Vegetables of Noorbagh

Sabziwol, Vegetable Seller at Hazratbal

The sellers kept insisting all the vegetable are from Noorbagh. We had stopped here to buy vegetables for the overnight stay at Tulmul.

The marshy grounds of Noorbagh on is the source of the finest greens in the valley. The city’s manure also keeps that area fertile.

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To continue, however, our progress down the river and through the city. Immediately below the Alii Kadal, or fifth bridge, stands an old stone building, with an inscription, supposed to be Buddhist, in the Nagri character; and some few yards below again is an evidence of another faith. This is an old wooden mosque, said to be the oldest in the Valley, called the Biilbul Lankar, containing the grave of that fakir who, as before stated, is held by the inhabitants to have been the first and prime agent in their conversion to the faith of Mohammed. The Naya Kadal, or sixth bridge, comes next, and a little further down is the Sufifa Kadal, the seventh and last of the city bridges, below which, on the right bank, is a green open flat, called the ‘Eedgah,’ which reminds one of home, so like an English common does it appear. A fine old mosque, the Ali Musjid,stands at one extremity, shaded by some of the noblest trees in the Valley; and nearly opposite, on the left bank of the stream, is a spot of an ill-omened character, the Noor Bagh, or place of execution. In former days it was rare not to see the gallows at this place graced by some malefactor, but capital punishment is now seldom carried out; the Sikh religion discouraging the taking of human life; and the present Maharajah, a devout follower of this belief, acting so strictly up to its tenets that for many years the hangman’s office has been literally a perfect sinecure, his services having never been required.

 – W. Wakefield, The Happy Valley: Sketches of Kashmir and the Kashmiris (1879)