APPENDICES.
| [i.] | Hunza-Nagyr and the Pamirs. |
| [ii.] | Recent Events in Chilas and Chitral. |
| [iii.] | Fables, Songs, and Legends of Chitral. |
| [iv.] | Races and Languages of the Hindukush. |
| [v.] | Anthropological Observations and Measurements. |
| [vi.] | Rough Itineraries in the Hindukush. |
| [vii.] | A Secret Religion in the Hindukush. |
| [viii.] | The Sciences of Language and of Ethnology as illustrated by the Language and Customs of Hunza (a separate Pamphlet). |
SPECIMENS OF THE BURISHKI RACE OF HUNZA (ON A SLOPE OF THE PAMIR), OF NAGYR, AND OF YASIN.
| MATAVALLI, the first Hunza man who came to Europe. | SOME BURISHKIS FROM YASIN separating the Hunza and Nagyri Warriors. | SAYAD ALI, of Nagyr. |
APPENDIX I.
HUNZA, NAGYR, AND THE PAMIR REGIONS.[106]
I wish to record how from small beginnings, owing to carelessness, exclusiveness, and official desire for promotion, Northern India may be lost and British interests in Europe and Asia become subordinate, as they have often been, to Russian guidance; how statesmanship has laboriously invited dangers which physical barriers had almost rendered impossible; and how it may still be practicable to maintain as independent States the numerous mountain strongholds which Nature has interposed between encroachment and intrigue from either the Russian or the English sphere of action in Asia, much to the benefit of these two Powers and of the peace of mankind.
When, after an enormous expenditure of men and money and during campaigns which lasted over thirty-six years, Russia had conquered independent Circassia—a task in which she was largely aided by our preventing provisions and ammunitions from reaching by sea the so-called rebels, although we ourselves were fighting against her in 1856, quorum pars parva fui, it was easy to foresee that our conduct, which some called chivalry, others loyalty, and some duplicity or folly, would give her the present command of the Black Sea and lead to the subjugation of Circassia. The same conduct was repeated at Panjdeh, and may be repeated on the Pamir, much to the personal advantage of the discreet officers concerned. We have also recently discovered that the holding of Constantinople by a neutral Power is not essential to British interests, as we had long ago found out that neither Merv nor Herat were keys to India. Indeed, as we give up position after position, a crop of honours falls to those who bring about our losses and, like charity, covers a multitude of political sins of ignorance or treason.
It seemed, however, that there was one obscure corner which the official sidelight could not irradiate. Valley after valley, plateau after plateau, high mountains and difficult passes separate the populations of India from those of Central Asia. Innumerable languages and warlike races, each unconquerable in their own strongholds if their autonomy and traditions are respected, intervene between invaders from either side who would lead masses of disciplined slaves to slaughter and conquest. It is not necessary to draw an imaginary line on Lord Salisbury’s large or small Map of Asia across mountains and rivers, and dividing arbitrarily tribes and kingdoms whose ancestry is the same, call it “the neutral zone.” No sign-board need indicate “the way to India,” and amid much ado about nothing by ambitious subordinates and puzzled superiors settle to the momentary satisfaction of the British public that Russia can go so far and no farther. Where the cold, the endless marching over inhospitable ground, and starvation do not show the frontier, the sparse population, the unknown tongue, and the bullet of the raider will indicate it sufficiently, without adding to the number of generals or knights for demarcating impossible boundaries.
The reassurances given by Lords Lansdowne and Cross to the native Princes of India indicate the policy that should be adopted with regard to all the Mountain States beyond India proper. It is by everywhere respecting the existing indigenous Oriental Governments that we protect them and ourselves against invasion from without and treachery from within. The loyalty of our feudatories is most chivalrous and touching, but it should be based on enlightened self-interest in order to withstand the utmost strain. The restoration of some powers to the Maharaja of Kashmîr came not a minute too soon. Wherever elsewhere reasonable claims are withheld, they should be generously and speedily conceded. The Indian princes know full well that we are arming them, at their own expense, against a common foe who is not wanting in promises, and who is already posing as a saviour to the people of Raushan, Shignan, Wakhan, Hunza, and even Badakhshan, whose native dynasties or traditions we have either already put aside or are believed to threaten.
As for the small States offering a fruitful field for intrigue, their number and internal jealousies (except against a common foreign invader) are in themselves a greater safeguard than the resistance of a big but straggling ally, whose frontier, when broken through at one of its many weak points, finds an unresisting population from which all initiative has disappeared. The intrigue or treachery of a big ally is also a more serious matter than that of a little State. What does it matter if English and Russian agents intrigue or fraternize among the ovis poli, and the Kirghiz shepherds of the Pamir, or advocate their respective civilizations in Yasin, Chitrál, Wakhan, Nagyr, Hunza, etc. Ambitious employes of both empires will always trouble waters, in order to fish in them; but their trouble is comparatively innocuous, and resembles that of Sisyphus when it has to be repeated or wasted in a dozen States, before the real defences of either India or of Russia in Asia are reached. Indeed, so far as India is concerned, the physical difficulties on our side of the Himalayas or of the Hindukush, except at a few easily defensible passes, are insuperable to an invader, even after he has crowned the more approachable heights when coming from the North.
