THE PRINCE OF WALES IN CASHMERE.

Globe, Volume V, Issue 569, 15 April 1876, Page 3

THE PRINCE OF WALES IN CASHMERE.

We have already published an account, from the pen of the special correspondent of the Argus, of the Prince's vi*it to Delhi and Lucknow. The following is a description, by the same gentleman, of his visit to Cashmere : —■ " The next run was a long one, from Delhi to Lahore, the capital of the Punjaub, the head-quarters of the Hikhs, the lair of Ranjeet Singh, the old lion of the Punjaub. Lahore is a pleasant city, with more trees and foliage than we met with further south, and with a distant view from elevated points of that range of the Himalayas which separates the Punjaub from Cashmero. At Lahore there was of course a procession, a levee, and a native entertainment. These are become matters of course, in which one takes but a languid interest. An exhibition of the work of the soldiers of the northern armies of India was opened by the Prince, who made some excellent remarks upon the advantage of encouraging such work, because in the first place it afforded occupation and amusement to the soldier in a country where the heat during a large portion of the year made out-of-door amusements out of the question, and because, in the second place, the skill he acquired by his work would enable him to support himself after completing his term of service. Much of the work shown was excellent. There were chests of drawers, cabinet-work, chairs and tables, which would have done credit to any upholstering firm, marked, too, at prices which secured a sale as soon as the exhibition was opened. There was steel and iron work, horse shoes, bits, stirrups, camp equipagesof all kinds, and the Goorkhas exhibited some of the great heavy knives which they use with snch terrific effect at close quarters. There was a large collection of stuffed birds and wings prepared for ladies' hats, and a still larger of work of all kinds — knitted quilts, patchwork ditto, d'oyleys, embroidered curtains, and knickknacks of all sorts. The palace of Runjeet Singh, with its mountain roof of tiny mirrors and arabesque work, the tomb of the old warrior, and the great marquee, are all worthy a visit, but with these exceptions the stay at Lahore may be briefly passed over. From Lahore we set out for Jummoo, the winter capital of the Maharajah of Cashmere, the first Indian Prince since the Guicowar of Baroda who has been honored by a Royal visit. The first 60 miles were by rail to Wurzeirabad, but here we left that comfortable mode of conveyance and took to Dak travelling. A Dak carriage is a good deal like a London cab, but much more roughly and solidly built, and it extends in a sort of box underneath the driver's feet. By this contrivance, when at night boards are placed across the seats, sufficient length is obtained for a mattress to be laid in and for the traveller to recline at full length. I started in one of these conveyances with a fellow traveller at daybreak, our servants and baggage on the roof. There was a great delay at starting, for the horses evinced an almost insuperable objection to starting —a disposition we afterwards found general among the horses of the country, for at every stage, and they occur every six miles, there was a prolonged battle before the animals would attempt to start. In addition to our driver, we carried two men, whose duty it was to go to the horses' beads or to push at the wheels upon there occasions; but their exertions had not infrequently to be supplemented by those of a dozen bystanders before the machine could be set in motion. Once off, the pace was generally excellent, the horses keeping in a gallop until the termination of their stage was reached. Some, however, of the animals were constantly coming to a full stop, and the fights had to be renewed a dozen times in six miles. Fortunately, there were a great many peasants all along the road, occupied in giving finishing touches to it—for half the distance it had been newly formed for the occasion—and we were able to put their services into requisition to get us going again. The roadway the whole distance is over a flat, with the Himalayas, covered with snow, some forty miles on our left and abreast of us. At Sealcotc, the last English station, we stopped to breakfast, the regiments there keeping open mess for all the invited guests of the Rajah. Of them there were a hundred, but in addition there were many of the officers and wives from Sealkote,who had been specially invited, the officers on duty with the escort and others, so that the number in camp at Jummoo was fully 150. As we neared Jummoo, we met the Maharajah's eldest son on his way with an escort of nobles and a squadron of cavalry to receive the Prince at the frontier. Jummoo itself came presently in view, lying on the brow of

