Panjáb for two generations. Two great Panjáb
governors, Sher Khán under Balban and Tughlak under Alá ud dín Khaljí,
maintained a gallant struggle against these savages. In 1297 and 1303
the Mongols came to the gates of Delhi, but the city did not fall, and
soon after they ceased to harry Northern India. During these years the
misery of the common people must often have been extreme. When foreign
raids ceased for a time they were plundered by their own rulers. In the
Panjáb the fate of the peasantry must have depended chiefly on the
character[Pg 171] of the governor for the time being, and of the local
feudatories or zamíndárs, who were given the right to collect the
State’s share of the produce on condition of keeping up bodies of armed
men for service when required.

The Invasion of Timúr.—The long reign of Muhammad Tughlak’s successor,
Firoz Sháh (1351-1388), son of a Hindu Rájput princess of Dipálpur,
brought relief to all classes. Besides adopting a moderate fiscal
policy, he founded towns like Hissár and Fatehábád, dug canals from the
Jamna and the Sutlej, and carried out many other useful works. On his
death the realm fell into confusion. In 1398-99 another appalling
calamity fell upon it in the invasion of Timúrlang (Tamerlane), Khán of
Samarkand. He entered India at the head of 90,000 horsemen, and marched
by Multán, Dipálpur, Sirsa, Kaithal, and Pánipat to Delhi. What lust of
blood was to the Mongols, religious hatred was to Timúr and his Turks.
Ten thousand Hindus were put to the sword at Bhatner and 100,000
prisoners were massacred before the victory at Delhi. For the three
days’ sack of the royal city Timúr was not personally responsible. Sated
with the blood of lakhs of infidels sent “to the fires of Hell” he
marched back through Kángra and Jammu to the Indus. Six years later the
House of Tughlak received a deadly wound when the Wazír, Ikbál Khan,
fell in battle with Khizr Khán, the governor of Multán.

The later Dynasties.—The Saiyyids, who were in power from 1414 to 1451,
only ruled a small territory round Delhi. The local governors and the
Hindu chiefs made themselves independent. Sikandar Lodí (1488-1518)
reduced them to some form of submission, but his successor, Ibrahím,
drove them into opposition by pushing authority further than his power
justified. An Afghán noble, Daulat Khán, rebelled in the Panjáb. There
is always an ear at Kábul listening to the first sounds of[Pg 172] discord and
weakness between Pesháwar and Delhi. Bábar, a descendant of Timúr, ruled
a little kingdom there. In 1519 he advanced as far as Bhera. Five years
later his troops burned the Lahore bazár, and sacked Dipálpur. The
next winter saw Bábar back again, and this time Delhi was his goal. On
the 21st of April, 1526, a great battle at Pánipat again decided the
fate of India, and Bábar entered Delhi in triumph.

Akbar and his successors.—He soon bequeathed his Indian kingdom to his
son Humáyun, who lost it, but recovered it shortly before his death by
defeating Sikandar Sur at Sirhind. In 1556 Akbar succeeded at the age of
13, and in the same year Bahram Khán won for his master a great battle
at Pánipat and seated the Moghals firmly on the throne. For the next
century and a half, till their power declined after the death of
Aurangzeb in 1707, Kábul and Delhi were under one rule, and the Panjáb
was held in a strong grasp. When it was disturbed the cause was
rebellions of undutiful sons of the reigning Emperor, struggles between
rival heirs on the Emperor’s death, or attempts to check the growing
power of the Sikh Gurus. The empire was divided into súbahs, and the
area described in this book embraced súbahs Lahore and Multán, and
parts of súbahs Delhi and Kábul. Kashmír and the trans-Indus tract
were included in the last.

The Sultáns of Kashmír.—The Hindu rule in Kashmír had broken down by
the middle of the twelfth century. A long line of Musalmán Sultáns
followed. Two notable names emerge in the end of the fourteenth and the
first half of the fifteenth century, Sikandar, the “Idol-breaker,” who
destroyed most of the Hindu temples and converted his people to Islám,
and his wise and tolerant successor, Zain-ul-ábidín. Akbar conquered
Kashmír in 1587.

Moghal Royal Progresses to Kashmír.—His successors often moved from
Delhi by Lahore, Bhimbar, and the Pír[Pg 173] Panjál route to the Happy Valley
in order to escape the summer heats. Bernier has given us a graphic
account of Aurangzeb’s move to the hills in 1665. On that occasion his
total following was estimated to amount to 300,000 or 400,000 persons,
and the journey from Delhi to Lahore occupied two months. The burden
royal progresses on this scale must have imposed on the country is
inconceivable. Jahángír died in his beloved Kashmír. He planted the road
from Delhi to Lahore with trees, set up as milestones the kos minárs,
some of which are still standing, and built fine sarais at various
places.

Prosperity of Lahore under Akbar, Jahángír, and Sháhjahán.—The reigns
of Akbar and of his son and grandson were the heyday of Lahore. It was
the halfway house between Delhi and Kashmír, and between Agra and Kábul.
The Moghal Court was often there. Akbar made the city his headquarters
from 1584 to 1598. Jahángír was buried and Sháhjahán was born at Lahore.
The mausoleum of the former is at Sháhdara, a mile or two from the city.
Sháhjahán made the Shálimár garden, and Ali Mardán Khán’s Canal, the
predecessor of our own Upper Bárí Doáb Canal, was partly designed to
water it. Lahore retained its importance under Aurangzeb, till he became
enmeshed in the endless Deccan wars, and his successor, Bahádur Shah,
died there in 1712.[Pg 174]

Bába Nának, the first Guru.—According to Sikh legend Bábar in one of
his invasions had among his prisoners their first Guru, Bába Nának, and
tried to make him a Musalmán. Nának was born in 1469 at Talwandí, now
known as Nankána Sáhib, 30 miles to the south-west of Lahore, and died
twelve years after Bábar’s victory at Pánipat. He journeyed all over
India, and, if legend speaks true, even visited Mecca. His propaganda
was a peaceful one. A man of the people himself, he had a[Pg 175] message to
deliver to a peasantry naturally impatient of the shackles of orthodox
Hinduism. Sikhism is the most important of all the later dissents from
Brahmanism, which represent revolts against idolatry, priestly
domination, and the bondage of caste and ritual. These things Nának
unhesitatingly condemned, and in the opening lines of his Japjí, the
morning service which every true Sikh must know by heart, he asserted in
sublime language the unity of God.

Fig. 59. Bába Nának and the Musician Mardána.

The Gurus between Nának and Govind.—The first three successors of Nának
led the quiet lives of great eastern saints. They managed to keep on
good terms with the Emperor and generally also with his local
representatives. The fifth Guru, Arjan (1581-1606), began the welding of
the Sikhs into a body fit to play a part in secular politics. He
compiled their sacred book, known as the Granth Sáhib, and made
Amritsar the permanent centre of their faith. The tenets of these early
Gurus chimed in with the liberal sentiments of Akbar, and he treated
them kindly. Arjan was accused of helping Khusru, Jahángír’s rebellious
son, and is alleged to have died after suffering cruel tortures.

Hitherto there had been little ill-will between monotheistic Sikhs and
Muhammadans. Henceforth there was ever-increasing enmity. The peasant
converts to the new creed had many scores against Turk officials to pay
off, while the new leader Hargovind (1606-1645), had the motive of
revenge. He was a Guru of a new type, a lover of horses and hawks, and a[Pg 176]
man of war. He kept up a bodyguard, and, when danger threatened, armed
followers flocked to his standard. The easy-going Jahángír (1605-1627)
on the whole treated him well. Sháhjahán (1627-1659) was more strict or
less prudent, and during his reign there were several collisions between
the imperial troops and the Guru’s followers. Hargovind[Pg 177] was succeeded
by his grandson, Har Rai (1645-1661). The new Guru was a man of peace.
Har Rai died in 1661, having nominated his younger son, Harkrishn, a
child of six, as his successor. His brother, Rám Rai, disputed his
claim, but Aurangzeb confirmed Harkrishn’s appointment. He died of small
pox in 1664 and was succeeded by his uncle, Teg Bahádur (1664-1675),
whose chief titles to fame are his execution in 1675, his prophecy of
the coming of the English, and the fact that he was the father of the
great tenth Guru, Govind. It is said that when in prison at Delhi he
gazed southwards one day in the direction of the Emperor’s zanána.
Charged with this impropriety, he replied: “I was looking in the
direction of the Europeans, who are coming to tear down thy pardas and
destroy thine empire.”