The only policy worthy of the name is to leave the Pamir alone. Whatever line is drawn, it is sure to be encroached upon by either side. Races will be found to overlap it, and in the attempt to gather the fold, as with the Sarik and Salor Turkomans, a second Panjdeh is sure to follow. Intrigues will be active on both sides of the line; and, as in Kashmîr, the worried people will hail the foreigner as a saviour, so long as he has not taken possession, when they find his little finger heavier than the whole body of the indigenous oppressor. I have suffered so much from my persistent exposure of the misrule and intrigues of Kashmîr by those who now hail the fait accompli of its practical annexation, that I may claim to be heard in favour of at least one feature of its former native administration. With bodies of troops averaging from 20 to 200, the late Maharaja, who foresaw what has happened after his death, kept the Hunza-Nagyr frontier in order. It certainly was by rule of thumb, and had no dockets, red tape, and reports. Indeed, his frontier guardians were, as I found them, asleep during a state of siege in 1866, or, when war was over, were engaged in storing grain outside the forts; but peace was kept as it will never be again, in spite of 2,000 Imperial troops, first-rate roads, and suspension bridges over the “Shaitan Naré,” instead of the rotten rope-way that spanned “Satan’s Gorge,” or of boats dragged up from Srinagar over the mountains to enable a dozen sepoys to cross the Indus at a time, or to convey couriers with a couple of bullets, some dried butter-cakes, and an open letter or two, who ran the siege at Gilgit and brought such effective reinforcements to its defenders!
Nor has our diplomacy been more effectual than our arms, as the encounter at Chalt with Hunza-Nagyr, hereditary foes, but whom our policy has united against us, has shown. To us Nagyr is decidedly friendly; but a worm will turn if trodden on by some of our too quickly advanced subalterns. That, however, the wise and amiable Chief of Nagyr, a patriarch with a large progeny, and preserving the keenness of youth in his old age, is really friendly to us in spite of provocation, may be inferred from the following letter to me, which does credit alike to his head and heart, and which is far from showing him to be our inveterate foe, as alleged by the Pioneer. His eldest son began to teach me the remarkable Khajuná language, which I first committed to writing in 1866, during the siege of Gilgit, and another son continued the lessons in 1886. The latter is a hostage in Kashmîr, to secure the good behaviour of his tribe, which is really infinitely superior in culture and piety to those around them. The father, who is over 90, writes in Persian to the following effect, after the usual compliments:—“The affairs of this place are by your fortune in a fair way, and I am in good health and constantly ask the same for you from the Throne which grants requests. Your kind favour with a drawing of the Mosque has reached me, and has given me much pleasure and satisfaction. The reason of the delay in its receipt and acknowledgment is due to the circumstance that, owing to disturbances (fesád) I have not sent agents to Kashmîr this year. After the restoration of peace, I will send The Times reported a “rising,” because the British Agent was at Chalt with 500 men.]
It seems to me that none but a farseeing man could, in the midst of a misunderstanding, if not a fight, with us, so write to one in the enemy’s camp, unless he were a true man alike in war and peace, and a ruler whose good-will was worth acquiring. As for his son, I know him to be indeed well-disposed to our Government. He was very popular among our officers when I saw him in Kashmîr, owing to his modesty, amiability, and unsurpassed excellence at Polo. In fact, my friendship with several of the chiefs since 1866 has aided our good relations with them; and it is a pity if they should be destroyed for want of a little “savoir,” as also “savoir faire,” on our part.
Between the States of Nagyr and Hunza there exists a perpetual feud. They are literally rivals, being separated by a swift-flowing river on which, at almost regulated distances, one Nagyr fort on one bank frowns at the Hunza fort on the other. The paths along the river sides are very steep, involving at times springing from one ledge of a rock to another, or dropping on to it from a height of six feet, when, if the footing is lost, the wild torrent sweeps one away. Colonel Biddulph does not credit the Nagyris with bravery. History, however, does not bear out his statement; and the defeat inflicted on the Kashmîr troops under Nathu Shah in 1848 is a lesson even for the arrogance of a civilized invader armed with the latest rifle. The Nagyris are certainly not without culture; in music they were proficient before the Muhammadan piety of the Shiah sect somewhat tabooed the art. At all events, they are different in character from the Hunzas with whom they share the same language, and their chiefs the same ancestry. The Hunzas, in whom a remnant of the Huns may be found, were great kidnappers; but under Kashmîr influence they stopped raiding since 1869, till the confusion incidental to our interference revived their gone occupation. Indeed, it is asserted on good authority, that even our ally of Chitrál, who had somewhat abandoned the practice of selling his Shiah or Kalásha Kafir subjects into slavery, and who had so disposed of the miners for not working his ruby mines to profit, has now returned to the trade in men, “with the aid of our present of rifles and our moral support.” Nor is Bokhara said to be behind Chitrál in the revival of the slave-trade from Darwáz, in spite of Russian influence; so that we have the remarkable instance of two great Powers both opposed to slavery and the slave-trade, having revived it in their approach to one another. Nor is a third Power, quite blameless in the matter; for when we worried Hunza, that robber-nest remembered its old allegiance to distant Kitái and arranged with the Chinese authorities at Yarkand to be informed of the departure of a caravan. Then, after intercepting it on the Kulanuldi road, the Hunzas would take those they kidnapped from it back for sale to Yarkand!
As a matter of fact, we have now a scramble for the regions surrounding and extending into the Pamirs by three Powers, acting either directly or through States of Straw. The claims of Bokhara to Karategin and Darwáz—if not to Shignán, Raushan, and Wakhan are as little founded as are those of Afghanistan on the latter three districts. Indeed, even the Afghan right to Badakhshan is very weak. The Russian claims through Khokand on the pasturages of the Kirghiz in two-thirds of the Pamirs are also as fanciful as those of Kashmir or China on Hunza. As in the scramble for Africa, the natives themselves are not consulted, and their indigenous dynasties have been either destroyed, or dispossessed, or ignored.
In an Indian paper, received by to-day’s mail (29 Nov., 1891), I find the following paragraph: “Col. A. G. Durand, British Agent at Gilgit, has received definite orders to bring the robber tribes of Hunza and Nagar under control. These tribes are the pirates of Central Asia, whose chief occupation is plundering caravans on the Yarkand and Kashgar. Any prisoners they take on these expeditions are sold into slavery. Colonel Durand has established an outpost at Chalt, about thirty miles beyond Gilgit, on the Hunza river, and intends making a road to Aliabad, the capital of the Hunza chief, at once. That he will meet with armed opposition in doing so is not improbable.”
