Travels in the Himalayan Provinces of Hindustan and the Panjab (1841)

Travels in the Himalayan Provinces of Hindustan and the Panjab; in Ladakh and Kashmir; in Peshawar, Kabul, Kunduz, and Bokhara; by Mr. William Moorcroft and Mr. George Trebeck, from 1819 to 1825

Publication

Author	William Moorcroft and George Trebeck
Editor	H. H. Wilson
Language	English
Composed	Journals and letters 1819–1825; editor's dedication dated 14 September 1837
Published	1841
Publisher	John Murray (published under the authority of the Asiatic Society of Calcutta)
Place	London
Volumes	2
Total pages	Vol. I, lvi + 459 pages; Vol. II, 508 pages

Cannabis Content

Volume	I and II
Pages	Vol. I, pp. 57–58, 88, 182; Vol. II, p. 442
Chapter	Vol. I, Part I, chapter II ("Resources of the hills"), chapter III and chapter V (Kulu)
Plates	none
Regions documented	The hill country crossed from Joshimath (general notice); Kulu; the Punjab plain near Hoshiarpur
Preparations	Resin gathered from the flowers (momia; adulterated, kshir ras); an infusion of hemp and poppy heads; "a narcotic preparation of the juice of hemp"; bhang (named only as an insult)
Uses documented	Fibre (canvas, thread, rope); intoxicant

Access

Digital facsimile	View Vol. I (Digital Library of India scan)
Original held at	The editor deposited the manuscript journals in the library of the East India House, London (preface, 1841)

Travels in the Himalayan Provinces of Hindustan and the Panjab is the account of the journey that William Moorcroft and George Trebeck made from 1819 to 1825 through the western Himalaya, Ladakh, Kashmir and Afghanistan to Bukhara. It was prepared from their journals by H. H. Wilson and published in London in two volumes in 1841.^{: title page} The party crossed Kulu and Lahoul to Leh in 1820 and stayed in Ladakh for two years.^: xxxvi The book records hemp grown for fibre in the hills, a resin gathered from its flowers, an infusion of hemp and poppy heads drunk at a town in the Punjab, and "a narcotic preparation of the juice of hemp" used in Kulu.^{: 57–58, 88, 182}

The book spells the places Kulu, Byas, Parbati, Lé, Mundi, Panjab and Bokhara. This article uses Kullu, Beas, Parvati, Leh, Mandi, Punjab and Bukhara in its own voice and keeps the book's spellings in quotation.

Moorcroft was the superintendent of the East India Company's military stud in Bengal. He travelled to buy horses in Central Asia, carrying British goods on behalf of Calcutta merchants, and hoped to open the countries beyond the Himalaya to British trade.^: xxi–xxv Wilson dedicated the book to the Company's Court of Directors and wrote of "teaching to yet semi-barbarous tribes the advantages of industry and civilization".^{: dedication} The book is evidence of the Company's commercial and political interest in its northern frontier as much as it is evidence of hemp, and it is read here in that double light.

Origins

Wilson's preface gives the background. Moorcroft trained as a surgeon at Liverpool, turned to veterinary surgery and practised in London. He accepted an offer from the Court of Directors to go to Bengal "as superintendent of their military stud" and sailed in May 1808.^: xix–xxi He held that the cavalry horse of India could be improved only with Turkoman blood, and his thoughts turned to the country around Balkh and Bukhara.^{: xxii–xxiii} In 1812 he sent Mir Izzet Ullah ahead, at his own expense, by way of Kashmir, Leh and Yarkand to Bukhara.^: xviii

The Government of India allowed the journey but gave Moorcroft no political standing. He kept drawing his allowances as superintendent of the stud and regarded what he learned as owed to the government.^: xxvi He also carried English cottons, broadcloth and hardware worth between three and four thousand pounds, most of it belonging to two Calcutta firms "in the hope of creating a demand for British manufactures in the heart of Asia".^: 2–3 In a letter of December 1819 printed in the preface, Moorcroft wrote that the countries where he hoped to buy horses were not accessible to a European "except as a needy adventurer or as a merchant".^: xxix

Trebeck, the son of a Calcutta solicitor, went as draughtsman and surveyor. His field books were the main source for the map that accompanies the work.^{: xxv, lv}

The journey

The party left Bareilly at the end of October 1819.^: 1 After a detention at Joshimath and a visit to Ranjit Singh at Lahore, Moorcroft passed through Mandi to the town of Kulu, where Trebeck and the party from Mandi joined him with the merchandise.^: 171 They left Kulu on 10 August 1820 and went up the Beas valley, crossed into Lahoul and went on over the passes to Ladakh.^: 182–183 They reached Leh in September 1820 and stayed until September 1822.^: xxxvi A request to pass through Yarkand was refused by the Chinese authorities.^: xxxvi From Ladakh they went to Kashmir, where they spent about ten months, and then by Peshawar and Kabul to Kunduz and Bukhara.^{: xliii–xlvii}

Moorcroft died of fever at Andkhoy in 1825, on the way back from Bukhara. Trebeck died of fever some time later at Mazar.^{: xlvii–xlviii}

The book

Moorcroft considered his papers the property of the Bengal government. They passed to the Asiatic Society of Calcutta and then to Wilson, who took them to England. They included a dozen volumes of journals, eight letter-books and Trebeck's field books. More journals, covering the journey to Bukhara, were recovered later from the estate of a Mr. Fraser of Delhi.^: l–liii Wilson wrote that he had been "obliged to re-write almost the whole" and was responsible "for the greater part of the composition". He deposited the manuscripts in the library of the East India House.^: liii Passages quoted from the book are therefore Wilson's rewriting of Moorcroft's notes, except where the book prints Trebeck's journal in quotation.

