Mountain Home maverick. [volume] (Mountain Home, Idaho) 1906-1911, 1908-12-10

In the east the beauty and the pros
perity of a country are gagged by the
abundance of its water supply, for run
ming water means both fertility and
shade. and if a land is to flow with
milk and honey-to have, that is to
say, fiCcks and herds and a wealth of
flowers giving promise of plenteous
fruit-there must be living springs to
clothe the earth with verdure and
leafy shelter for all living things as a
defense against the powerful sun
which insures the ripening of the har-
vest. The sound of running water,
with it's promise of fertility and cool
shadows, cannot, therefore, but be
soothing to the oriental, and so we
find that in the past all who could af-
ford such luxury, from emperor to
peasant, planted trees in gardens, in
camping-ground and in homestead,
and trained the passing streams to
rise and fall in miniature fountains or
to speak in ripping channels, while
eventide urged them to seek. maybe.
the breezes on lake and river, or to
worship by their banks. For in the
east water is life and plenty and it's
absence misery and want: so that
there it seems unreasonable to deem
a river sacred or to prevent pollution
by intoxicating the belief that a spring
is the haunt of powerful spirits.
In these circumstances 1t may read
lily be understood how the vale of
Kashmir has been appreciated by it's
augurers and beloved of it's inhabit-
ants. who would never cross it's
boundaries save when impelled by
poverty, the result of oppression or of
scarcity. Yet disaster would never be
present within it's borders were it not
for the frequent floods which forest de-
mutation has encouraged or on account
of epidemics induced by the want of
even elementary sanitation.
To enjoy Kashmir one must be OBJ
livious of the sufferings. now happily
less than in the past. of its people and
become absorbed in the natural beau
ties of the surroundings and in mem
cries of the courts of its invaders
there must be sympathy not with the
rulers, but with the ruled. And in this
mood of abstraction it will be well to
acquire a roomy houseboat and fit IL
/ out TO form home, and select a swift
"shikara" with willing crew, in which
/ the lesser waterways may be ex
| plored. All these waterways diverge
from or lead to the placid lakes of the
valley or to the muddy river which
drains it.
Starting from Baramula. with lis
quaint tiers of wooden houses and it:
old-tm bridge. below which the
Jhelum soon becomes a foaming tor
rent, to enter British territory som,
200 miles away. we can reach the june
ton of the Pohru stream, and pole ou
feet up its clearer waters. On eacl
side luxuriant crops. marked out b,
rows of fruit trees, soothe the eye, an.
rise gradually to be lost in the ceda
forests of the hills above. No on,
seems to be hurried or troubled. yet
with the shortness of summer and tn,
demand for labor in public works
there remains but scant time TO pre-
pare for the long winter. From Sopo
we can send the boats round to Tuni
in the Woolar lake. and ourselves pas
up tie Lolab valley to rejoin Their
| later.
Ne can wander through the forests
the retreat of bears, which no doub
regard with an appreciative eye tn