For some months past the mot d’ordre appears to have been given to the Anglo-Indian Press, to excite public feeling against Hunza and Nagyr, two States which have been independent for fourteen centuries. The cause of offence is not stated, nor, as far as I know, does one exist of sufficient validity to justify invasion. In the Pioneer and the Civil and Military Gazette I find vague allusions to the disloyalty or recalcitrance of the above-mentioned tribes, and to the necessity of punishing them. As Nagyr is extremely well-disposed towards the British, and is only driven into making common cause with its hereditary foe and rival of Hunza by fear of a common danger,—the loss of their independence,—I venture to point out the impolicy and injustice of interfering with these principalities.
I have already referred to a letter from the venerable chief of Nagyr, in which he strongly commends to my care one of his sons, Raja Habibulla, as a well-wisher of the English Government. Indeed, he has absolutely done nothing to justify any attack on the integrity of his country; and before we invade it other means to secure peace should be tried. I have no doubt that I, for one, could induce him to comply with everything in reason, if reason, and not an excuse for taking his country, is desired. Nagyr has never joined Hunza in kidnapping expeditions, as is alleged in the above-quoted paragraph. Indeed, slavery is an abomination to the pious and peaceful agriculturist of that interesting country. The Nagyris are musical and were fond of dances, polo, ibex battue-hunting, archery and shooting from horseback, and other manly exercises; but the growing piety of the race has latterly proscribed music and dancing. The accompanying drawing of a Nagyri dance in the neighbouring Gilgit gives a good idea of similar performances at Nagyr.
The country is full of legendary lore, but less so than Hunza, where Grimm’s fairy tales appear to be translated into actual life. No war is undertaken except at the supposed command of an unseen fairy, whose drum is on such occasions sounded in the mountains. Ecstatic women, inhaling the smoke of a cedar-branch, announce the future, tell the past, and describe the state of things in neighbouring valleys. They are thus alike the prophets, the historians, and the journalists of the tribe. They probably now tell their indignant hearers how, under the pretext of shooting or of commerce, Europeans have visited their country, which they now threaten to destroy with strange and murderous weapons; but Hunza is “ayeshó,” or “heaven-born,” and the fairies, if not the inaccessible nature of the country, will continue to protect it.
The folly of invading Hunza and Nagyr is even greater than the physical obstacles to which I have already referred. Here, between the Russian and the British spheres of influence in Central Asia, we have not only the series of Pamirs, or plateaux and high valleys, which I first brought to notice on linguistic grounds, in the map accompanying my tour in Dardistan in 1866 (the country between Kashmir and Kabul), and which have been recently confirmed topographically; but we have also a large series of mountainous countries, which, if left alone, or only assured of our help against a foreign invader, would guarantee for ever the peace alike of the Russian, the British, and the Chinese frontiers. Unfortunately, we have allowed Afghanistan to annex Badakhshan, Raushan, Shignan, and Wakhan, at much loss of life to their inhabitants; and Russia has similarly endorsed the shadowy and recent claims of Bokhara on neighbouring provinces, like Darwáz and Karategin.
It is untrue that Hunza and Nagyr were ever tributaries of Kashmîr, except in the sense that they occasionally sent a handful of gold dust to its Maharaja, and received substantial presents in return. It is to China or Kitái that Hunza considers itself bound by an ancient, but vague, allegiance. Hunza and Nagyr, that will only unite against a foreign common foe, have more than once punished Kashmîr when attempting invasion; but they are not hostile to Kashmîr, and Nagyr even sends one of the princes to Srinagar as a guarantee of its peaceful intentions. At the same time, it is not very many months ago that they gave us trouble at Chalt, when we sought to establish an outpost, threatening the road to Hunza and the independence alike of Hunza and Nagyr.
Just as Nagyr is pious, so Hunza is impious. Its religion is a perversion even of the heterodox Mulái faith, which is Shiah Muhammadan only in name, but pantheistic in substance. It prevails in Punyál, Zebak, Darwáz, etc. The Tham, or Raja, of Hunza used to dance in a Mosque and hold revels in it. Wine is largely drunk in Hunza, and like the Druses of the Lebanon, the “initiated” Muláis may consider nothing a crime that is not found out. Indeed, an interesting connection can be established between the doctrines of the so-called “Assassins” of the Crusaders, which have been handed down to the Druses, and those of the Muláis in various parts of the Hindukush. Their spiritual chief gave me a few pages of their hitherto mysterious Bible, the “Kelám-i-Pir,” in 1886, which I have translated, and shortly intend to publish. All I can now say is, that, whatever the theory of their faith, the practice depends, as elsewhere, on circumstances and the character of the race.
The language of Hunza and Nagyr solves many philological puzzles. It is a prehistoric remnant, in which a series of simple consonantal or vowel sounds stands for various groups of ideas, relationships, etc. It establishes the great fact, that customs and the historical and other associations of a race are the basis of the so-called rules of grammar. The cradle, therefore, of human thought as expressed in language, whether of the Aryan, the Turanian, or the Shemitic groups, is to be found in the speech of Hunza-Nagyr; and to destroy this by foreign intervention, which has already brought new diseases into the Hindukush, as also a general linguistic deterioration, would be a greater act of barbarism than to permit the continuance of Hunza raiding on the Yarkand road. Besides, that raiding can be stopped again, by closing the slave-markets of Badakhshan, Bokhara, and Yarkand, or by paying a subsidy, say of £1,000 per annum, to the Hunza chief.
Indeed, as has already been pointed out, the recrudescence of kidnapping is largely due to the state of insecurity and confusion caused by our desire to render the Afghan and the Chinese frontiers conterminous with our own, in the vain belief that the outposts of three large and distant kingdoms, acting in concert, will keep Russia more effectively out of India than a number of small independent republics or principalities. Afghanistan may now be big, but every so-called subject in her outlying districts is her inveterate foe. As stated in a letter from Nevsky to the Calcutta Englishman, in connection with Colonel Grambcheffsky’s recent explorations:
“One and all, these devastated tribes are firm in their conviction that the raids of their Afghan enemies were prompted and supported by the gold of Abdur Rahman’s English protectors. They will remember this on the plateau of Pamir, and among the tribes of Kaffiristan.”
