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CASHMIRI.
(215)

MAHOMEDAN merchants from Cashmere are very commonly met with at Simla, and, indeed, in all the northern stations of India. They bring shawls, scarves, embroidered cloths, and other local manufactures for sale, as well as dried fruits, which are readily disposed of. The costume of the Cashmiris differs from that of ordinary Mahomedans of India. Instead of the tight and often ungraceful tunic, the garment shown in the Photograph, which is called chogha, is almost universally worn, especially in winter. The best are made of soft serge, or cloth, woven from the fine wool of the shawl goat, and the natural colours, brown, grey, or white, are preserved. These garments are frequently handsomely embroidered on the chest and shoulders, as also down the back, by silk or woollen braid in remarkably chast patterns; and there is no class of Cashmere manufacture, perhaps, which more perfectly exhibits the exquisite taste of the artizans of the country, than these embroideries. They are never in varied colours, and the best effects are produced by braids in monotone, crimson upon white, dark grey upon light grey, and other combinations. These manufactures, both in shawls, scarves, cloaks, and even choghas, are now becoming known in Europe, and are to be found for sale in the shops of London and Paris shawl merchants; while in the beautiful collections of the India Museum, many specimens of the finest descriptions of work can be examined by those interested in Indian productions. 

The Mahomedans of Cashmere are in no wise different from their brethren of Northern India. They are, for the most part, Soonnies, and have a strong admixture of Affghan blood; but, as a rule, they are not a military class, nor have they ever been remarkable for the military spirit so abundantly displayed by Mahomedans elsewhere. They are, however, a fine, handsome race of people, and their women, who have not unfrequently fair, ruddy complexions, are esteemed very beautiful - the Circassians, as it were, of India. Since the sale of Cashmere to Golab Sing, the Rajah of Jummoo, by Sir H. Hardinge, in 1846, the oppressive