The title page states that the work was published under the authority of the Asiatic Society of Calcutta. It was published in London by John Murray in 1841. Wilson's dedication is dated 14 September 1837.^{: title page, dedication} The first volume is in two parts, the journey to Ladakh and the residence in Ladakh. The second continues in Ladakh, then covers Kashmir, the road to Peshawar and the journey through Kabul and Kunduz to Bukhara.^{: contents: contents} The account of Mandi and Kulu on pp. 172–179, including the passage on the Parvati, is quoted from Trebeck's journal.^: 171–179

Hemp in the book

Fibre and resin in the hills

Before leaving the hill country "more or less subject to British authority", Moorcroft listed its products that might be improved and exported: paper, honey, timber, fruit, madder, hemp and turpentine.^: 48 Of hemp he wrote:

Hemp grows freely in the valleys, and on the slopes of the mountains. It affords a strong, fine, and long fibre, and is worked by the natives into a coarse canvas, and into thread and rope. The gum collected from its flowers during the warm part of the day, and called from its resemblance to wax, momia, and well known when adulterated, by the name of kshir ras, has strong narcotic powers.^: 57–58

An infusion near Hoshiarpur

In the spring of 1820, on the way from Hoshiarpur towards Amritsar, Moorcroft halted on 30 April in a burial ground outside the town of Halalpur. During the day a number of people came there "to drink infusions of poppy heads and hemp". He wrote that some "seemed exhilarated, and some stupified by the potion, but none were particularly talkative, or noisy, or riotous".^: 88

Kulu

At the town of Kulu in August 1820, Moorcroft described the people as moderate in their diet. He knew of no spirit among them apart from buza, the barley beer he had described earlier at Gumha in Mandi, "which every one drinks":^{: 162–163, 182}

A narcotic preparation of the juice of hemp is also used, but it is said that few are guilty of excess either in the use of this, opium, or tobacco: the latter grows in most of the gardens, but it does not appear to be very luxuriant.^: 182

In his account of Kangra he noted that opium was "raised largely on the Kulu frontier" and that the Sikhs, whose creed forbade tobacco, used opium and an infusion of poppy heads in its place.^: 141

Bhang as an insult

At Kunduz, when Moorcroft showed old letters of introduction to its ruler, Murad Beg, the chief abused their writers, "calling Mahmud Shah an opium eater, Fatteh Khan a bhang-drinker".^: 441–442

Trade and routes

The journey was planned as a trading venture and a search for horses.^{: xxiii–xxv} In Ladakh, Moorcroft sought liberty to trade with the country and through it with others, moderate duties, a permanent factory at Leh and help in opening the Niti pass to British commerce.^: 255 Engagements were exchanged at the beginning of the following May between the Raja and chief officers of Ladakh and Moorcroft, acting "on behalf of the British merchants of Calcutta". He described them as "calculated to throw open to the enterprise of the latter, and through them to the manufactures of Great Britain, the whole of central Asia from China to the Caspian Sea".^: 257 The Government of India did not recognise Moorcroft in any diplomatic capacity and reproved him for passing on Ladakh's offer of allegiance.^{: xxvii, xxxvii–xxxviii}

The chapter on Leh describes the trade that met there. From Yarkand came felts, camel-hair cloth, sheepskins, shawl wool, tea, silver, steel, Russian leather and cloth, "horses and drugs", most of them bound for the Punjab.^: 356–357 The people of Lahoul carried borax from Tibet (Bhot) through Ladakh to Kulu and Chamba to be refined.^: 355 Moorcroft put the question as whether these countries would be clothed "with the broadcloth of Russia or of England".^: 358 One April a merchant who represented himself as the partner of Aga Mehdi, an agent of Russia, reached Leh with dyeing drugs for the Kashmir shawl trade.^: 384–385

Later trade through Kulu

Later in the century charas from Yarkand reached the Punjab by way of Kashmir and through Kulu. The Indian Hemp Drugs Commission reported in 1894 that about 500 maunds came by way of Kashmir and "six or seven times as much" was "imported direct through Kulu to Hoshiarpur".

See also

• Charas
• Gazetteer of the Kangra District, Parts II to IV: Kulu, Lahul and Spiti (1897)
• Indian Hemp Drugs Commission
• Kullu District
• Kullu Valley
• Parvati Valley

References

Kullu District Punjab Momia (hemp resin) Infusion of hemp and poppy heads Narcotic preparation of hemp juice Fibre Textile Intoxicant Travel account