However colourable this statement may be as regards Shignán, Raushan, and perhaps even Wakhan, I believe that the Kafirs are still our friends. At the same time it should not be forgotten that, owing to the closing of the slave-markets in Central Asia, the sale of Shiah subjects had temporarily stopped in Chitrál. The Kafirs were being less molested by kidnapping Muhammadan neighbours; the Hunzas went back to agriculture, which the Nagyris had never abandoned; Kashmîr, India, and the Russian side of Central Asia afforded no opening for the sale of human beings. The insensate ambition of officials, British and Russian, the gift of arms to marauding tribes and the destruction of Kashmîr influence, have changed all this, and it is only by a return to “masterly inactivity,” which does not mean the continuance of the Cimmerian darkness that now exists as to the languages and histories of the most interesting races of the world, that the peace and pockets of three mighty empires can be saved.
In the meanwhile, it is to the interest of Russia to force us into heavy military expenditure by false alarms; to create distrust between ourselves and China by pretending that Russia and England alone have civilizing missions in Central Asia, with which Chinese tyranny would interfere; to hold up before us the Will-o’-the-wisp of an impossible demarcation of the Pamirs, and finally, to ally itself with China against India. For let it not be forgotten, that once the Trans-Siberian railway is completed, China will be like wax in her hand; and that she will be compelled to place her immense material in men and food at the disposal of an overawing, but, as far as the personnel is concerned, not unamiable neighbour. The tribes, emasculated by our overwhelming civilization, and driven into three large camps, will no longer have the power of resistance that they now possess separately.
Let us therefore leave intact the two great belts of territories that Nature has raised for the preservation of peace in Asia—the Pamir with its adjacent regions to the east and west, and the zone of the Hindukush with its hives of independent tribes, intervening between Afghanistan on the one side and Kashmîr on the other, till India proper is reached. This will never be the case by a foreign invader, unless diplomatists “meddle and muddle,” and try to put together what Nature has put asunder. What we require is the cultivation of greater sympathy in our relations with natives; and, comparing big things with small, it is to this feeling that I myself owed my safety, when I put off the disguise in which I crossed the Kashmîr frontier in 1866 into countries then wrongly supposed by our Government to be inhabited by cannibals. This charge was also made, with equal error, by one tribe against the other. Then too, as in 1886, the Indian Press spoke of Russian intrigues; but then, as in 1886, I found the very name of Russia to be unknown, except where it had been learnt from a Kashmîr Munshi, who had no business to be there at all, as the treaty of 1846, by which we sold Kashmîr to Ghulab Singh, assigned the Indus as his boundary on the west. Now, as to the question as to “What and where are the Pamirs?” I have already stated my view in a letter to the Editor of the Morning Post, which I trust I may be allowed to quote:
“As some of the statements made at the Royal Geographical Society are likely to cause a sense of false security, as dangerous to peace as a false alarm, I write to say that ‘Pamirs’ do not mean ‘deserts,’ or ‘broken valleys,’ and that they are not uninhabitable or useless for movements of large bodies of men. They may be all this in certain places, at certain periods of the year, and under certain conditions; but had our explorers or statesmen paid attention to the languages of this part of the world, as they should in regard to every other with which they deal, they would have avoided many idle conjectures and the complications that may follow therefrom. I do not wish them to refer to philologists who have never been to the East, and who interpret ‘Pamir’ as meaning the ‘Upa-Meru’ Mountain of Indian mythology, but to the people who frequent the Pamirs during the summer months, year after year, for purposes of pasturage, starting from various points, and who in their own languages (Yarkandi, Turki, and Kirghiz) call the high plain, elevated valley, table-land, or plateau which they come across ‘Pamir.’ There are, therefore, in one sense many ‘Pamirs,’ and as a tout-ensemble, one ‘Pamir,’ or geographically, the ‘Pamir.’ The legend of the two brothers, ‘Alichur and Pamir,’ is merely a personification of two plateaux. Indeed, the obvious and popular idea which has always attached to the word ‘Pamir,’ is the correct one, whether it is the geographical ‘roof of the world,’ the ‘Bám-i-dunya’ of the poet, or the ‘Pamir-dunya’ of the modern journalist. We have, therefore, to deal with a series of plateaux, the topographical limits of which coincide with linguistic, ethnographical, and political limits. To the North, the Pamirs have the Trans-Altaic Mountain range marking the Turki element, under Russian influence; the Panja river, by whatever name, on the West is a Tadjik or Iranian Frontier [Affghan]. The Sarikol on the East is a Tibetan, Mongolian, or Chinese Wall, and the South is our natural frontier, the Hindukush, to go beyond which is physical death to the Hindu, and political ruin to the holder of India, as it also is certain destruction to the invader, except by one pass, which I need not name, and which is accessible from a Pamir. That the Pamirs are not uninhabitable may be inferred from Colonel Grambcheffsky’s account [which is published at length elsewhere in this issue of the Asiatic Quarterly Review]. A few passages from it must now suffice:—‘The Pamir is far from being a wilderness. It contains a permanent population, residing in it both summer and winter.’ ‘The population is increasing to a marked extent.’ ‘Slavery on the Pamir is flourishing: moreover, the principal contingents of slaves are obtained from Chatrar, Jasen, and Kanshoot, chanates under the protectorate of England.’ ‘On descending into Pamir we found ourselves between the cordons of the Chinese and Affghan armies.’ ‘The population of Shoognan, numbering 2,000 families, had fled to Pamir, hoping to find a refuge in the Russian Provinces’ (from ‘the untold atrocities which the Affghans were committing in the conquered provinces of Shoognan,’ etc.). ‘I term the whole of the tableland “Pamir,” in view of the resemblance of the valleys to each other.’