Fig. 60. Guru Govind Singh.

Guru Govind Singh.—When Govind (1675-1708) succeeded his father,
Aurangzeb had already started on the course of persecution which fatally
weakened the pillars of Turkish rule. Govind grew up with a rooted
hatred of the Turks, and a determination to weld his followers into a
league of fighting men or Khálsa (Ar. khális = pure), admission into
which was by the pahul, a form of military baptism. Sikhs were
henceforth to be Singhs (lions). They were forbidden to smoke, and
enjoined to wear the five k’s, kes, kangha, kripan, kachh, and
kara (uncut hair, comb, sword, short drawers, and steel bracelet). He
established himself at Anandpur beyond the Hoshyárpur Siwáliks. Much of
his life was spent in struggles with his neighbours, the Rájput Hill
Rájas, backed from time to time by detachments of imperial troops from
Sirhind. In 1705 two of his sons were killed fighting and two young
grandsons were executed at Sirhind. He himself took refuge to the south
of the Sutlej, but finally decided to obey a summons from Aurangzeb, and
was on the way to the Deccan when the old Emperor died. The Guru[Pg 178] took
up his residence on the banks of the Godávarí, and died there in 1708.

Bánda.—Before his death he had converted the Hindu ascetic Bánda, and
sent him forth on a mission of revenge. Bánda defeated and slew the
governor of Sirhind, Wazír Khán, and sacked the town. Doubtless he
dreamed of making himself Guru. But he was really little more than a
condottiere, and his orthodoxy was suspect. He was defeated and captured
in 1715 at Gurdáspur. Many of his followers were executed and he himself
was tortured to death at Delhi, where the members of an English mission
saw a ghastly procession of Sikh prisoners with 2000 heads carried on
poles. The blow was severe, and for a generation little was heard of the
Sikhs.

Invasions of Nádir Sháh and Ahmad Sháh.—The central power was weak, and
a new era of invasions from the west began. Nádir Sháh, the Turkman
shepherd, who had made himself master of Persia, advanced through the
Panjáb. Zakaria Khán, the governor of Lahore, submitted and the town was
saved from sack. A victory at Karnál left the road to Delhi open, and in
March, 1738, the Persians occupied the capital. A shot fired at Nádir
Sháh in the Chándní Chauk led to the nine hours’ massacre, when the
Daríba ran with blood, and 100,000 citizens are said to have perished.
The Persians retired laden with booty, including the peacock throne and
the Kohinur diamond. The Sikhs harassed detachments of the army on its
homeward march. Nádir Sháh was murdered nine years later, and his power
passed to the Afghán leader, the Durání Ahmad Sháh.

Between 1748 and 1767 this remarkable man, who could conquer but could
not keep, invaded India eight times. Lahore was occupied in 1748, but at
Sirhind the skill of Mír Mannu, called Muín ul Mulk, gave the advantage
to the Moghals. Ahmad Sháh retreated, and[Pg 179] Muín ul Mulk was rewarded
with the governorship of the Panjáb. He was soon forced to cede to the
Afghán the revenue of four districts. His failure to fulfil his compact
led to a third invasion in 1752, and Muín ul Mulk, after a gallant
defence of Lahore, had to submit. In 1755-56 Ahmad Sháh plundered Delhi
and then retired, leaving his son, Timúr, to represent him at Lahore.
Meanwhile the Sikhs had been gathering strength. Then, as now, they
formed only a fraction of the population. But they were united by a
strong hatred of Muhammadan rule, and in the disorganized state of the
country even the loose organization described below made them
formidable. Owing to the weakness of the government the Panjáb became
dotted over with forts, built by local chiefs, who undoubtedly lived
largely by plunder. The spiritual organization under a Guru being gone,
there gradually grew up a political and military organization into
twelve misls, in which “a number of chiefs agreed, after a somewhat
democratic and equal fashion, to fight under the general orders of some
powerful leader” against the hated Muhammadans. The misls often fought
with one another for a change. In the third quarter of the eighteenth
century Sardár Jassa Singh of Kapúrthala, head of the Ahluwália
misl, was the leading man among the Sikhs. Timúr having defiled the
tank at Amritsar, Jassa Singh avenged the insult by occupying Lahore in
1756, and the Afghán prince withdrew across the Indus. Adína Beg, the
governor of the Jalandhar Doáb, called in the Mahrattas, who drove the
Sikhs out in 1758. Ahmad Sháh’s fifth invasion in 1761 was rendered
memorable by his great victory over the Mahratta confederacy at Pánipat.
When he returned to Kábul, the Sikhs besieged his governor, Zín Khán, in
Sirhind. Next year Ahmad Sháh returned, and repaid their audacity by a
crushing defeat near Barnála.[Pg 180]

They soon rallied, and, in 1763, under Jassa Singh Ahluwália and Rája
Ala Singh of Patiála razed Sirhind to the ground. After the sack the
Sikh horsemen rode over the plains between Sirhind and Karnál, each man
claiming for his own any village into which in passing he had thrown
some portion of his garments. This was the origin of the numerous petty
chiefships and confederacies of horsemen, which, along with the Phulkian
States, the British Government took under its protection in 1808. In
1764 the chiefs of the Bhangí misl occupied Lahore.[Pg 181]

CHAPTER XIX

HISTORY (continued). THE SIKH PERIOD, 1764-1849 A.D.

Rise of Ranjít Singh.—The Bhangís held Lahore with brief intervals for
25 years. In 1799, Ranjít Singh, basing his claim on a grant from Sháh
Zamán, the grandson of Ahmad Sháh, drove them out, and inaugurated the
remarkable career which ended with his death in 1839. When he took
Lahore the future Mahárája was only nineteen years of age. He was the
head of the Sukarchakia misl, which had its headquarters at
Gujránwála. Mean in appearance, his face marked and one eye closed by
the ravages of smallpox, he was the one man of genius the Jat tribe has
produced. A splendid horseman, a bold leader, a cool thinker untroubled
with scruples, an unerring judge of character, he was bound to rise in
such times. He set himself to put down every Sikh rival and to profit by
the waning of the Durání power to make himself master of their
possessions in the Panjáb. Pluck, patience, and guile broke down all
opposition among the Mánjha Sikhs. The Sikh chiefs to the south of the
Sutlej were only saved from the same fate by throwing themselves in 1808
on the protection of the English, who six years earlier had occupied
Delhi, and by taking under their protection the blind old Emperor, Sháh
Álam, had virtually proclaimed themselves the paramount power in India.
For 44 years he had been only a piece in the game played by Mahrattas,[Pg 182]
Rohillas, and the English in alliance with the Nawáb Wazír of Oudh.

Fig. 61. Mahárája Ranjít Singh.
(From a picture book said to have been prepared for Mahárája Dalíp
Singh.)

British supremacy established in India.—In the first years of the
nineteenth century the Marquess of Wellesley had made up his mind that
the time was ripe to grasp supreme power in India. The motive was
largely self-preservation. India was included in Napoleon’s vast plans
for the overthrow of England, and Sindhia, with his army trained in
European methods of warfare by French officers, seemed a likely
confederate. Colonel Arthur Wellesley’s hard-won battle at Assaye in
September, 1803, and Lord Lake’s victories on the Hindan and[Pg 183] at Laswárí
in the same year, decided the fate of India. Delhi was occupied, and
Daulat Rao Sindhia ceded to the company territory reaching from Fázilka
on the Sutlej to Delhi on the Jamna, and extending along that river
northwards to Karnál and southwards to Mewát. Fázilka and a large part
of Hissár then formed a wild desert tract called Bhattiána, over which
no effective control was exercised till 1818. In 1832 “the Delhi
territory” became part of the North-West Provinces, from which it was
transferred to the Panjáb after the Mutiny.

Relations of Ranjít Singh with English.—In December, 1808, Ranjít Singh
was warned that by the issue of the war with Sindhia the Cis-Sutlej
chiefs had come under British protection. The Mahárája was within an ace
of declaring war, or let the world think so, but his statesmanlike
instincts got the better of mortified ambition, and in April, 1809, he
signed a treaty pledging himself to make no conquests south and east of
the Sutlej. The compact so reluctantly made was faithfully observed. In
1815, as the result of war with the Gurkhas, the Rájput hill states
lying to the south of the Sutlej came under British protection.

