Excerpt

The country with which one is most apt to compare it is, naturally, Switzerland. But there is no place where one can see a complete circle of snowy mountains surrounding a plain of anything like the length and breadth of the Kashmir valley, for the main valleys of Switzerland are like the side valleys of Kashmir. The great broad reaches in the river, glistening in the sunlight and fringed with the rich autumnal foliage, were superlatively beautiful.