“The climate of the Pamirs is variable, from more than tropical heat in the sun to arctic cold in the shade, and in consequence, is alike provocative and destructive of life. Dr. G. Capus, who crossed them from north to south, exactly as Mr. Littledale has done, but several months in the year before him, says in his ‘Observations Météorologiques sur le Pamir,’ which he sent to the last Oriental Congress,—‘The first general fact is the inconstancy of severe cold. The nights are generally coldest just before sunrise.’ ‘We found an extreme amplitude of 61 deg. between the absolute minimum and maximum, and of 41 deg. between the minimum and the maximum in the shade during the same day.’ ‘The thermometer rises and falls rapidly with the height of the sun.’ ‘Great cold is less frequent and persistent than was believed to be the case at the period of the year dealt with’ (March 13 to April 19), ‘and is compensated by daily intervals of elevation of temperature, which permit animal life, represented by a fairly large number of species, and including man, to keep up throughout the winter under endurable conditions.’ Yet ‘the water-streak of snow, which has melted in contact with a dark object, freezes immediately when put into the shadow of the very same object.’ ... The solution of political difficulties in Central Asia is not in a practically impossible, and certainly unmaintainable, demarcation of the Pamirs, but in the strengthening of the autonomy of the most interesting races that inhabit the series of Circassias that already guard the safety alike of British, Chinese, and of Russian dominion or spheres of influence in Central Asia.”
Woking, Nov. 29.
It is not impossible that the tribes may again combine in 1892 as they did in 1866 to turn out the Kashmîr troops from Gilgit. The want of wisdom shown in forcing on the construction of a road from Chalt to Aliabad, in the centre of Hunza, as announced in to-day’s Times, must bring on, if not a confederation of the tribes against us, at any rate their awakened distrust. It is doubtful whether it was ever expedient to establish an outpost at Gilgit, and the carrying it still farther to the traditional apple of discord, the holding of Chalt, which commands the Hunza road, is still more impolitic. As in Affghanistan, so here, whatever power does not interfere is looked upon as the saviour from present evils. Once we have created big agglomerations under Affghanistan, or China, or Kashmir, we are liable to the dangers following either on collapse, want of cohesion, treachery from within, the ambitions of a few men at the respective courts, or, as with us, to serious fluctuations in foreign politics due to the tactics of English parties. The change, therefore, from natural boundaries to the wirepulling of diplomatists at Kabul, Peking, or Downing Street is not in the interests of peace, of our empire, or of civilization. Besides, it should not be forgotten that we have added an element of disturbance, far more subtle than the Babu, to our frontier difficulties. The timid Kashmîri is unsurpassed as an intriguer and adventurer among tribes beyond his frontier. The time seems to have arrived when, in the words of the well-known Persian proverb,[107] the sparseness of races round the Pamirs should bid us to be on our guard against the Affghan, the “bad-raced” Kashmîrî, and the Kambó (supposed to be the tribe on the banks of the Jhelum beyond Mozaffarabad). Perhaps, however, the Kambó is the Heathen Chinee; and the proverb would then be entirely applicable to the present question. After the construction of the Trans-Siberian Railway, Russia will be able to exert the greatest pressure on China. The Russian strength at Vladivostok is already enormous, and when the time comes she can hurl an overwhelming force on what remains of Chinese Manchuria, before which Chinese resistance will melt like snow. Peking and the north of China are thus quite at the mercy of Russia. She will find there the most populous country of those she rules in Asia, and with ample supplies. China has a splendid raw material, militarily speaking; and Russia could there form the biggest army that has ever been seen in Asia, to hold in terrorem over a rival or to hurl at the possessions of a foe.
It is against such possibilities that the maintenance of “masterly inactivity,” qualified by the moral and, if need be, pecuniary or other material support of the Anglo-Indian Government is needed. This is the object of this paper, before I enter into the more agreeable task of describing the languages, customs, and country of perhaps the most interesting races that inhabit the globe.
The Times of the 30th November publishes a map of the Pamirs and an account of the questions connected with them that, like many other statements in its articles on “Indian affairs,” are incorrect and misleading. Having been on a special mission by the Panjab Government, in 1866, when I discovered the races and languages of “Dardistan,” and gave the country that name, and again having been on special duty with the Foreign Department of the Government of India in 1886 in connection with the Boorishki language and race of Hunza, Nagyr, and a part of Yasin, regarding which I have recently completed Part I. of a large work, I may claim to speak with some authority as regards these districts, even if I had no other claim. The point which I wish to specially contradict at present, is the one relating to the Russians bringing themselves into almost direct contact with “the Hunza and other tribes subject to Kashmîr and, as such, entitled to British protection and under British control.”
Dr. Leitner as a Bukhara Maulvi, when crossing the Frontier in 1866 during the Kashmîr War with the Dard Tribes.
When I crossed the then Kashmîr frontier in 1866, in the disguise of a Bokhara Maulvi, armed with a testimonial of Muhammadan theological learning, I found that the tribes of Hunza, Nagyr, Dareyl, Yasin, and Chitrál had united under the leadership of the last-named to expel the Kashmîr invaders from the Gilgit Fort. My mission was a purely linguistic one; but the sight of dying and dead men along the road, that of heads stuck up along the march of the Kashmîr troops, and the attempts made on my life by our feudatory, the late Maharaja of Kashmîr, compelled me to pay attention to other matters besides the languages, legends, songs, and fables of the interesting races with whom I now came in contact under circumstances that might not seem to be favourable to the accomplishment of my task. I had been warned by the then Lieutenant-Governor of the Panjab, Sir Donald McLeod, whose like we have not seen again, not to cross the frontier, as the tribes beyond were supposed to be cannibals; but as I could not get the information of which I was in search within our frontier, I had to cross it. My followers were frightened off by all sorts of wild stories, till our party was reduced from some fifty to three, including myself. The reason for all this was, that the Maharaja was afraid that I should find out and report his breach of the Treaty by which we sold Kashmîr to him in 1846, and in which the Indus is laid down as his boundary on the west. In 1866, therefore, at any rate, even the tenure of Gilgit, which is on the other side of the Indus, was contested and illegal, whilst the still more distant Hunza and Nagyr had more than once inflicted serious punishment on the Kashmîr troops that sought to invade districts that have preserved their autonomy during the last fourteen centuries, as was admitted by The Times of the 2nd November, 1891, before its present change with the times, if an unintentional pun may be permitted.