Extension of Sikh Kingdom in Panjáb.—As early as 1806, when he reduced
Jhang, Ranjít Singh began his encroachments on the possessions of the
Duránís in the Panjáb. Next year, and again in 1810 and 1816, Multán was
attacked, but the strong fort was not taken till 1818, when the old
Nawáb, Muzaffar Khán, and five of his sons, fell fighting at the gate.
Kashmír was first attacked in 1811 and finally annexed in 1819. Called
in by the great Katoch Rája of Kángra, Sansár Chand, in 1809, to help
him against the Gurkhas, Ranjít Singh duped both parties, and became
master of the famous fort. Many years later he annexed the whole of the
Kángra hill states. By 1820 the Mahárája was supreme from the[Pg 184] Sutlej to
the Indus, though his hold on Hazára was weak. Pesháwar became tributary
in 1823, but it was kept in subjection with much difficulty. Across the
Indus the position of the Sikhs was always precarious, and revenue was
only paid when an armed force could be sent to collect it. As late as
1837 the great Sikh leader, Harí Singh Nalwa, fell fighting with the
Afgháns at Jamrúd. The Barakzai, Dost Muhammad, had been the ruler of
Kábul since 1826. In 1838, when the English launched their ill-starred
expedition to restore Sháh Shuja to his throne, Ranjít Singh did not
refuse his help in the passage through the Panjáb. But he was worn out
by toils and excesses, and next year the weary lion of the Panjáb died.
He had known how to use men. He employed Jat blades and Brahman and
Muhammadan brains. Khatrís put both at his service. The best of his
local governors was Diwán Sáwan Mal, who ruled the South-West Panjáb
with much profit to himself and to the people. After 1820 the three
Jammu brothers, Rájas Dhián Singh, Suchet Singh, and Guláb Singh, had
great power.

Successors of Ranjít Singh.—From 1839 till 1846 an orgy of bloodshed
and intrigue went on in Lahore. Kharak Singh, the Mahárája’s son, died
in 1840, and on the same day occurred the death of his son Nao Nihál
Singh, compassed probably by the Jammu Rájas. Sher Singh, and then the
child, Dalíp Singh, succeeded. In September, 1843, Mahárája Sher Singh,
his son Partáb Singh, and Rája Dhián Singh were shot by Ajít Singh and
Lehna Singh of the great Sindhanwália house. The death of Dhián Singh
was avenged by his son, Híra Singh, who proclaimed Dalíp Singh as
Mahárája and made himself chief minister. When he in turn was killed
Rání Jindan, the mother of Dalíp Singh, her brother Jowáhir Singh, and
her favourite, Lál Singh, took the reins.[Pg 185]

Fig. 62. Mahárája Kharak Singh.

Fig. 63. Nao Nihál Singh.

Fig. 64. Mahárája Sher Singh.
(From a picture book said to have been prepared for Mahárája Dalíp
Singh.)

[Pg 186]

The First Sikh War and its results.—In 1845 these intriguers, fearing
the Khálsa army which they could not control, yielded to its cry to be
led across the Sutlej in the hope that its strength would be broken in
its conflict with the Company’s forces. The valour displayed by the Sikh
soldiery on the fields of Mudkí, Ferozesháh (Pherushahr), and Sobráon
was rendered useless by the treachery of its rulers, and Lahore was
occupied in February, 1846. By the treaty signed on 9th March, 1846, the
Mahárája ceded the territories in the plains between the Sutlej and
Biás, and in the hills between the Biás and the Indus. Kashmír and
Hazára were made over by the Company to Rája Guláb Singh for a payment
of 75 lakhs, but next year he induced the Lahore Darbár to take over
Hazára and give him Jammu in exchange. After Rája Lál Singh had been
banished for instigating Shekh Imám ud din to resist the occupation of
Kashmír by Guláb Singh, an agreement was executed, in December, 1846,
between the Government and the chief Sikh Sardárs by which a Council
of Regency was appointed to be controlled by a British Resident at
Lahore. The office was given to Henry Lawrence.

The Second Sikh War.—These arrangements were destined to be
short-lived. Diwán Sáwan Mal’s son, Mulráj, mismanaged Multán and was
ordered to resign. In April, 1848, two English officers sent to instal
his Sikh successor were murdered. Herbert Edwardes, with the help of
Muhammadan tribesmen and Baháwalpur troops, shut up Mulráj in Multán,
but the fort was too strong for the first British regular force, which
arrived in August, and it did not fall till January, 1849. During that
winter a formidable Sikh revolt against English domination broke out.
Its leader was Sardár Chatar Singh, Governor of Hazára. The troops
sent by the Darbár to Multán under Chatar Singh’s son, Sher Singh,[Pg 187]
marched northwards in September to join their co-religionists.

On the 13th of January, 1849, Lord Gough fought a very hardly contested
battle at Chilianwála. If this was but a doubtful victory, that won six
weeks later at Gujrát was decisive. On 12th March, 1849, the soldiers of
the Khálsa in proud dejection laid down their weapons at the feet of
the victor, and dispersed to their homes.

Fig. 65. Zamzama Gun[6].

Annexation.—The cause they represented was in no sense a national one.
The Sikhs were a small minority of the population, the bulk of the
people being Muhammadans, to whom the English came as deliverers. On the
30th of March, 1849, the proclamation annexing the Panjáb was read at
Lahore.[Pg 188]

CHAPTER XX

HISTORY (continued). THE BRITISH PERIOD, 1849-1913

Administrative Arrangements in Panjáb.—Lord Dalhousie put the
government of the province under a Board of Administration consisting of
the two Lawrences, Henry and John, and Charles Mansel. The Board was
abolished in 1853 and its powers vested in a Chief Commissioner. A
Revenue or Financial Commissioner and a Judicial Commissioner were his
principal subordinates. John Lawrence, the first and only Chief
Commissioner of the Panjáb, became its first Lieutenant-Governor on the
1st of January, 1859. The raising of the Panjáb to the full rank of an
Indian province was the fitting reward of the great part which its
people and its officers, with their cool-headed and determined chief,
had played in the suppression of the Mutiny. The overthrow of the
Khálsa left the contending parties with the respect which strong men
feel for each other; the services of the Sikhs in 1857 healed their
wounded pride and removed all soreness.

Fig. 66. Sir John Lawrence.

Administration, 1849-1859.—When John Lawrence laid down his office in
the end of February, 1859, ten years of work by himself and the able
officers drafted by Lord Dalhousie into the new province had established
order on a solid foundation. A strong administration suited to a manly
and headstrong people had been organised. In the greater part of the
province rights in land had been determined and recorded. The principle[Pg 189]
of a moderate assessment of the land revenue had been laid down and
partially carried out in practice. The policy of canal and railway
development, which was to have so great a future in the Panjáb, had been
definitely started. The province had been divided into nine divisions
containing 33 districts. The Divisional Commissioners were
superintendents of revenue and police[Pg 190] with power to try the gravest
criminal offences and to hear appeals in civil cases. The Deputy
Commissioner of districts had large civil, criminal, and fiscal powers.
A simple criminal and civil code was enforced. The peace of the frontier
was secured by a chain of fortified outposts watching the outlets from
the hills, behind which were the cantonments at the headquarters of the
districts linked together by a military road. The posts and the
cantonments except Pesháwar were garrisoned by the Frontier Force, a
splendid body of troops consisting[Pg 191] ultimately of seven infantry and
five cavalry regiments, with some mule batteries. This force was till
1885 subject to the orders of the Lieutenant Governor. It never wanted
work, for before the Mutiny troops had to be employed seventeen times
against the independent tribesmen. East of the Indus order was secured
by the disarmament of the people, the maintenance, in addition to civil
police, of a strong body of military police, and the construction of
good roads. Just before Lawrence left the construction of the
Amritsar-Multán railway was begun, and a few weeks after his departure
the Upper Bárí Doáb Canal was opened.

Fig. 67. John Nicolson’s Monument at Delhi.

[Pg 192]

Administration, 1859-1870.—The next eleven years occupied by the
administrations of Sir Robert Montgomery and Sir Donald Macleod were a
quiet time in which results already achieved were consolidated. The
Penal Code was extended to the Panjáb in 1862, and a Chief Court with a
modest establishment of two judges in 1865 took the place of the
Judicial Commissioner. In the same year a Settlement Commissioner was
appointed to help the Financial Commissioner in the control of land
revenue settlements. Two severe famines marked the beginning and the
close of this period. Omitting the usual little frontier excitements, it
is necessary to mention the troublesome Ambela campaign in 1863 in the
country north of Pesháwar, which had for its object the breaking up of
the power of a nest of Hindustání fanatics, and the Black Mountain
expedition, in 1868, on the Hazára border, in which no fewer than 15,000
men were employed. Sir Henry Durand, who succeeded Sir Donald Macleod,
after seven months of office lost his life by an accident in the
beginning of 1871.

