CHAPTER X

PRODUCTS AND MANUFACTURES

Wuat Kashmir is principally known for to the outside world is its shawls; but the wool from which they are manufactured is not produced in Kashmir itself: it comes from Tibet and Chinese Turkestan. It is the soft down lying under the long hair of the Tibetan goat. Kashmir does, how- ever, produce a coarser wool of its own. Kashmir villagers keep immense numbers of sheep, for round their villages and on the mountain uplands there is an abundance of rich grass, the leaves of the willow trees and of irises furnish winter fodder, and these animals are not only thus easily fed, but also furnish their owner with clothing, with food and with manure, and by crowding in the lower portion

of his house keep him warm in winter. They are 166