"Will you come to my shop?"
"No--you are going somewhere else."
"After?"
"Perhaps!"
"To-day, master?"
"No--no time to-day."
"To-morrow, then--I got very naice kyriasity [curiosity]--to-morrow,
master--what time?"
"Oh! get out! and leave me alone."
"I send boat for you--ten o'clock to-morrow?"
"No."
"Twelve o'clock?" &c. &c.
After a short experience of Kashmiri pertinacity and business methods, you
cease from politeness and curtly threaten the river.
Certainly the Kashmiri are exceedingly clever and excellent workers in
many ways. Their modern embroideries (the old shawl manufacture is totally
extinct) are beautiful and artistic. Their wood-carving, almost always
executed in rich brown walnut, is excellent; and their _old_ papier-mache
lacquer is very good. The tendency, however, is unfortunately to abandon
their own admirable designs, and assimilate or copy Western ideas as
conveyed in very doubtful taste by English visitors.
The embroidery has perhaps kept its individuality the best, although the
trail of the serpent as revealed in "quaint" Liberty or South Kensington
designs is sometimes only too apparent. Certain plants--Lotus, Iris,
Chenar leaf, and so-called Dal Lake leaves, as well as various designs
taken from the old Kashmir shawls, give scope to the nimble brains and
fingers of the embroiderers, who, by-the-bye, are all male.
Their colours, almost invariably obtained from native dyes, are excellent,
and they rarely make a mistake in taste.
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