Fig. 68. Sir Robert Montgomery.

Administration, 1871-1882.—The next eleven years divided between the
administrations of Sir Henry Davies (1871-1877) and Sir Robert Egerton
(1877-1882) produced more striking events. In 1872 a small body of
fanatics belonging to a Sikh sect known as Kúkas or Shouters marched
from the Ludhiána district and attacked the headquarters of the little
Muhammadan State of Malerkotla. They were repulsed and 68 men
surrendered to the Patiála authorities. The Deputy Commissioner of
Ludhiána blew 49 of them from the guns, and the rest were executed after
summary trial by the Commissioner. Such strong measures were not
approved by the Government, but it must be remembered that these madmen
had killed ten and wounded seventeen men, and that their lives were
justly forfeit. On the 1st of January,[Pg 193] 1877, Queen Victoria’s
assumption of the title of Empress of India (Kaisar-i-Hind) was
announced at a great Darbár at Delhi. In 1877 Kashmír, hitherto
controlled by the Lieutenant-Governor, was put directly under the
Government of India. The same year and the next the province was tried
by famine, and in 1878-80 it was the base from which our armies marched
on Kábul and Kandahár, while its resources in camels were strained to
supply transport. Apart from this its interest in the war was very great
because it is the chief recruiting ground of the Indian army and its
chiefs sent contingents to help their suzerain. The first stage of the
war was closed by the treaty of Gandamak in May, 1879, by which Yakúb[Pg 194]
Khán surrendered any rights he possessed over Khaibar and the Kurram as
far as Shutargardan.

Fig. 69. Panjáb Camels—Lahore.

Administration, 1882-1892.—During the Lieutenant-Governorships of Sir
Charles Aitchison (1882-1887) and Sir James Lyall (1887-1892) there was
little trouble on the western frontier. In 1891 the need had arisen of
making our power felt up to the Pamírs. The setting up of a British
agency at Gilgit was opposed in 1891 by the fighting men of Hunza and
Nagar. Colonel Durand advanced rapidly with a small force and when a
determined assault reduced the strong fort of Nilt,[Pg 195] trouble was at an
end once and for all. Within the Panjáb the period was one of quiet
development. The Sirhind Canal was opened in 1882, and the weir at
Khánkí for the supply of the Lower Chenáb Canal was finished in 1892.
New railways were constructed. Lord Ripon’s policy of Local
Self-government found a strong supporter in Sir Charles Aitchison, and
Acts were passed dealing with the constitution and powers of municipal
committees and district boards. In 1884 and 1885 a large measure of
reorganization was carried out. A separate staff of divisional,
district, and subordinate civil judges was appointed. The divisional
judges were also sessions judges. The ten commissioners were reduced to
six, and five of them were relieved of all criminal work by the sessions
judges. The Deputy Commissioner henceforth was a Revenue Collector and
District Magistrate with large powers in criminal cases. The revenue
administration was at the same time being improved by the reforms
embodied in the Panjáb Land Revenue and Tenancy Acts passed at the
beginning of Sir James Lyall’s administration.

Fig. 70. Sir Charles Aitchison.

Administration, 1892-1902.—The next two administrations, those of Sir
Dennis Fitzpatrick (1892-97) and Sir Mackworth Young (1897-1902) were
crowded with important events. Throughout the period the colonization of
the vast area of waste commanded by the Lower Chenáb Canal was carried
out, and the Lower Jhelam Canal was formally opened six months before
Sir Mackworth Young left. The province suffered from famine in 1896-97
and again in 1899-1900. In October, 1897, a worse enemy appeared in the
shape of plague, but its ravages were not very formidable till the end
of the period. The Panjáb was given a small nominated Legislative
Council in 1897, which speedily proved itself a valuable instrument for
dealing with much-needed[Pg 196] provincial legislation. But the most important
Panjáb Act of the period, XIII of 1900, dealing with Land Alienation was
passed by the Viceroy’s Legislative Council. In 1901 a Political Agent
was appointed as the intermediary between the Panjáb Government and the
Phulkian States. On the frontier the conclusion of the Durand Agreement
in 1893 might well have raised hopes of quiet times. But the reality was
otherwise. The establishment of a British officer at Wána to exercise
control over Southern Wazíristán in 1894 was forcibly resisted by the
Mahsúd Wazírs, and an expedition had to be sent into their country. The
Mehtar or Chief of Chitrál, who was in receipt of a subsidy from the
British Government, died in 1892. A period of great confusion followed
fomented by the ambitions of Umra Khán of Jandol. Finally we recognised
as Mehtar the eldest son, who had come uppermost in the struggle, and
sent an English officer as British Agent to Chitrál. Umra Khán got our
protégé murdered, and besieged the Agent in the Chitrál fort. He
withdrew however on the approach of a small force from Gilgit.
Shuja-ul-Mulk was recognised as Mehtar. This little trouble occurred in
1895. Two years later a storm-cloud suddenly burst over the frontier,
such as we had never before experienced. It spread rapidly from the
Tochí to Swát, tribe after tribe rising and attacking our posts. It is
impossible to tell here the story of the military measures taken against
the different offending tribes. The most important was the campaign in
Tirah against the Orakzais and Afrídís, in which 30,000 men were engaged
for six months. In 1900 attacks on the peace of the border by the Mahsúd
Wazírs had to be punished by a blockade, and in the cold weather of
1901-2 small columns harried the hill country to enforce their
submission. By this time the connection of the Panjáb Government with
frontier affairs, which[Pg 197] had gradually come to involve responsibility
with little real power, had ceased. On the 25th of October, 1901, the
North-West Frontier Province was constituted and Colonel (afterwards Sir
Harold) Deane became its first Chief Commissioner, an office which he
held till 1908, when he was succeeded by Major (now Sir George) Roos
Keppel.

Fig. 71. Sir Denzil Ibbetson.

Fig. 72. Sir Michael O’Dwyer.

Administration, 1902-1913.—The last eleven years have embraced the
Lieutenant Governorship of Sir Charles Rivaz (1902-1907), the too brief
administration of Sir Denzil Ibbetson (1907-1908), and that of Sir Louis
Dane (1908-1913). Throughout the period plague has been a disturbing
factor, preventing entirely the growth of population which the rapid
development of the agricultural resources of the province would
otherwise have secured. It was among the causes stimulating the unrest
which came to a head in 1907. A terrible earthquake occurred in 1905.
Its centre was in Kángra, where 20,000 persons perished under the ruins
of their houses. The colonization of the Crown waste on the Lower Jhelam
Canal was nearly finished during Sir Charles Rivaz’s administration.
Before he left the Triple Canal Project, now approaching completion, had
been undertaken. Other measures of importance to the rural population
were the passing of the Co-operative Credit Societies’ Act in 1903, and
the organization in 1905 of a provincial Agricultural Department. The
seditious movement which troubled Bengal had its echo in some parts of
the Panjáb in the end of 1906 and the spring of 1907. A bill dealing
with the rights and obligations of the Crown tenants in the new Canal
Colonies was at the time before the Local Legislature. Excitement
fomented from outside spread among the prosperous colonists on the Lower
Chenáb Canal. There was a disturbance in Lahore in connection with the
trial of a[Pg 198] newspaper editor, the ringleaders being students. When Sir
Denzil Ibbetson took the reins into his strong hands in March, 1907, the
position was somewhat critical. The disturbance at Lahore was followed
by a riot at Ráwalpindí. The two leading agitators were deported, a
measure which was amply justified by their reckless actions and which
had an immediate effect. Lord Minto decided to withhold his assent from
the Colony Bill, and it has recently been replaced by a measure which
has met with general acceptance. When Sir Denzil Ibbetson took office he
was already suffering from a mortal disease. In the following January he
gave up the unequal struggle,[Pg 199] and shortly afterwards died. Sir Louis
Dane became Lieutenant Governor in May, 1908. A striking feature of his
administration was the growth of co-operative credit societies or
village banks. At the Coronation Darbár on 12th December, 1911, the
King-Emperor announced the transfer of the capital of India to Delhi. As
a necessary consequence the city and its suburbs were severed from the
province, with which they had been connected for 55 years. In 1913 Sir
Louis Dane was succeeded by Sir Michael O’Dwyer.

