Note {4} — Chapter XXXI

Note 4.—The people of Káshmir retain their beauty, but they are morally one of the most degraded races in Asia. Long oppression, now under the Lords of Jamu as great as ever, has no doubt aggravated this. Yet it would seem that twelve hundred years ago the evil elements were there as well as the beauty. The Chinese traveller says: “Their manners are light and volatile, their characters effeminate and pusillanimous.... They are very handsome, but their natural bent is to fraud and trickery.” (Pèl. Boud. II. 167–168.) Vigne’s account is nearly the same. (II. 142–143.) “They are as mischievous as monkeys, and far more malicious,” says Mr. Shaw (p. 292).