What I learned of that region as a barrier
against invasion was of more value to the Viceroy and Commander-in-Chief
in India and the political and military authorities in England
in the discharge of their official duties than what I learned of its
beauties. But this utility of the region as a military barrier is not the
characteristic which has most value to men in general. What to them
has most value is its beauty--the awful beauty of its terrific gorges
and stupendous heights. And it is knowledge of this beauty which is
most worth having, and which has most geographical value.

Besides exploring the far region beyond Kashmir I was also
employed for years in exercising a general supervision over the
entire administration of Kashmir itself. Reports from experts used to
come to me containing every description of geographical knowledge.
Surveyors would send in maps for general purposes, for the
construction of roads and railways, for the delimitation of village
boundaries, and for registering the ownership of individual fields.
Geologists would report on the crustal relief (as the features of
Mother-Earth are inelegantly termed). Forestry, agricultural, and
botanical experts would report on the productivity of the soil, on the
plants and trees which are or might be grown, and on their present
and possible distribution. Mineralogists would report on the
minerals, their distribution and the possibility of commercially
exploiting them. Every aspect of geographical science was presented
to me. And each particular kind of knowledge for its own particular
purpose was highly valuable. But the point I would wish to make is
that my geographical knowledge of Kashmir would have been
incomplete--and I would have been wanting in knowledge of its
most valuable characteristic--if I had had no knowledge of its beauty.
I might have had the most precise knowledge about the form and
structure of the crustal relief of this portion of the Earth, of the
productivity of the soil, of the distribution of its population, and of
animals and plants, and about the effect of the crustal forms on the
animals and plants, and of the animals and plants upon the crustal
forms and of all upon man, and of man upon them all; but if I had
had no knowledge of the beauty of these crustal forms and of the
influence which their beauty has upon man, I should not have
known what was most worth knowing about Kashmir. My geographical
knowledge of that country would h