"The natives of Kashmir have been always considered as amongst the most lively and ingenious people of Asia, and deservedly so. With a liberal and wise government they might assume an equally high scale as a moral and intellectual people, but at present a more degraded race does not exist. The complexion of the Kashmirians varies from dark to olive, and is sometimes ruddy and transparent: the eyes are large and full, the nose is well defined, and commonly of an aquiline form. The stature varies, but the Hindus who have least intermixed with foreign races are, in general, tall and symmetrically made. The inhabitants of the city are rather slight, but amongst the peasantry, both Hindu and Mohammedan, are to be found figures of robust and muscular make, such as might have served for models of the Farnesan Hercules. In character the Kashmirian is selfish, superstitious, ignorant, supple, intriguing, dishonest, and false: he has great ingenuity as a mechanic, and a decided genius for manufactures and commerce, but his transactions are always conducted in a fraudulent spirit, equaled only by the effrontery with which he faced detection. The vices of the Kashmirian I cannot help considering, however, as the effects of his political condition, rather than his nature, and conceive that it would not be difficult to transform him into a very different being. Religious bigotry forms no part of his character, and the teachers of either faith, Mullas or Pundits, are exceedingly ignorant, and possesses little influence. Since the establishment of the Sikh authority Hinduism predominates, and the country is infested by numerous and audacious bands of mendicants. They are patronized rather by the Government than the people, and the latter would gladly get rid of their presence. There seems, indeed, to be little attachment of either the Mohammedans or Hindus of Kashmir to their respective creeds, and I am convinced there is no part of India where the pure religion of the Gospel might be introduced with a fairer prospect of success."