[Pg 200]

CHAPTER XXI

ARCHAEOLOGY AND COINS

Fig. 73. Group of Chamba Temples.

Hindu and Buddhist Remains.—The scholar who ended his study of Indian
history with the close of the first millennium of the Christian era
would expect to find a fruitful field for the study of ancient monuments
of the Hindu faith in the plains of the Panjáb. He would look for a
great temple of the Sun God at Multán, and at places like Lahore and
Kángra, Thanesar and Pihowa, for shrines rich with graven work outside
and with treasures of gold and precious stones within. But he would look
in vain. The Muhammadan invaders of the five centuries which elapsed
between Mahmúd of Ghazní and the Moghal Bábar were above all things
idol-breakers, and their path was marked by the destruction and
spoliation of temples. Even those invaders who remained as conquerors
deemed it a pious work to build their mosques with the stones of ruined
fanes. The transformation, as in the case of the great Kuwwat ul Islám
mosque beside the Kutb Minár, did not always involve the complete
obliteration of idolatrous emblems. Kángra was not too remote to be
reached by invading armies, and the visitor to Nurpur on the road from
Pathánkot to Dharmsála can realize how magnificent some of the old Hindu
buildings were, and how utterly they were destroyed. The smaller
buildings to be found in the remoter parts of the hills escaped, and
there are characteristic[Pg 201] groups of stone temples at Chamba and still
older shrines dating from the eighth century at Barmaur and Chitrádí in
the same state. The ruins of the great temple of the Sun, built by
Lálitáditya in the same period, at Mártand[7] near Islámábád in the
Kashmír State are very striking. The smaller, but far better preserved,
temple at Payer is probably of much later date. Round the pool of Katás,
one of Şiva’s eyes, a great place of Hindu pilgrimage in the Salt
Range, there is little or nothing of antiquarian value, but there are
interesting remains at Malot in the same neighbourhood. It is possible
that when the mounds that mark the sites of ancient villages come to be
excavated valuable relics of the Hindu period will be brought to light.
The forces of nature or the violence of man have wiped out all traces of
the numerous Buddhist monasteries[Pg 202] which the Chinese pilgrims found in
the Panjáb. Inscriptions of Aşoka? graven on rocks survive at
Sháhbázgarhí and Mansehra in the North-West Frontier Province. Two
pillars with inscriptions of the Missionary Emperor stand at Delhi. They
were brought from Topra near the Jamna in Ambála and from Meerut by
Firoz Sháh. The traveller by train from Jhelam to Ráwalpindí can see to
the west of the line at Mankiála a great stúpa raised to celebrate the
self-sacrifice of the Bodhisattva who gave his life to feed a starving
tigress. There is a ruined stúpa at Suí Vihár in the Baháwalpur State.
The Chinese pilgrims described the largest of Indian stúpas built by
Kanishka near Pesháwar to enshrine precious relics of Gautama Buddha and
a great monastery[Pg 203] beside it. Recent excavations have proved the truth
of the conjecture that the two mounds at Sháhjí kí dherí covered the
remains of these buildings, and the six-sided crystal reliquary
containing three small fragments of bone has after long centuries been
disinterred and is now in the great pagoda at Rangoon. In the Lahore[Pg 204]
museum there is a rich collection of the sculptures recovered from the
Pesháwar Valley, the ancient Gandhára. They exhibit strong traces of
Greek influence. The best age of Gandhára sculpture was probably over
before the reign of Kanishka. The site of the famous town of Táxila is
now a protected area, and excavation there may yield a rich reward.

Fig. 74. Payer Temple.

Fig. 75. Reliquary.

Fig. 76. Colonnade in Kuwwat ul Islám Mosque.

Muhammadan Architecture.—The Muhammadan architecture of North-Western
India may be divided into three periods:

Fig. 77. Kutb Minár.

In the Pathán period the royal builders drew their inspiration from
Ghazní, but their work was also much[Pg 205] affected by Hindu influences for
two reasons. They used the materials of Hindu temples in constructing
their mosques and they employed masons imbued with the traditions of
Hindu art. The best specimens of this period are to be found in the
group of buildings in Old Delhi or Kila’ Rai Pithora, close to
Mahraulí and eleven miles to the south of the present city. These
buildings are the magnificent Kuwwat ul Islám (Might of Islam) Mosque
(1191-1225), with its splendid tower, the Kutb Minár (1200-1220), from
which the mu’azzin called the[Pg 206] faithful to prayer, the tomb of the
Emperor Altamsh (1238), and the great gateway built in 1310 by Alá ud
dín Khaljí. In the second period, named after the house that occupied
the imperial throne when it began, all traces of Hindu influence have
vanished, and the buildings display the austere and massive grandeur
suited to the faith of the desert prophet unalloyed by foreign elements.
This style in its beginning is best seen in the cyclopean ruins of
Tughlakábád and the tomb of the Emperor Tughlak Sháh, and in some
mosques in and near Delhi. Its latest phase is represented by Sher
Sháh’s mosque in the Old Fort or Purána Kila’.[Pg 207] To some the simple
grandeur of this style will appeal more strongly than the splendid, but
at times almost effeminate, beauty of the third period. Noted examples
of Moghal architecture in the Panjáb are to be found in Sháhjahári’s red
fort[Pg 208] palace and Jama’ Masjid at New Delhi or Sháhjahánábád,
Humáyun’s tomb on the road from Delhi to Mahraulí, the fort palace, the
Bádsháhí and Wazír Khán’s mosques, at Lahore, and Jahángír’s mausoleum
at Sháhdara. A very late building in this style is the tomb of Nawáb
Safdar Jang (1753) near Delhi. A further account of some of the most
famous Muhammadan buildings will be found in the paragraphs devoted to
the chief cities of the province. The architecture of the British period
scarcely deserves notice.

Fig. 78. Tomb of Emperor Tughlak Sháh.

Fig. 79. Jama Masjid, Delhi.

Fig. 80. Tomb of Emperor Humáyun.

Fig. 81. Bádsháhí Mosque, Lahore.

Coins.—Among the most interesting of the archaeological remains are the
coins which are found in great abundance on the frontier and all over
the Panjáb. These take us back through the centuries to times before[Pg 209]
the invasion of India by Alexander, and for the obscure period
intervening between the Greek occupation of the Frontier and the
Muhammadan conquest, they are our main source of history. The most
ancient of the Indian monetary issues are the so-called punch-marked
coins, some of which were undoubtedly in existence before the Greek
invasion. Alexander himself left no permanent traces of his progress
through the Panjáb and Sindh, but about the year 200 B.C., Greeks from
Bactria, an outlying province of the Seleukidan Empire, once more
appeared on the Indian Frontier, which they effectively occupied for
more than a century. They struck the well-known Graeco-Bactrian coins;
the most famous of the Indo-Greek princes were Apollodotos and Menander.
Towards the close of this dynasty, parts of Sindh and Afghánistán were
conquered by Sáka Scythians from Central Asia. They struck what are
termed the Indo-Scythian and Indo-Parthian coins bearing names in
legible Greek legends—Manes, Azes, Azilises, Gondophares, Abdagases.
Both Greeks and Sákas were overthrown by the Kusháns. The extensive gold
and copper Kushán currency, with inscriptions in the Greek script,
contains the names of Kadphises, Kanishka, Huvishka, and others. In
addition to the coins of these foreign dynasties, there are the purely
Indian currencies, e.g. the coins of Táxila, and those bearing the names
of such tribes as the Odumbaras, Kunindas, and Yaudheyas. The White Huns
overthrew the Kushán Empire in the fifth century. After their own fall[Pg 210]
in the sixth century, there are more and more debased types of coinage
such as the ubiquitous Gadhiya paisa, a degraded Sassanian type. In
the ninth century we again meet with coins bearing distinct names, the
“bull and horseman” currency of the Hindu kings of Kábul. We have now
reached the beginning of the Muhammadan rule in India. Muhammad[Pg 211] bin
Sám was the founder of the first Pathán dynasty of Delhi, and was
succeeded by a long line of Sultáns. The Pathán and Moghal coins bear
Arabic and Persian legends. There were mints at Lahore, Multán,
Háfizábád, Kalanaur, Deraját, Pesháwar, Srínagar and Jammu. An issue of
coins peculiar to the Panjáb is that of the Sikhs. Their coin legends,
partly Persian, partly Panjábí, are written in the Persian and Gurmúkhí
scripts. Amongst Sikh mints were Amritsar, Lahore, Multán, Dera,
Anandgarh, Jhang, and Kashmír.

