THE VALE OF KASHMIR 35
and some of the more clever ones constructed mock loads by wrapping a rope or some other light, bulky thing in cloth and staggering off with it. Nothing but government compulsion could make them do the work except for exorbitant hire, although they are accustomed to carry their own loads on their backs. If the people should become more educated or more independent, they would refuse to act as coolies, and some new means of transport would be necessary. Among the changes which will in time come to Kashmir, the introduction of a new system of transportation among the snowy mountains may perhaps be reckoned; for on the one hand, education is beginning to spread, though as yet it is limited largely to the cities, and on the other, the demand for coolie labor and the disinclination of the people to perform it are increasing with the growing invasion of Kashmir by English tourists and sportsmen.
The old order is passing away in the Vale of Kashmir, and it may not be long before the simple geographic conditions produced by the long and undisturbed residence of a homogeneous race in the seclusion of their mountain-girt basin will give place to the complexity arising from a mixture of races and the invasion of new habits and ideas. Since the opening of the new wagon-road down the Jhelum, external trade and intercourse of all kinds have received a powerful impetus; and when the projected electric railroad from Srinagar to Rawal Pindi, run by power from the Jhelum, is completed, the isolation of Kashmir will be almost destroyed. Pronounced changes in trade, and in the distribution, habits, industries, and even character of the natives, together with the development of a new
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