Travels in the Mogul Empire (Bernier) 19.2.1

19.2.1

You have no doubt discovered before this time that I am charmed with Kachemire. In truth, the kingdom surpasses in beauty all that my warm imagination had anticipated. It is probably unequalled by any country of the same extent, and should be, as in former ages, the seat of sovereign authority, extending its dominion over all the circumjacent mountains, even as far as Tartary and over the whole of Hindoustan, to the island of Ceylon. It is not indeed without reason that the Mogols call Kachemire the terrestrial paradise of the Indies, or that Ekbar was so unremitting in his efforts to wrest the sceptre from the hand of its native Princes. His son Jehan-Guyre became so enamoured of this little kingdom as to make it the place of his favourite abode, and he often declared that he would rather be deprived of every other province of his mighty empire than lose Kachemire. I was quite prepared to witness the emulous contest between the Kachemiry and the Mogol poets. We were no sooner arrived than Aureng-Zebe received from the bards of both nations poems in praise of this favoured land, which he accepted and rewarded with kindness. They were written in a strain of extravagant hyperbole. One of them, I remember, speaking of the surrounding mountains, observed that their extraordinary height had caused the skies to retire into the vaulted form which we see;