140 THE HISTORY OF KASHMIR
excellent in spirit. Bernier, who visited Kashmir in the train of Aurungzebe, makes no allusion, as travellers of a subsequent date so frequently do, to the misery of the people, but, on the contrary, says of them that they are “celebrated for wit, and considered much more intelligent and ingenious than the Indians.” “In poetry and the sciences,” he continues, “ they are not inferior to the Persians, and they are also very active and industrious.” And he notes the “prodigious quantity of shawls which they manufacture.” Kashmir was indeed, according to Bernier, “the terrestrial paradise of the Indies.” “The whole kingdom wears the appearance,” he says, “of a fertile and highly cultivated garden. Villages and hamlets are frequently seen through the luxuriant foliage. Meadows and vineyards, fields of rice, wheat, hemp, saffron, and many sorts of vegables, among which are mingled trenches filled with water, rivulets, canals, and several small lakes, vary the enchanting scene. The whole ground is enamelled with our European flowers and plants, and covered with our apple, pear, plum, apricot, and walnut trees, all bearing fruit in great abundance.”
All this and the absence of remarks on ruined towns and deserted villages, such as we shall hear so”
