IIIF Color HighRes
National Institute of Informatics - Digital Silk Road Project
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| IIIF Color HighRes |
| The Pulse of Asia : vol.1 |
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Citation Information
THE VALE OF KASHMIR 31
impudent persistence of the otherwise timorous Kashmiri merchant. A typical specimen of the latter stood on the muddy shore one day as I sat on deck in the rare sunshine, and, holding up a gaudy red felt, began : " See, master, here numda [felt] very cheap. Master buy him cheap." No reply from the traveler.
" Only look, master. No buy; only look." A pause. " You wanting other kind felt ? I bringing him, very best." Still no reply.
" I good man, master, honest man. Read my letter " (holding out a well-thumbed bunch wheedled out of a score of foreigners whom he had cheated) . " Only read, master. I not like other man. I good man."
" No, put them up ; I don't want your felts," I answered at last.
" I got boots, master,"—trying a new tack. " I am leather man. I new man. I no been here before, master." He had been there an hour a day for three days, had tried to intercept us as we went to make a call, and had shouted to us from the bank as we rowed down the main canal.
Long interval, broken only by such remarks as " Very good," " Cheap," " Only look," " Oh, master, look ! "
At last a new effort. " What time you say I coming tomorrow morning ? Eight o'clock ? Very well. I bringing many shoe."
Half an hour of this sort of thing made me regret that the cane had been put away.
The problem of transportation furnishes another illustration of the influence which the invasion of Europeans in summer is having upon Kashmir. On leaving Srinagar
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