Norwich bulletin., 1920-04-30
IN THE DAYS NEWS
The Puniab

"The Simla Hills of Kippling fame and the interesting Punjab country again are brought to public attention i by newspaper reports of native riots aroused by the rumored destruction 1 of the golden temple of Amritsar, a principal city of this province" says 1 a bulletin from the National Geogra- 1 phie Society.
 "Punjab is a Parsian word meaning five waters and refers to an area in India, about the size of Oregon, be- l drained by three intermediate streams.
 These rivers empty into the Indus, which forms the western boundary of i the state.
 | Situated at the northwest gateway
 of India the Punjab has for ages been i the Belgium of most of the military
 expeditions from the west and the trail of many migrations. For this | reason it's -Mohammedans, Silkhs, Hindu Jats, Kashmiris. and Rajputs. all belonging to the tall, fair
 Indo- -Aryan stock,-are not so slug gish in temperament and ways of liv- ing as in other parts of the country and many of them manifest a martial spirit upon small provocations. Eng
 land counted them among her most valued soldiers on the Western Front.
 The vast plain of the Punjab is about one thousand feet above the
 sea level and on the north runs into
 the Abode of Snow the Himalaya Mountains. At the southwestern end
 of the watershed stands Simla, and
 from it the mountains drop rapidly to
 the foothills and then to the plain.
 Jakko, the deodar-c clad hill of Kipling's
 stories, is immediately within view,
 towering a thousand feet above Simla
 Here in this town, 1000 feet above the
 level of the sea, in early April, when
 the heat of the great Punjab plain reaches 120 degrees, most of the
 European in India have gathered and
 around the summer home of the Vice roy of India the social life revelves , Within a 25-nile radius from Sinla is the Chor, upon whose peak, 12,000 feet high, a snow cap is worn until well into May. Farther to the west the higher peaks range from 16,e00 to 22.000 feet.
 NThe heat-parched plain of the Jun jab is cool in winter with an occasional
 frost at night. The days are bright and clear and the climate reminds one of that of Los Angeles. When the moonsoops come in June, it also has , a rainfall in the north which is ade- quate to produce good crops without
 irrigation. Farther houth the land is
 as barren as a desert, except in the river valleys. This dearth of plan life } is not fault of the land itself, whicf is extremely rich, but there is a lacl of an adequate water supply. It now : supports only scanty jungles vegeta. tion, where camels are sometime. . grazed. The government is irrigatins : much of the territory. and the Pun, 7 jab possesses a large well irrigated , area than any other province. It ! wheat fields are among the best il the British Empire, and within recen i. years the province has been plantin; ' about 5000 acres in tea for the trip
 piers of Britain and America. Before the days of the transfer o 2 the capital of India to Delhi, Delhi an II the surrounding district also wer 2 under the Jurisdiction of the Punja /. government instead of the immediat 2 authority of the government of Indis Y Now the principal cities are Lahore . the capital of the province, about tn < size of Indianapolis, Multan an v Amritsar. . "Amritsar is the religious capital . s the Sikhs and its golden temple s their greatest shrine. Built in tn ' middle of large square tank, it ca e only be reached by a causeway. Tn
 whole of the structure except the bot
 tom ten feet is plated with gilt cop
 per-"