Note 1365 — Chapter XVI · —Influences Of A Mountain Environment

Hunger is usually the spur. The tribesmen who inhabit the Hunza gorge were notorious robbers till their recent conquest by the British. Despite the most careful terrace tillage, their country was much overpopulated. The supply of grain was so inadequate, that during the summer the people subsisted wholly on fruit, reserving the grain for winter use. Therefore, when early summer opened the passes of the Karakorum and Himalayan ranges, and caravans began to move over the trade route between Kashmir and Yarkand, when the Kirghis nomads from the plains sought the pastures of the Pamir, the Hunza tribesmen found raiding caravans and herds, and pillaging the Gilgit Valley of Baltistan the easiest means of supplementing their slender resources. Hardy mountaineers as they were, and born fighters, they always conducted their forays successfully, and returned to the shelter of their fastnesses, laden with plunder and driving their captive flocks before them. The perpetual menace of these Hunza raids caused large districts in the Gilgit Valley to be abandoned by their inhabitants, and cultivated land to lapse into wilderness,1365 while the Chilas to the south pillaged the Astor Valley of Baltistan, carrying away crops and cattle, enslaving women and children.1366