the first roll of hills at the foot of the Himalayas?. When we were within three miles of it, we came upon troops lining the road, and these continued until we reached the palace. Nothing can be imagined more picturesque and varied than the appearance of these men. Almost all the infantry were in scarlet, but their head and leg gear differed widely. Some wore shakoes of an English pattern of fifty years back; others wore steel skull caps ; others helmets of the French dragoon pattern ; otherp, again, helmets which united the Bavarian crest with the Prussian spike. There were some regiments had immense fan shaped cocked hate, exaggerations of the old Ramilies hat of Uncle Toby, while others had the high grenadier hat of the British army of 100 years ago. Some wore white gaiters, some black. Some had wbitey-brown cotton swathing round their legs, others brown with red stripes. A few wore English ammunition boots, the greater portion leather slippers. The infantry present numbered 7000, the cavalry 800. These last were even more varied in costume than were the infantry, each troop, numbering about fifty, being differently attired. There were cuirassiers and lancers, with weapons resembling those of almost every continental nation ; here were troops of men in the chain firmer, steel caps, and chain neck pieces of the Middle Ages, and htre the nobles in gorgeous robes of gold brocade, with turbans of every colour, and with aguilles and necklaces of gems of immense value and brilliancy. When we arrived at the river, which runs at the foot of the town, we left our gharries and mounted gold-caparisoned steeds, which stood in waitiug for us, for no whe ;led vehicles, excepting, perhaps, bullock carts, could march the steep stone staircased road to the gate of Jummoo. The route led right through the town to the newly-built palace, on high ground behind it. This palace has been built in three months, and this, considering the country and the means at the disposal of the Rajah, is marvellous. It is of great size, all on one floor, and resembles a big railway station. It contains but five rooms in all. An enormous throneroom, a great banqueting-hall—both very unfinished and bare in appearance, despite the magnificent cut glass chandeliers and the rich soft Indian carpeting—and three beautifully-fur-nished and got-up drawing-rooms. The Prince, as well as all his suite and the visitors, were under canvas; but in the Prince's case such canvas! His tent was an exquisite little gem, lined with the finest Cashmere work, carpeted with shawls, with curtaini and bedcover of the same material; and the legs of the bedstead were of pure gold, with lovely arabesque work. The Durbar tent, used as the private mess-tent of the Prince, was almost equally beautiful. The views from the terrace of the palace were most superb extending over a wooded plain as far as the eye could reach, with a river widening at times into a lake winding among it, with the town with its high temple roofs in the foreground, and with the Himalayas with their long line of serrated peaks and perpendicular precipices glistening white in the snow. The Prince spent the next day in shooting, in seeing the natives play polo, and in witnessing other sports. I confess that I preferred wandering in the bazaar, and in looking at such treasures in the way of shawls, such gems in the way of native work damascened with gold, as would have made the eyes of my lady readers glisten with admiration and covetousness. In the evening the Prince dined with the Rajah, and we were all invited to witness a dance of Llama priests afterwards. This was a most weird and singular affair. The priests, in dresses resembling that of the Mother Bunch of our childhood, with high witches' hats, danced wildly to the roar of enormous trumpets some 15ft in leDgtb, to the clash of cymbals and the beating of tom-toms; then they retired and came back in comic masks, some of them of bull's heads, all ornamented with coronets of small skulls. They made four changes of attire, and the whole resembled something between a scene from a pantomime and a witches' carousal on Walpurgis night. The followiug day we returned to Wurzeirabad, and proceeded two miles fnrther north to the river Cbeenob, where the Prince personally opened a bridge which will form the last remaining link between Calcutta and Peshawur. It is a mile and three-quarters in length, the longest bridge in the world; is supported on Bixty-four piers, 142 feet from centre to centre, and to obtain a secure foundation they had to sink through the shifting sand to a depth of 60 feet to each pier. The iron work is lattice. Long as it is this stupendous work is not magnificent, as it is only carried some 30 feet nbove the water, and becomes a mere line to the eye ere it is half across the stream. The Prince then returned to Lahore, and upon the next day started

for Agra. lam writing this letter from Agra, and start to-night for Gwalior, 80 miles distant by Dak. My account of the visit to Agra, to Gwalior, and to the Maharajah of Jeypur I must leave for the next letter. After leaving Jeypur the Prince goes for three weeks' shooting.