Srinagar, Sept. 5 -- By Dr. Harjeet Singh

William Moorcroft rode into Kashmir in the 1820s carrying instructions to study horse breeding and assess commercial prospects on behalf of the East India Company.

He left behind pages describing snow peaks doubled in still water and meadows crowded with flowers, and pages describing villages stripped bare and peasants bent under demands they could not meet.

The contradiction was deliberate, and part of the method.

Moorcroft travelled with George Trebeck. Victor Jacquemont followed in 1831 under Company patronage, sent to collect plants and take the political temperature of the region. Baron Charles von Hugel and G.T. Vigne came after him, counting shawl looms, mapping passes, sizing up Mahara...