Then, as ever, the Anglo-Indian newspapers spoke of Russian intrigues in those regions. I am perfectly certain that if, instead of the fussiness of our statesmen and the sensationalism of our journals, the languages, history, and relations of these little-known races had been studied by them, we should never have heard of Russia in that part of the East. It is also not by disingenuousness and short cuts on maps or in diplomacy, but by knowledge, that physical, ethnographical, and political problems are to be solved; nor will the bold and brilliant robberies of Russia be checked by our handing over the inhabitants of the supposed “cradle of the human race” to Affghan, Kashmîr, or Chinese usurpations. Above all, it is a loss of time to palm off myths as history in order to suit the policy or conceal the ignorance of the moment.
Just as little as Darwaz and Karategin are ancestral dominions of Bokhara, and, therefore, under Russian influence, so little did even Badakhshan, and much less so, Raushan, Shignan, and Wakhan, ever really belong to Affghanistan. As for the Chinese hold on Turkistan, we ourselves denied it when we coquetted with Yakub Khush Begi, though Kitái was ever the acknowledged superior of Eastern Turkistan. If Hunza admits any allegiance, it is to China, and not to Kashmîr; and the designations of offices of rule in that country are of Chinese, and not of Aryan origin, including even “Thàm,” the title of its Raja.
As a matter of fact, however, the vast number of tribes that inhabit the many countries between the Indus and the Kuner own no master except their own tribal head or the tribal council. From kidnapping Hunza, where the right to plunder is monarchical, hereditary, and “ayeshó” = “heaven-born,” to the peace and learning of republican Kandiá or Gabriál, all want to be left alone. If a neighbour becomes troublesome, he is raided on till an interchange of presents restores harmony. It is impossible to say that either side is tributary to the other. The wealthier gives the larger present; the bigger is considered the superior in a general sort of way, and so two horses, two dogs, and a handful of gold dust are yearly sent by Hunza to Kashmîr or to Yarkand as a cloak for much more substantial exactions in return. Nagyr sends a basket of apricots instead of the horses and dogs. In 1871 Chitrál still paid a tribute to Badakhshan in slaves, but it would be absurd to infer from this fact that Chitrál ever acknowledged the suzerainty of Jehandar Shah, or of the Affghan faction that dispossessed him. Nor were the Khaibaris, or other highway robbers, our rulers, because we paid them blackmail, or they our subjects because they might bring us “sweetmeats.”
The points in which most Englishmen are as deficient as Russians are generally proficient, are language and a sympathetic manner with natives. That, however, linguistic knowledge is not useless may be inferred from the fact that it enabled me, to use the words of my Chief, Commissary General H. S. Jones, C.B., during the Russian War in 1855, “to pass unharmed through regions previously unknown and among tribes hitherto unvisited by any European.”
Also in topography and geography linguistics are necessary; and the absurd mistakes now made at certain learned societies and in certain scientific journals, regarding the Pamirs, would be avoided by a little study of the Oriental languages concerned. In 1866, the map which accompanies my philological work on “Dardistan” shows, on linguistic grounds, and on the basis of native itineraries, the various Pamirs that have been partially revealed within the last few weeks, or have been laboriously ascertained by expensive Russian and British expeditions between 1867 and 1890. The publication of my material, collected at my own expense and which shall no longer be delayed, would have saved many complications; but when, e.g., I pointed out, in 1866, that the Indus, after leaving Bunji, ran west instead of south, as on the then existing maps, I got into trouble with the Topographical Survey, which “discovered” the fact through its well-known “Mulla” in 1876. The salvation of India that is not made “departmentally” is crucified; and whoever does not belong to the regular military or civil services has no business to know or to suggest. Mr. Curzon, when presiding at a meeting of the late Oriental Congress, assured us that a new era had risen; but only the other night, at the Royal Geographical Society, a complaint was made of the reluctance of official departments in giving the Society information. As a rule, the mysteriousness of offices only conceals their ignorance, of which we have an instance in Capt. Younghusband being sent to shut the passes after the Russians had already stolen a march on, or through, them.
The neutralization of the Pamirs is the only solution of a difficulty created by the conjectural treaties of diplomatists and the ambition of military emissaries. Left as a huge happy hunting-ground for sportsmen, or as pasturage for nomads from whatever quarter, the Pamirs form the most perfect “neutral zone” conceivable. That the wanderings of these nomads should be accompanied by territorial or political claims, whether by Russia, China, Affghanistan, Kashmir, or ourselves, is the height of absurdity. As for Hunza-Nagyr, the sooner they are left to themselves the better for us, who are not bound to help Kashmîr in encroaching on them. Kashmîr managed them very fairly after 1848; and when it was occasionally defeated, its prestige did not suffer, for the next summer invariably found the tribal envoys again suing for peace and presents. The sooner the Gilgit Agency is withdrawn, the greater will be our reputation for fair dealing. Besides, we can take hostages from the Chiefs’ families as guarantees of future tranquillity. Hunza-Nagyr are certainly not favourable to Russia, whilst Nagyr is decidedly friendly to us. The sensational account of Colonel Grambcheffsky’s visit to Hunza, which he places on his map where Nagyr is, seems to be one of the usual traps to involve us in great military expenditure and to alienate the tribes from us. It is also not creditable that, for party or personal purposes, the peaceful and pious Nagyris,—whom our own Gilgit Resident, Colonel Biddulph, has reported on as distinguished for “timidity and incapacity for war,” “never having joined the Hunza raids,” “slavery being unknown in Nagyr,”—should be described as “kidnappers,” “raiders along with Hunza,” “slave-dealers,” “robbers,” and “scoundrels,”—statements made by a correspondent from Gilgit in a morning newspaper of to-day, and to all of which I give an unqualified contradiction.
