OUR VILLAGE.

Press, Volume LXVIII, Issue 20612, 30 July 1932, Page 13

OUR VILLAGE.

A SKETCH OF THE KASHMIR PEASANTRY. WBITTEN 3?OR THE I'JAF.SS.) [l3r Professor Arnold Wall.] The Village,, 1 be village is a haphazard group ot collages nestling among great trees. There is no "street;" the houses stand anyhow and lacing all ways. The trees crowd closely in upon them; none of them have any garden. The short green turf comes right up to the walls. Everywhere it is short, like a mown lawn, partly because it is perpetually grazed, and partly because tho natural grasses of the country are all short, except high up in tho hills. The trees are "ehenar," the beautiful plane of the country, walnut, and mulberry. This last is a splendid tree, very like an elm, and. bearing an almost inedible l'ruit. Unfortunately, many of the trees are badly mutilated; they saw olf most of the branches to provide winter lodder for their cattle. Right by the road, without wail or fence of any kind, is the cemetery, a small plot ot lriegular form, crowded with tiny mounds. In the iiohammedau cemeteries there are a few small gravestones (.for men only). Every grave is thickly planted, with tho tall iris, purple and white, which is such a favourite plant in our gardens, so that in spring and early summer tho little plot is very gay. There is no building, chapel, mortuary, or what not, attached to the place. The village is smelly; the cow and its product pervade the whole place; there is, of course, no drainage. The whole country about it, where not under plough, is like a park, the trees —poplar. willow, mulberry —being spaced out; there is nothing like a wood or a thicket, and there are very few hedges. Some plots are walled m with mud walls covered with a rough thatch of thorns with earth laid on the top; some of the fields are fenced in with walls built of loose stones piled up without mortar. People seem to walk over properties much as they please, but barbed-wire fences are becoming common now. There are thousands of orchards — apple, pear, almond, plum, apricot and cherry; all are' used for grazing. There are always mongrel dogs, "pi dogs,'' about the houses, not unlike collies, but very various; many of them have evidently a strong strain of the jackal. They" are noisy but very etifc'jirdly.

There is one shop, the usual open affair which offers foodstuffs of various kinds, meat, a sort of bun, sweetmeats, and cheap clothing. There are always men lying and sitting about the slion, often sleeping, and there is a hookah which appears to ho used hy everybody in turn. The Houses. The house, or cottage, is built of cob or sundried bricks, tliatched, and with earth spread on the thatch, so that there is usually quite a field of grass or weeds, or even of the tall iris, on the top. It has three stories; the lowest is occupied by the cows, sheep, or goats (there arc no pigs); the second belongs to the human family; the top story is the granary, or store for farm-stuff of all st>rts. There are 110 glass windows, only square apertures with a border of woodwork, sometimes nicely ornamented in the typic.il Kashmiris manner. These are closed by wooden shutters in : cold or wet weather; and the family sits in the dark. Some of the more pretentious houses are ornamented with pretty patterns of coloured woodwork, an art of great antiquity in this country. These houses are quaint and picturesque; and in their setting of fine trees make quite an idyllic appearance, but the habits and manners of the occupants. human and bestial, are such that close inspection dispels any illusion of pastoral romance. The smells alone would quash any idyll; and of what goes on in their murky interiors one would prefer to remain ignorant. The People. ' The Kashmiris peasantry are a good looking people, of brown complexion, some of them surprisingly fair, and a distinctly' Aryan facial type with high, thin oses, but rather wide across the cheekbones. The children and young girls are often very pretty, but with hard outdoor work they age rapidly. The men are tall on the average, but lanky; the women disproportionately short. They carry themselves well, especially the women, owing to their habit of carrying burdens (and terrible burdens they too often are) upon their heads. The men wear a sort of close-fitting skullcap, nondescript shirt or gown, and trousers wrapped close round the leg.

