KASHMIR AND THE HIMALAYAS 125

series of rapid journeys from India to Europe and back
again. Life would be but an everlasting oscillation for
most men and for nearly all women. The hill-stations are
India’s salvation. It would not be too much to say that
they alone make the permanent occupation of India a
possibility ; and if they are thus beneficial to the European
sommunity they as certainly exercise a good effect on the
social relations between Englishmen and Indians. It is
only in the hills that schools can be maintained for the
education of that large and growing class who fill the subordinate
 posts in all departments of the State, through
whom we are more directly in touch with native feeling
than is possible with any other branch of Anglo-Indian
society. If there is contact at all between the ruling class
and the people ruled, it is to be found in this social borderland,
 where Europeans and natives work side by side
with the same ends in view and receive their promotion
on equal terms. Amongst the higher social functionaries
efforts are constantly made to bring together the best
=ducated representatives of the native community and the
official classes of India, but the results are not satisfactory.
No lasting friendships spring out of this formal intercourse.
 The average English official remains as utterly
ignorant of the inner life and domestic habits of the
Muhammadan or Hindu gentleman as he is of those of
the Esquimaux. Our hill-stations are at least cosmopolitan,
 and it is in them, if anywhere, that all classes meet
together and interchange social amenities. Nor is it possible
 to doubt that the vitality and energy recouped in
the atmosphere of the mountains is reflected in the daily
official business life of the plains. In short, vigorous administration
 in all branches of civil and military service
in India depends largely on those resources of renewed
vitality that is found in the hill-stations. They deserve,
therefore, more than the passing reference which is all
that is possible in a work of this nature.
Simla ranks first in importance by reason of its selection
 as the summer residence of the Viceroy, and the seat
~f the supreme Government as well as that of the Punjab