The establishment of the Gilgit Agency has already drawn attention to the shortest road for the invasion of India; and it is significant that its advocate at Gilgit should admit that all the tribes of the Indus Valley “sympathized with the Hunzas,” from whose depredations they are erroneously supposed to have suffered, and that they were likely “to attack the British from behind by a descent on the Gilgit road” to Kashmîr. Why should “the only other exit from Gilgit by way of the Indus Valley be through territories held by tribes hostile to the British”? Have the Gilgit doings already alienated the poor, but puritanical Chilásis, tributaries of Kashmîr, who adjoin our settled British district of Kaghan? Are we to dread the Republic of Muhammadan learning, Kandiá, that has not a single fort; pastoral Dareyl; the Koli-Palus traders; agricultural Tangir, and other little Republics—one only of eleven houses? As for the places beyond them, our officials at Attock, Peshawur, Rawalpindi, and Abbottabad will deal with the Pathan tribes in their own neighbourhood, which have nothing to do with the adjoining Republics of quiet, brave, and intelligent Dards, on both sides of the Indus, up to Gilgit, to which I have referred, and which deserve our respectful study, sympathy, and unobtrusive support.
G. W. Leitner.
16th December, 1891.
The following account, published by Reuter’s Telegram Company, will supplement the preceding article:—
“Woking, Dec. 13.
“A representative of Reuter’s Agency interviewed Dr. Leitner at his residence at Woking to-day, with the object of eliciting some information on the subject of the Hunza and Nagyr tribes, with whom the British forces are at present in conflict.
“Dr. Leitner, it is needless to say, is the well-known discoverer of the races and languages of Dardistan (the country between Kabul and Kashmir), which he so named when sent on a linguistic mission by the Punjab Government in 1864, at a time when the various independent tribes, including Hunza and Nagyr, had united in order to turn the troops of the Maharaja of Kashmir out of Gilgit. At that time it was considered that the treaty of 1846, by which Great Britain sold Kashmir to the Maharaja, had confined him to the Indus as his westward boundary, and had therefore rendered his occupation of Gilgit an encroachment and breach of treaty.
“Dr. Leitner, although the country was in a state of war, which is not favourable to scientific research, managed to collect a mass of information, and a fine ethnographical collection, which is at the museum at Woking. He has also made many friends in the country, and is doubtless the highest, if not the only, authority regarding these countries.
“Dr. Leitner, who was quite unprepared for to-day’s visit, said that the relations which he had kept up with the natives of Gilgit, Hunza, Nagyr, and Yasin forced him to the conclusion that a conflict had been entered into which might have easily been avoided by a little more sympathy and knowledge, especially of the Nagyr people. Indeed, it was not a light matter that could have induced the venerable chief of Nagyr to make common cause with his hereditary foe of Hunza, unless he feared that the British threatened their respective independence.
“Not many weeks ago Dr. Leitner received a letter from the chief of Nagyr, in which he recommended to his kind attention his son, now in Kashmir, on the ground that he, even more so than any other member of his numerous family, was a well-wisher to the British Government. At that time the chief could not have had any feelings of animosity, although he might have protested, together with his rival of Hunza, against the British occupation of Chalt. In fact, it was not true that Nagyr and Hunza were really subject to Kashmir, except in the vague way in which these States constantly recognised the suzerainty of a neighbouring power in the hope of getting substantial presents for their offerings of a few ounces of gold dust, a couple of dogs, or basket of apricots, etc. Thus Chitrál, the ally of Great Britain, used to pay a tribute of slaves to the Ameers of Badakshan; but it would be absurd on that ground to render Chitrál a part of Afghanistan, because Badakshan now, in a manner, belongs to Abdurrahman. Hunza, again, sends a tribute to China; and, in a general way, China is the only Power that ever had a shadow of claim on these countries, but it is a mere shadow. Dr. Leitner said, the only policy for Great Britain is, in the words of the Secretary of State or Viceroy, ‘to maintain and strengthen all the indigenous Governments.’ This policy he would extend to the triangle which has Peshawur for its base, and thereby interpose a series of almost impregnable mountainous countries, which would be sufficiently defended by the independence of their inhabitants. If Circassia could oppose Russia for thirty years, even although Russia had the command of the Black Sea, how much more effective would be the resistance of the innumerable Circassias which Providence had placed between ourselves and the Russian frontier in Asia? We ought to have made these tribes look upon us as a distant but powerful friend, ready to help them in an emergency; but now, by attacking two of them, we caused Russia to be looked upon as the coming Saviour; indeed, the people of Wakhan, on the Pamir side of Hunza, were already doing so, whilst Shignan and Roshan, which had been almost depopulated by our friends, the Afghans, had already begun to emigrate into Russian territory. Here Dr. Leitner added that the Russian claims through Bokhara were as illusory as those of Kashmir, and historically even less founded than those of China. Indeed, no one had a right to these countries except the indigenous peoples and chiefs who inhabited them; and in this scramble for the regions round the Pamir, great Britain was simply breaking down her natural defences by stamping out the independence of native tribes and making military roads; for it was the absence of those roads on the British side that rendered it impossible to an invader to do England any real harm or to advance on India proper.
Asked why the trouble had broken out at the present time, Dr. Leitner said, that he had been kept without information of the immediate cause, but he felt certain that it was owing to the attempt to construct a military road to Hunza, whereby England would only facilitate the advent of a possible invader from that direction, besides making Hunza throw in its lot with that invader. It was perfectly untrue, as alleged in some of the Indian papers, that the Nagyris were kidnappers, and that our attack would be an advantage to the cause of anti-slavery. The fact was just the other way. Kidnapping had been stopped in 1869 as far as Hunza was concerned.