Fig. 82. Coins.

1. Silver punch-marked coin. 2. Drachma of Sophytes (Panjáb Satrap about
time of Alexander). 3. Hemidrachma of Azes. 4. Copper coin of Táxila. 5.
Silver Kuninda coin. 6. Stater of Wema Kadphises. 7. Stater of Kanishka.
8. Later Kushán stater. 9. White Hun silver piece. 10. Gadhiya paisa.
11. Silver coin of Spalapatí Deva, Hindu King of Kábul.

[Pg 212]

CHAPTER XXII

ADMINISTRATION—GENERAL

Panjáb Districts.—The administrative unit in the Panjáb is the district
in charge of a Deputy Commissioner. The districts are divided into
tahsíls, each on the average containing four, and are grouped together
in divisions managed by Commissioners. There are 28 districts and five
divisions. An ordinary Panjáb district has an area of 2000 to 3000
square miles and contains from 1000 to 2000 village estates. Devon, the
third in size of the English counties, is about equal to an average
Panjáb district.

Branches of Administration.—The provincial governments of India are
organized in three branches, Executive, Judicial, and Revenue, and a
number of special departments, such as Forests and Irrigation. Under
“Judicial” there are two subdivisions, civil and criminal. The tendency
at first is for powers in all three branches to be concentrated in the
hands of single individuals, development tends to specialization, but it
is a matter of controversy how far the separation of executive and
magisterial functions can be carried without jeopardy to the common
weal.

The Lieutenant Governor.—At the head of the whole administration is the
Lieutenant Governor, who holds office for five years. He has a strong
Secretariat to help in the dispatch of business. The experiment of
governing the Panjáb by a Board was speedily given up, and for sixty
years it has enjoyed the advantage of one man government, the Lieutenant
Governor controlling all subordinate authorities and being himself only
controlled[Pg 213] by the Governor General in Council. The independence of the
Courts in the exercise of judicial functions is of course safeguarded.

Official hierarchy.—The following is a list of the official hierarchy
in the different branches of the administration:

The letters in brackets indicate the classes of functions which the
official concerned usually exercises. Translated into a diagram we have
the following:

[Pg 214]

Tahsíldárs and Assistant and Extra Assistant Commissioners.—Thus the
chain of executive authority runs down to the tahsíldár’s assistant or
náib through the Commissioner and the Deputy Commissioner, the
tahsíldár being directly responsible to the latter. The Assistant and
Extra Assistant Commissioners are the Deputy Commissioner’s Assistants
at headquarters, and as such are invested with powers in all branches.
The tahsíldár, a very important functionary, is in charge of a
tahsíl. He is linked on to the village estates by a double chain, one
official consisting of the kanungos and the patwáris or village
accountants whom they supervise, the other non-official consisting of
the village headmen and the zaildárs, each of whom is the intermediary
between the revenue and police staffs and the villages.

Subdivisional Officers.—In some heavy districts one or more tahsíls
are formed into a subdivision and put in charge of a resident Assistant
or Extra Assistant Commissioner, exercising such independent authority
as the Deputy Commissioner thinks fit to entrust to him.

The Deputy Commissioner and his Assistants.—As the officer responsible
for the maintenance of order the Deputy Commissioner is District
Magistrate and has large powers both for the prevention and punishment
of crime. The District Superintendent is his Assistant in police
matters. The Civil Surgeon is also under his control, and he has an
Indian District Inspector of Schools to assist him in educational
business. The Deputy Commissioner is subject to the control of the
Divisional Commissioner.

Financial Commissioners.—In all matters connected with land, excise,
and income tax administration the Commissioner and Deputy Commissioner
are subject to the control of the Financial Commissioners, who are also
the final appellate authority in revenue cases. As[Pg 215] chief district
revenue officer the Deputy Commissioner’s proper title is “Collector,” a
term which indicates his responsibility for the realization of all
Government revenues. In districts which are canal irrigated the amount
is in some cases very large.

Settlement Officers, etc.—With the periodical revisions of the land
revenue assessment the Deputy Commissioner has no direct concern. That
very responsible duty is done by a special staff of Settlement Officers,
selected chiefly from among the Assistant Commissioners and working
under the Commissioners and Financial Commissioners. The Director of
Land Records, the Registrar of Co-operative Credit Societies, and in
some branches of his work the Director of Agriculture and Industries,
are controlled by the Financial Commissioners.

The Chief Court.—It must be admitted that Panjábís are very litigious
and that in some tracts they are extremely vindictive and reckless of
human life. The volume of litigation is swollen by the fact that the
country is one of small-holders subject as regards inheritance and other
matters to an uncodified customary law, which may vary from tribe to
tribe and tract to tract. A suit is to the Panjábí a rubber, the last
game of which he will play in Lahore, if the law permits. It is not
therefore extraordinary that the Chief Court constituted in 1865 with
two judges has now five, and that even this number has in the past
proved insufficient. In the same way the cadre of divisional and
sessions judges had in 1909 to be raised from 12 to 16.

Administration of N. W. F. Province.—In the N. W. F. Province no
Commissioner is interposed between the district officers and the Chief
Commissioner, under whom the Revenue Commissioner and the Judicial
Commissioner occupy pretty much the position of the Financial
Commissioners and the Chief Court in the Panjáb.[Pg 216]

Departments.—The principal departments are the Railway, Post Office,
Telegraphs, and Accounts, under the Government of India, and Irrigation,
Roads and Buildings, Forests, Police, Medical, and Education, under the
Lieutenant Governor. In matters affecting the rural population, as a
great part of the business of the Forest Department must do, the
Conservator of Forests is subject to the control of the Financial
Commissioners, whose relations with the Irrigation Department are also
very intimate.

Legislative Council.—From 1897 to 1909 the Panjáb had a local
Legislative Council of nine nominated members, which passed a number of
useful Acts. Under 9 Edward VII, cap. 4, an enlarged council with
increased powers has been constituted. It consists of 24 members of whom
eight are elected, one by the University, one by the Chamber of
Commerce, three by groups of Municipal and cantonment committees, and
three by groups of district boards. The other sixteen members are
nominated by the Lieutenant Governor, and at least six of them must be
persons not in Government service. The right of interpellation has been
given, and also some share in shaping the financial arrangements
embodied in the annual budget.[Pg 217]

CHAPTER XXIII

ADMINISTRATION—LOCAL

Municipalities.—It is matter for reflection that, while the effect of
British administration has been to weaken self-government in villages,
half a century of effort has failed to make it a living thing in towns
and districts. The machinery exists, but outside a few towns the result
is poor. The attempt was made on too large a scale, municipal
institutions being bestowed on places which were no more than villages
with a bazár. This has been partially corrected of late years. A new
official entity, the “notified area,” has been invented to suit the
requirements of such places. While there were in 1904 139 municipalities
and 48 notified areas, in 1911-12 the figures were 107 and 104
respectively. Even in the latter year 32 of the municipalities had
incomes not exceeding £1000 (Rs. 15,000). The total income of the 104
towns was Rs. 71,41,000 (£476,000), of which Rs. 44,90,000 (£300,000)
were derived from taxation. Nearly 90 p.c. of the taxation was drawn
from octroi, a hardy plant which has survived much economic criticism.
The expenditure was Rs. 69,09,000 (£461,000), of which Rs. 40,32,000
(£269,000) fall under the head of “Public Health and Convenience.” The
incidence of taxation was Rs. 2.6 or a little over three shillings a
head[Pg 218].

District Boards.—The district boards can at present in practice only be
treated as consultative bodies, and well handled can in that capacity
play a useful rôle. Their income is mainly derived from the local rate,
a surcharge of one-twelfth on the land revenue. In 1911-12 the income
was Rs. 53,74,000 (£358,000) and the expenditure Rs. 54,44,500
(£363,000). The local rate contributed 51 p.c. and contributions from
Government 23 p.c. of the former figure. Public works took up 41 and
Education about 20 p.c. of the expenditure.

