Travels in the Mogul Empire (Bernier) 19.2.2

19.2.2

that Nature had exhausted all her skill in the creation of this country, and rendered it inaccessible to the attack of hostile force; because, being the mistress of the kingdoms of the earth, it was wise to preserve her in perfect peace and security, that she might exercise universal dominion without the possibility of ever being subject to any. The poet went on to say that the summits of the higher and more distant mountains were clothed resplendently in white, and the minor and more contiguous preserved in perpetual verdure and embellished with stately trees, because it was meet that the mistress of the kingdoms of the earth should be crowned with a diadem whose top and rays were diamonds issuing from a base-work of emeralds. 'The poet' (I remarked to my Navaab Danechmend-kan, who wished me to relish these productions) 'might easily have amplified his subject. He could, with a pardonable licence, have included the neighbouring mountainous regions within the kingdom of Kachemire, since it is pretended that they were once tributary to it. I mean Little Tibet, the states of Raja Gamon, Kachguer, and Serenaguer. He might then have gone on to say that the Ganges, the Indus, the Chenau, and the Gemna, issue from the kingdom of Kachemire, rivers which cannot yield in beauty and importance to the Pison, the Gihon or the two other rivers spoken of in Genesis;