The women are dressed very much like the men, but always wear a sort of shawl over the head. All the clothing of both sexes is the colour of their native soil. The women wear huge bunches of bangles in their ears and on their wrists. I suppose they, have no Sunday wear, as their Sunday is only an ordinary working day. The voices of the men are deep and resonant, nothing like the high, thin of Southern India and Ceylon. ~y . Sln g, a g'' eat deal, very pleasant plaintive folk-airs on the usual finet Oriental scale. They sing when working and when idling, and a certain policeman on point duty whom I'oftcn see is usually warbling to the world at large. They play mouth-organs and flutes, both the end-on and the sideways P' a y them extremely well. They are terrific shouters, and carry on conversations at a distance of half a mile or more. The little boys are fond of doing this, discharging a short rapid jot of words concluded with a longdrawn shout curving on a descending note. In wet, cold weather they smother themselves up in shawls, but they care little for the elements, and I shudder to see them siting on the soaking earth for hours together during heavy rain, high upon the hillside. They go barefoot in fine weather; the men wear a variety of leather slippers, with or without the toes turned up, clogs, sandals, or cast-off European shoes. All footgear is left outside the houses and comical collections we sometimes see in their doorways. For travelling they have the curious rope-sandals or "grass-shoes," very characteristic, probably the cheapest and certainly one of the most comfortable forms of footwear in the world. Though many of them are very strong, all the men are said to be extremely "peaceable," which is the kind way of putting it. The soldiers and police look martial and competent enough, but one hears odd stories. For example, some potentate from another State was visiting this place recently and a guard or cordon of police was detailed to watch his residence and keep off the hawkers. One more than usually desperate hawker seized a policeman and cuffed his head. Tho policeman retired behind a bush to weep, and the hawker made his way in and did excellent business. So runs the tale. There is no State education, and the average Kashmiris is very ignorant and backward. What education there is has been organised by Europeans, missionaries, and some of their schools are admirably run and do a lot of good. Tho great hero of this movement is Biskoe, whose name is very highly honoured here. He has devoted a lifetime to tho cause. Those who have been brought up in his schools call themselves "Biskoe boys" and are very proud of it, and speak English.

Stock. Their stock tire cattle, sheep, gouts, and ponies, 110 pigs. The cattle are very small, meeK, and domesticated. They have tlio small hump, and some ol' them have very heavy dewlaps. They do not roar peaceably like our big cattle, but produce an astounding roar, much more like a lion than a cow. The milk and cream are pretty good: there is of course 110 beef eaten in this country for religious reasons. Those little beasts have to do all the ploughing. The sheep arc rather small, white, brown, black, and piebald; they are shorn two or even three times a year. Every family has a few; thero are no largo Hocks here, and they are, of course, always chaperoned as they graze, usually by the children. They liavo .small horns turning downwards like the curls of George Eliot or Charlotte Bronte. The ponies are small, agile, and very strong; they rattle along in the little "tongas" at a great pace. It is curious that these people liavo few or no donkeys. A great deal of the work which is done, for examplo, in Italy, bv donkeys is done here by the people themselves, such as the carrying immense loads of sticks down from tlie hills If or charcoal; and donkeys would be quite as good as cows in front of the plough. They keep numbers of liens, mostly small, and, as in India, "chicken"' is here the staple article of the diet of Europeans. The mutton, at its best, is excellent. Their geese and ducks are also very good. You get good honey here from "wild" bees, which hive in tho walls of your house. Tho "people plaster mud on the wall .ill round tfyeir entrancegate and put an earthenware jar just inside and take it as thiey want it. Tho stores here, hy the way, all stock New Zealand honey, and it is greatly relished. The Kashmiris make no cheese. 1

