CASHMERE. In the north of India, reaching from the plains of the Punjab northward over the western Himalaya ranges to the borders of Tibet, lies the beautiful mountainous state of Cashmere (or Kash mir). It is a region of wild and gorgeous scenery, of splendid snow-crowned summits cut by deep gorges and valleys filled with rich and varied vegeta tion. It is traversed by the Indus River, and in the southwest the valley of the upper Jhelam widens out to form the famous Vale of Cashmere, celebrated in Thomas Moore's poem Lallah Rookh'—an oval cuplike basin 84 miles long and about 20 miles wide engirdled by mountain spurs which rise 14,000 and 15,000 feet above sea-level. In its marsh lands and flooded rice fields are mirrored the glory of the peaks, and for 30 miles along the valley the road threads its way past lake, river, hill, and temple, through a stately avenue of young poplar trees which march like a serried army across the plain. Within the vale lies the capital and largest city of Cashmere, Srinagar, a sort of mountain Venice, where the frail tenements of the poor and the elaborately carved villas of the rich huddle along the river in neighborly confusion.