Elections.—Some of the seats in most of the municipalities and boards
are filled by election when any one can be induced to vote. Public
spirit is lacking and, as a rule, except when party or sectarian spirit
is rampant, the franchise is regarded with indifference.[Pg 219]

CHAPTER XXIV

REVENUE AND EXPENDITURE

Financial Relations with Government of India.—Local governments
exercise their financial powers in strict subordination to the
Government of India, which alone can borrow, and which requires the
submission for its sanction of the annual provincial budgets. To ensure
a reasonable amount of decentralization the Supreme Government has made
financial contracts with the provinces under which they receive definite
shares of the receipts, and are responsible for definite shares of the
expenditure, under particular heads. The existing contract dates only
from 1911-12 (see Table V).

Income and Expenditure.—Excluding income from railways, post offices,
telegraphs, salt, and sales of excise opium, which are wholly imperial,
the revenue of the Panjáb in 1911-12 was £5,057,000 (Rs. 758,56,000), of
which the provincial share was £2,662,200 (Rs. 399,33,000), to which
have to be added £251,800 (Rs. 37,77,000) on account of assignments made
by the Government of India to the province. This brought up the total to
£2,914,000 (Rs. 437,10,000). The expenditure was £2,691,933 (Rs.
403,79,000). This does not include £983,000 spent from loan funds on
irrigation works, chiefly the great Triple Project. The large
expenditure on railways is imperial. Of the gross income more than
three-fourths is derived from the land (Land Revenue, 46 p.c.,
Irrigation, chiefly canal water rates, 29 p.c., and[Pg 220] Forests, 1¾
p.c.). The balance consists of Excise 8½ p.c., Stamps, 7 p.c., Income
Tax over 2 p.c., and other heads 5¾ p.c.

Land Revenue.—Certain items are included under the Land Revenue head
which are no part of the assessment of the land. The real land revenue
of the Panjáb is about £2,000,000 and falls roughly at the rate of
eighteen pence per cultivated acre (Table II). It is not a land tax, but
an extremely moderate quit rent. In India the ruler has always taken a
share of the produce of the land from the persons in whom he recognised
a permanent right to occupy it or arrange for its tillage. The title of
the Rája to his share and the right of the occupier to hold the land he
tilled and pass it on to his children both formed part of the customary
law of the country. Under Indian rule the Rája’s share was often
collected in kind, and the proportion of the crop taken left the tiller
of the soil little or nothing beyond what was needed for the bare
support of himself and his family. What the British Government did was
to commute the share in kind into a cash demand and gradually to limit
its amount to a reasonable figure. The need of moderation was not
learned without painful experience, but the Panjáb was fortunate in this
that, except as regards the Delhi territory, the lesson had been learned
and a reasonable system evolved in the United Provinces before the
officers it sent to the Panjáb began the regular assessments of the
districts of the new province. A land revenue settlement is usually made
for a term of 20 or 30 years. Since 1860 the limit of the government
demand has been fixed at one-half of the rental, but this figure is very
rarely approached in practice. Between a quarter and a third would be
nearer the mark. A large part of the land is tilled by the owners, and
the rent of the whole has to be calculated from the data for the part,
often not more than a third[Pg 221] or two-fifths of the whole, cultivated by
tenants at will. The calculation is complicated by the fact that kind
rents consisting of a share of the crop are in most places commoner than
cash rents and are increasing in favour. The determination of the cash
value of the rent where the crop is shared is a very difficult task.
There is a large margin for error, but there can be no doubt that the
net result has almost always been undervaluation. It is probable that
the share of the produce of the fields which the land revenue absorbs
rarely exceeds one-seventh and is more often one-tenth or less. A clear
proof of the general moderation of Panjáb assessments is furnished by
the fact that in the three years ending 1910-11 the recorded prices in
sales amounted to more than Rs. 125 per rupee of land revenue of the
land sold, which may be taken as implying a belief on the part of
purchasers that the landlord’s rent is not double, but five or six times
the land revenue assessment, for a man would hardly pay Rs. 125 unless
he expected to get at least six or seven rupees annual profit.

Fluctuating Assessments.—The old native plan of taking a share of the
crop, though it offered great opportunity for dishonesty on both sides,
had at least the merit of roughly adjusting the demand to the character
of the seasons. It was slowly realized that there were parts of the
province where the harvests were so precarious that even a very moderate
fixed cash assessment was unsuitable. Various systems of fluctuating
cash assessment have therefore been introduced, and one-fourth of the
total demand is now of this character, the proportion having been
greatly increased by the adoption of the fluctuating principle in the
new canal colonies.

Suspensions and Remissions.—Where fixity is retained the strain in bad
seasons is lessened by a free use of suspensions, and, if the amounts of
which the collection[Pg 222] has been deferred accumulate owing to a succession
of bad seasons, resort is had to remission.

Irrigation Income and Expenditure.—In a normal year in the Panjáb over
one-fourth of the total crops is matured by the help of Government
Canals, and this proportion will soon be largely increased. In 1911-12
the income from canals amounted to £1,474,000, and the working expenses
to £984,000, leaving a surplus of £490,000. Nearly the whole of the
income is derived from water rates, which represent the price paid by
the cultivator for irrigation provided by State expenditure. The rates
vary for different crops and on different canals. The average incidence
may be roughly put at Rs. 4 or a little over five shillings per acre. In
calculating the profit on canals allowance is made for land revenue
dependent on irrigation, amounting to nearly £400,000.[Pg 223]

[Pg 224]

CHAPTER XXV

PANJÁB DISTRICTS AND DELHI

View larger image
Fig. 83. Skeleton District Map of Panjáb.

Districts and Divisions.—The Panjáb now consists of 28 districts
grouped in five divisions. In descriptions of districts and states
boundaries, railways, and roads, which appear on the face of the inset
maps, are omitted. Details regarding cultivation and crops will be found
in Tables II, III and IV, and information as to places of note in
Chapter XXX. The revenue figures of Panjáb districts in this chapter
relate to the year 1911-12.

Delhi Enclave.—On the transfer of the capital of India to Delhi part of
the area of the old district of that name comprising 337 estates was
removed from the jurisdiction of the Panjáb Government and brought under
the immediate authority of the Government of India (Act No. XIII of
1912). The remainder of the district was divided between Rohtak and
Gurgáon, and the headquarters of the Delhi division were transferred to
Ambála.

The area of the new province is only 528 square miles, and the
population including that of the City is estimated at 396,997. The
cultivated area is 340 square miles, more than half of which is
cultivated by the owners themselves. The principal agricultural tribe is
the Hindu Játs, who are hard-working and thrifty peasant farmers. The
land revenue is Rs. 4,00,203 (£26,680). The above figures only relate to
the part of the enclave formerly included in the Panjáb[8]. The head of
the administration has the title of Chief Commissioner.[Pg 225]

View larger image
Fig. 84. Delhi Enclave.

The Ambála division—includes four of the five districts
of the South-Eastern Plains, the submontane
district of Ambála, and the hill district of
Simla. It is with the exception of Lahore
the smallest division, but it ranks first in
cultivated area and third in population. It
is twice the size of Wales[Pg 226] and has twice its population.
The Commissioner is in political charge of the hill state
of Sirmúr and of five petty states in the plains.

Fig. 85. Hissár with portions of Phulkian States etc.

Hissár District.—Hissár is the south-western district
of the division and has a long common
boundary with Bikaner. It is divided into
five tahsíls, Hissár, Hánsi, Bhiwání, Fatehábád,
and Sirsa. There are four natural
divisions, Nálí, Bágar, Rohí, and Hariána.
The overflow of the Ghagar, which runs through the
north of the district, has transformed the lands on either
bank into hard intractable clay, which yields nothing to
the husbandman without copious floods. This is the Nálí.
The Bágar is a region of rolling sand stretching along the
Bikaner border from Sirsa to Bhiwání. In Sirsa to the east[Pg 227]
of the Bágar is a plain of very light reddish loam known as
the Rohí, partly watered by the Sirhind Canal. South of
the Ghagar the loam in the east of the district is firmer,
and well adapted to irrigation, which much of it obtains
from branches of the Western Jamna Canal. This tract
is known as Hariána, and has given its name to a famous
breed of cattle. The Government cattle farm at Hissár
covers an area of 65 square miles. North of the Fatehábád
tahsíl and surrounded by villages belonging to the
Phulkian States is an island of British territory called
Budhláda. It belongs to the Jangal Des, and has the
characteristic drought-resisting sandy loam and sand of
that tract. Much of Budhláda is watered by the Sirhind
Canal. Of the total area of the district only about
9 p.c. is irrigated. The water level is so far from the
surface that well irrigation is usually impossible, and
the source of irrigation is canals.