Perhaps the most valuable animals they have are the goats. These are very large—T have seen some as big us small eows—-and they have a verv arrogant and haughty air. They are mostly black. The u«o every item of the goat, the milk, the meat, the skin, and the hair—everything but the smell. Tho skins aro used as leather, and also as water-bags, and in some parts the butter is churned in them: as they have the hairy side inside tho butter, gets full of goathairs and is not used hv Europeans. The famous Kashmir "pashmina," of which the best shawls are made, is of the inner and finer hair of the goat The ordinary "piittoo" doth, a kind of tweed, is made from tho sheep's wool; it; is very cheap and good, but will not stand much wear. An excel lent lounge-suit now costs about 30s and the price has gone up recently. ' Occupations. The daily life and work of a poor peasantry does not vary "much in different countries; I will deal here with those features of the Kashmiri life which seem strange or interesting; many of them are common to all Asia. Of course the men plough, sow (by hand) and reap; the women do the housework and a great deal of tho hardest labour out-of-doors falls to them and to the children. Here I see more of those latter. A little after seven <the cows and sheep are driven up to the hillside from the village below, not without much shouting and the application of long sticks. Sometimes quite small children are alone' in. charge. Arrived at the pasture, they are directed hither and thither at intervals; the people busy themselves cutting branches of shrubs or trees which they tie up very neatly in large bundles and carry down either as fodder, or for making charcoal. The children play noisily, chase each other about, sing, quarrel, and shout. They spend a great deal of time cutting dandelions out of the turf for food, just as the Italians and French do. These arc carried down in baskets on their heads. They often sneak into our orchard for this purpose and if they see us flee for their lives, the women gravely apprehensive, the girls with much giggling. They sometimes use a heavy grubber and hack up the wild rosebushes (like sweetbriar), for thatching their walls or making temporary fences. About midday the procession starts back for the midday meal and they do not always return in the afternoon. They are always merry and bright and noisy; the children sometimes take rides on the sheep's backs. In , the "street" they play hopscotch, exactly as ours do, and the boys bowl hoops, using a very slender wire. Thousands of women work as coolies, carrying great burdens on their heads, walking in long lines, usually dressed in black. I am told they are paid the same as the men, about 8d a day. The women and children crush the rice. They use a heavy balk of wood, plunging it hard into a round sort of basin hollowed out of a. large stone. I see quite tiny children doing tn is with surprising strength, sometimes two together, striking rhythmically in turns; sometimes one 1 alone, and they seem to enjoy this work. They accompany it with a rhythmical sort of chanting. One can-1 not help being sorry for these mites |

who toil so hard at these heavy tasks when they ought, by all the rules, to be at school and at play, lou see a tiny boy of eight or nine poJing, alone, a clumsy, heavy boa from the city far down the lake, and with great effort filling it with tie water-lily plants which he tears up in huge masses; he takes in a mighty load and poles it back all by himself. Music. A great deal of road work is going on close to our village. Great numbers of men. are employed in quarrying ana in shifting stones and earth. ihey have motor-lorries, but a great part of the work is done by man-power. They pile a great load of stones into a clumsy waggon and urge it along, two men at the pole pulling and two or three at the back pushing. They keep up a rhythmical chant all the time. Sometimes one calls and the rest respond; sometimes they chant in two sections; sometimes all in unison. They must have a great variety of these chanties, for T never seem to hear the same one twice. Perhaps they improvise them. The effect is often very musical and pleasant to listen to; some of them sound almost like hymns; some of them like a Maori haka. But it seems a shame that human beings should have to do such work. The country people are wonderfully preoccupied with cowdung. They live over it, under it, with it, and by it; it is the pivot of their civilisation, the goal of their desires, the apple of their eye. Not an ounce is wasted; whatever is dropped in the house, on the hillside, or ou the roads is meticulously collected and used, either for fuel or for manuring their crops. While attending the cattle they wander about picking it m>; in wet weather piling it up in little stacks; in lino weather spreading it out to dry. Periodically the women and small girls come up to the hill and carry it down in baskets on their heads. From the groundfloor of the house they carry it out in baskets or in their bare hands, and then, squatting down, they spread it out in the sun with their bare hands, handling it lovingly, and wearing their silver bangles at the task. The women wash the clothes in tho immemorial Eastern manner, squatting at the tap by the roadside and beating the garments with a flat stick or flailing great stones with them. Their amusements must be few and simple—singing, listening to songs or tunes on tho flute, perhaps storv-telling, certainly gossiping and exchanging scandal. T once saw a sort of itinerant entertainer going from village to village. He was dressed in an oxtremelv caudy and striking fashion. His performance was a sort of chanted recitation delivered in a very lourl voice, accompanied by a tom-tom, and by one of those queer stationary dances, a mere rlivthmie jerking of the body. The whole village seemed to be there, squatting all round the performer in a hollow sriuare. "mid evident!v enjoving tlir-inselves. Whether his recitation was religious or narrative or merely im-nt'Mr-or T had no means of telling. The agricultural «ide of Kashmiri life is reserved for another occasion.

