(5252 feet or 1603
meters) in Kashmir. To their markets come caravans from Chinese
Turkestan, laden with carpets and brick tea, and Tibetan merchants from
Lhassa, bringing wool from their highland pastures to exchange for the
rice and sugar of lowland India.[1237] Leh is conveniently situated about
half way between the markets of India and Central Asia. Therefore it is
the terminus for caravans arriving from both regions, and exchange place
for products from north and south. Seldom do caravans from either
direction go farther than this point. Here the merchants rest for a
month or two and barter their goods. Tents of every kind, camels, yaks,
mules and horses, coolie transports of various races, men of many
languages and many religions, give to this high-laid town a truly
cosmopolitan stamp in the summer time when the passes are open.[1238]
Kabul, which lies at an altitude of nearly 6000 feet near the head of
the Kabul River, is the focus of numerous routes over the Hindu Kush,
and dominates all routes converging on the northwest frontier of the
Punjab.[1239] It is therefore the military and commercial key to India.
Its narrow winding streets are obstructed by the picturesque _kafilas_
of Oriental merchants, stocked with both Russian goods from the Oxus
districts and British goods from India in evidence of its intermediary
location.[1240]

Occasionally a very high market develops for purely local use. The
Indian Himalayan province of Kumaon contains the market town of
Garbyang, at an elevation of 10,300 feet or about 3000 meters, on the
Kali River road leading by the Lipu Lekh Pass (16,780 feet or 5115
meters) over to Tibet. It has grown up as a trade center for the Dokpa
Tibetans, who will not descend below 10,000 feet because their yak and
sheep die at a lower altitude.[1241] Farther east in the Sikkim border,
Darjeeling (7150 feet or 2180 meters elevation) is center of the British
wool trade with Tibet.

Often the exchange point moves nearer the summit of the pass, dividing
the journey more equally between the two areas of production. Here
develops the temporary summer market. High up on the route between Leh
and Yarkand is Sasar, a place of unroofed enclosures for the deposit of
cotton, silk and other goods left there by the caravans plying back and
forth between Leh and Sasar, or Sasar and Yarkand.[1242] Nearly midway on
the much frequented trade route between Leh and Lhassa, at a point
15,100 feet (nearly 500 m