Hissár suffered severely from the disorders which
followed on the collapse of the Moghal Empire and its
ruin was consummated by the terrible famine of 1783.
The starving people died or fled and for years the country
lay desolate. It passed into the hands of the British 20
years later, but for another 20 years our hold on this
outlying territory was loose and ineffective. In 1857
the troops at Hánsi, Hissár, and Sirsa rose and killed all
the Europeans who fell into their hands. The Muhammadan
tribes followed their example, and for a time
British authority ceased to exist. The district was
part of the Delhi territory transferred to the Panjáb in
1858.

The rainfall is scanty, averaging 15 inches, and extremely
capricious. No other district suffers so much from
famine as Hissár. The crops are extraordinarily insecure,
with a large surplus in a good season and practically
nothing when the rains fail badly. They consist mainly
of the cheap pulses[Pg 228] and millets. With such fluctuating
harvests it is impossible to collect the revenues with any
regularity, and large sums have to be suspended in bad
seasons.

Such industries as exist are mostly in Hánsi and
Bhiwání, where there are mills for ginning and pressing
cotton. Cotton cloths tastefully embroidered with silk,
known as phulkárís, are a well-known local product.

View larger image
Fig. 86. Delhi Enclave.

Rohtak—became a British possession in 1803, but it
was not till after the Mutiny that it was
brought wholly under direct British administration.
The old district consisted of the
three tahsíls of Rohtak, Gohána, and Jhajar,
but on the breaking up of the Delhi district the Sonepat
tahsíl was added.

Rohtak is practically a purely agricultural tract with[Pg 229]
large villages, but no towns of any importance. By far
the most important agricultural tribe is the Hindu Játs.
They are strong-bodied sturdy farmers, who keep fine oxen
and splendid buffaloes, and live in large and well organized
village communities. 37 p.c. of the cultivation is protected
by canal and well irrigation, the former being by
far the more important. The district consists mainly of
a plain of good loam soil. There have been great canal
extensions in this plain, which under irrigation is very
fertile, yielding excellent wheat, cotton, and cane.
There is a rich belt of well irrigation in the Jamna valley,
and in the south of the district there are parts where
wells can be profitably worked. Belts of uneven sandy
land are found especially in the west and south. The
dry cultivation is most precarious, for the rainfall is
extremely variable. In the old district it averages 20
inches. But averages in a tract like Rohtak mean very
little. The chief crops are the two millets and gram.

Gurgáon contains six tahsíls, Rewárí, Gurgáon, Nuh,
Firozpur, Palwal, and Ballabgarh. The
southern part of the district projects into
Rájputána, and in its physical and racial
characteristics really belongs to that region.

Rewárí is the only town of any importance. It has
a large trade with Rájputána. Apart from this the
interests of the district are agricultural. In Gurgáon
the Jamna valley is for the most part narrow and very
poor. The plain above it in the Palwal tahsíl has a fertile
loam soil and is irrigated by the Agra Canal. The Hindu
Játs of this part of the district are good cultivators.
The rest of Gurgáon consists mostly of sand and sandy
loam and low bare hills. In Rewárí the skill and industry
of the Hindu Ahírs have produced wonderful results
considering that many of the wells are salt and much of
the land very sandy. The lazy and thriftless Meos of
the southern part[Pg 230] of the district are a great contrast to
the Ahírs. They are Muhammadans.

View larger image
Fig. 87.

About a quarter of the area is protected by irrigation
from wells, the Agra Canal, and embankments or “bands,”
which catch and hold up the hill drainages. Owing to
the depth and saltness of many of the wells the cultivation
dependent on them is far from secure, and the “band”
irrigation is most precarious. The large dry area is
subject to extensive and complete crop failures. The
average rainfall over a series of years is 24 inches, but its
irregularities from year to year are extreme. The district
is a poor one, and for its resources bears the heaviest
assessment in the Panjáb. It requires the most careful
revenue management. There are brine wells at Sultánpur,
but the demand for the salt extracted is now very small.

Karnál is midway in size between Rohtak and Hissár.
One-third of the cultivation is now protected
by irrigation, two-fifths of the irrigation
being from wells and three-fifths from the
Western Jamna Canal. There are four tahsíls,[Pg 231]
Thanesar, Karnál, Kaithal, and Pánipat. The peasantry
consists mostly of hardworking Hindu Játs, but there
are also many Hindu and Muhammadan Rájput villages.
The chief towns are Pánipat, Karnál, and Kaithal.

View larger image
Fig. 88.

The district falls broadly into two divisions, the
boundary between them being the southern limit of the
floods of the Sarustí in years of heavy rainfall. The
marked features of the northern division is the effect which
the floods of torrents of intermittent flow, the Sarustí,[Pg 232]
Márkanda, Umla, and Ghagar have on agriculture. Some
tracts are included like the Andarwár and the outlying
villages of the Powádh[10] in Kaithal which are fortunately
unaffected by inundation, and have good well irrigation.
The country between the Umla and Márkanda in Thanesar
gets rich silt deposits and is generally fertile. The
Kaithal Nailí is the tract affected by the overflow of the
Sarustí, Umla, and Ghagar. It is a wretched fever-stricken
region where a short lived race of weakly people
reap precarious harvests. The southern division is on
the whole a much better country. It includes the whole
of Karnál and Pánipat, the south of Kaithal, and a
small tract in the extreme east of the Thanesar tahsíl.
North of Karnál the Jamna valley or Khádir is unhealthy
and has in many parts a poor soil. South of Karnál it
is much better in every respect. Above the Khádir is
the Bángar, a plain of good loam. North of Karnál
its cultivation is protected by wells and the people are
in fair circumstances. South of that town it is watered
by the Western Jamna Canal. Another slight rise brings
one to the Nardak of the Karnál and Kaithal tahsíls.
Till the excavation of the Sirsa branch of the Western
Jamna Canal and of the Nardak Distributary much of
the Nardak was covered with dhák jangal, and the
cultivation was of the most precarious nature, for in this
part of the district the rainfall is both scanty and
capricious, and well cultivation is only possible in the
north. The introduction of canal irrigation has effected an
enormous change. Wheat and gram are the great crops.

Historically Karnál is one of the most interesting
districts. The Nardak is the scene of the great struggle
celebrated in the Mahábhárata. The district contains
the holy city of Thanesar, once the capital of a great
Hindu kingdom. It has found climate a more potent
instrument of ruin than the sword of Mahmúd of Ghazní,
who sacked it in 1014. It still on the occasion of Eclipse
fairs attracts enormous crowds of pilgrims. Pihowa is
another very sacred place. Naráina, a few miles to the
north-west of Karnál, was the scene of two famous
fights[11], and three times, in 1526, 1556, and 1761, the
fate of India was decided at Pánipat.

Ambála is a submontane district of very irregular[Pg 233]
shape. It includes two small hill tracts,
Morní and Kasaulí. There is little irrigation,
for in most parts the rainfall is ample.
Wheat is the chief crop. The population
has been declining in the past 20 years.

View larger image
Fig. 89.

The only town of importance is Ambála. Jagádhrí
is a busy little place now connected through private
enterprise by a light railway with the N. W. Railway.
The district consists of two parts almost severed from one
another physically and wholly different as regards people,
language, and agricultural prosperity. The Rúpar subdivision
in the north-west beyond the Ghagar has a fertile
soil, and, except in the Nálí, as the tract flooded by the
Ghagar is called, a vigorous Ját peasantry, whose native
tongue is Panjábí. The three south-eastern tahsíls,
Ambála,[Pg 234] Naráingarh, and Jagádhrí, are weaker in every
respect. The loam is often quite good, but interspersed
with it are tracts of stubborn clay largely put under
precarious rice crops. The Játs are not nearly so good
as those of Rúpar, and Rájputs, who are mostly Musulmáns,
own a large number of estates.

Simla consists of three little tracts in the hills known
as Bharaulí, Kotkhai, and Kotgarh, and of
patches of territory forming the cantonments
of Dagshai, Subáthu, Solon, and Jutogh, the
site of the Lawrence Military School at
Sanáwar, and the great hill station of Simla.
Bharaulí lies south-west of Simla in the direction of
Kasaulí. Kotkhai is in the valley of the Girí, a tributary
of the Jamna. Kotgarh is on the Sutlej and borders on
the Bashahr State. The Deputy Commissioner of Simla
is also Superintendent or Political Officer of 28 hill states.