Professor G. M. Trevelyan has written for the new World's Classics reprint of Sir George Trevelyan's "Life of Macaulay" a new and admirable preface, from which the following extracts are taken: 'lt is fifty-six years since ray father's Life of Macau Jay first appeared in the early (spring of 1876. It was at once hailed as u great biography, and is still, I think, fo regarded. . . . Macaulay's letters are excellent reading—some people, like John Mor--ley, have even preferred them to bis "History"—and my father's writing is here seen at its very best and moat entertaining. Half a century ago, wheu thore were many alive who remembered Macaulay and his "world, the interest taken iu tho. book by rnost people interested in politics or literature Was very great. And even to-day there are people of the older generation who have the contents of - the book * 4 at their ends'' by constant reading. That degree of interest may not come again, but the Life has taken its place, in tnore senses thau one, in the World's Classics. Tt has helped to fix the idea not only of Macaulay but of his age upon tho mind of posterity. . , . This sur» vival of Macaulay in popular recollection, though mainly due to his own writings, is partly due to the more intimate knowledge of his mind and character, obtained ' through this book. . . . Tt would have been beside the mark to treat of Macaulay in a subjective, psychological character sketch, such "tho new biography" prefers, with the documents and letterß omitted. Macaulay was not subtle enough for such subtleties, and his letters are much too good *to miss. . . Tn this book the man lives and ppeaks for himself. Nor are there concealments. I say so having read the great mass of intimate Journals from which my father made his excerpts. He has picked and chosen among his uncle's letters and Journals so as to make the book good reading, but ho has not picked and chosen to hide his failings or to make him a plaster saint. Wo see him in his habit as be lived. Thg occasionally uncouth violence of his dislikes of particular men and books, his failure to be just to Croker or pitiful to Robert Montgomery are not hidden. Greatly patent is the limitation of his literary sympathies to tho literature of the past, more or less exclusive of all that was going on in his own age. But a man who road, prob* ably, more than any other man who ever lived of the literatures of so many different ages and countries from Homer to Jane Austen—including the fathers of the Church! —— such immense relish, may bo forgiven for failing properly to apprecinto Dickens, Carlyle, and Tennyson.

Mr Guy Pocoek, of the editorial staff of J. M. Dent and Sons, Ltd., is credited with the discovery of F. C. Boden, the author of '' Miner.'' Four years ago Mr Pocock asked Mr Brailsford of the "New Leader," and Hamilton Fyfc, of the "Daily Herald," to publish a letter asking working men to send literary work, with a view to criticism and possible publication. This letter was seen by. Mr Boden, who was a miner in the coal mines at Chesterfield. He had been working in the mines since he was a child of thirteen, but he had employed hjs spare time in reading and writing. In reply to the letter ho sent Mr Pocock two lyric poems, aud asked whether it would be worth while for him to go on writing. Mr Pocock urged him to write more, and more yet; and the upshot of it was that the poems were published and highly praised by the critics. Mr Boden left the minrt and became a student at Exeter University. Shortly before Christmas, 1931, he brought to Mr Pocock the manuscript of an autobiographical novel, telling the stery of a miner boy's daily life. This was "Miner."

Mr G. F. Bradby's tribute, in "Parody and Dust-shot," to the Poet Laureate: APRIL. I must go back to a vest again, to a winter . vest with sleeves. And all I ask is an honest shop where the shop-men are not thieves; And a fair price, and a free choice, and a full stretch for dining. And . a smooth touch on the bare chest, and a smooth inner-lining. I must go back to a vest again, for that which most I dread. Is a bad cold, a head cold, and a day, or more, in bed; And all I ask is a friend's advice, and a short time for thinking, A soft wool, and a man's size, and a good bit for shrinking. 1 must go back to a vest again, for the April winds are bleak, And the Spring's way is a cold way, and my circulation weak; And all I ask, when the cash is paid and wc leave the shop together Is a warm fire, nnd an arm-chair, or a change in the weather. Mr Eudyard Kipling, who has received honorary doctorates from eight universities in Ensrland, Scotland, Canada, France, and Greece, but who has hitherto had no college which he could call his own, was recently elected to an honorary fellowship of Magdalen College, Cambridge.