The Nagyris never raided at all; Chitrál also gave up selling its Káfir or Shiah subjects into slavery when the markets of Badakshan were closed; but now that confusion had caused the English and Russian advance, Hunza had again taken to raiding, and Chitrál to selling slaves. As for Nagyr, the case was quite different; they were an excellent people and very quiet, so much so that Colonel Biddulph, the Resident, described them as “noted for timidity and incapacity for war,” whereas in his “Tribes of the Hindu Kush” he also states that the people of Hunza are not warlike in the sense in which the Afghans are said to be so. No doubt the Nagyris dislike war, but would fight bravely if driven to do so. Colonel Biddulph adds: “They are settled agricultural communities, proud of the independence they have always maintained for fourteen centuries, hemmed in by lofty mountains, and living under rulers who boast of long, unbroken descent from princes of native blood.” He also bears testimony to the fact that “the Nagyr people were never concerned in these raids, and slavery does not exist among them.” At the same time Dr. Leitner fully admitted that the Hunza people were not a model race, since they used to be desperate raiders and kidnappers, and very immoral and impious. The father of the present king used to dance in a state of drunkenness in the mosque; but, on the other hand, we were not bound to be the reformers of Hunza by pulling down one of the bulwarks to our Indian Empire. Hunza was a picturesque country in every sense; it was nominally governed by fairies: ecstatic women were the prophetesses of the tribe, recounted its past glories, and told what was going on in the neighbouring valleys, so they were its historians and journalists as well as its prophetesses. No war was undertaken unless the fairies gave their consent, and the chief fairy, Yudeni, who protects the “Tham” (a Chinese title), has no doubt already struck the sacred drum in order to call the men of the country to defend the “Heaven-born,” as their chief is called. The two “Thams” of Hunza and Nagyr, who have a common ancestry, are also credited with the power of causing rain, and there would certainly appear to be some foundation for this remarkable fact.
The two tribes are great polo players; archery on horseback is common amongst them; and they are very fair ibex hunters.
The people of Nagyr are as pious and gentle as those of Hunza are the contrary. Their language went back to simple sounds as indicative of a series of human relations or experiences, and clearly showed that the customs and associations of a race were at the basis of so-called rules of grammar. Nothing more wonderful than their language could be conceived; it went to the root of human thought as expressed in language, but the language had already suffered by foreign influences between 1866, when one son of the Rajah of Nagyr taught him, and 1886, when another son of the Rajah continued his lessons.
As regards religion, the Hunzas are Mulais, a mysterious and heretical sect, akin to the Druses of the Lebanon, practising curious rites, and practically infidels. He had obtained a few pages of their secret Bible, the Kelam-i-pir, which throws much light on the doctrines of the so-called “assassins” during the Crusades. The Nagyris are pious Muhammadans of the Shiah denomination.
Dr. Leitner then showed the map accompanying his linguistic work on Dardistan. After comparing it with the most recent Russian and British maps, that of Dr. Leitner gives the fullest and clearest information, not only as regards Hunza-Nagyr, where all the places where fighting has occurred are marked, but also as regards the various Pamirs, thus anticipating in 1866 on linguistic grounds and native itineraries the different Pamirs that have recently been settled geographically. It shows that the ethnographical frontier of the Pamirs to the north are the Turki-speaking nomads of the trans-Altaic range (now Russian); to the west the Persian, or Tajiks (now Afghan); to the south the Aryan Hindu Kush [British]; and to the east the wall of the Serikol Mountains, dividing or admitting Chinese, Tibetan, or Mongolian influence. The indeterminate river courses through the Pamir, or a line stretched across its plateaux, valleys, and mountains, are obviously an unmaintainable demarcation, which is liable to be transgressed by shepherds under whatever rule; but the whole of the Pamirs together, as a huge and happy hunting-ground, are, no doubt, if neutralized by the three Powers concerned, the best possible frontier, as “no man’s land,” and a perfect neutral zone. “What matter,” continued Dr. Leitner, “if the passes are easy of access on the Russian side, it is on the descent, and on the ascent on our side that almost insuperable difficulties begin. Where we are now fighting in Hunza-Nagyr only the low state of the river which divides Hunza from Nagyr enables us to make a simultaneous advance on both. Otherwise we should have to let ourselves man by man down from one ledge of rock to another, and if we miss our footing be whirled away in the most terrible torrent the imagination can conceive. Why, then, destroy such a great defence in our favour if Hunza is kept friendly, as it so easily can be, especially with the pressure exercised on it by the Nagyris, whose forts frown on those of Hunza all down the river that separates their countries? I cannot conceive anything more wanton or suicidal than the present advance even if we should succeed in removing one of the most important landmarks in the history of the human race by shooting down the handful of Nagyris and Hunzas that oppose us. They preserve the pre-historic remnants of legends and customs that explain much that is still obscure in the life and history of European races. A few hundred pounds a year judiciously spent and the promise of the withdrawal of the Gilgit Agency, which was already once before attacked when under Colonel Biddulph, would be a far better way of securing peace than shooting down with Gatlings and Martini-Henry rifles people who defend their independence within their crags with bows, arrows, battleaxes, and a few muskets; and promise of the withdrawal of the Gilgit Agency might be contingent upon the increase of the number of hostages belonging to the chiefs’ families that are now annually sent to Kashmir as a guarantee of friendly relations.
The Hunzas and Nagyris are not to be despised as foes; they are very good marksmen. In 1886, when the Kashmir troops thought they had cleared the plain before the Gilgit Fort entirely of enemies, and not a person was to be seen outside it, the tribesmen would glide along the ground unperceived behind a stone pushed in front of them, and resting their old flint muskets on them shoot off the Maharajah’s Sepoys whenever they showed themselves outside the fort. Indeed, it was this circumstance that induced Dr. Leitner to abandon the protection of the fort and make friends with the tribesmen outside. All the tribes desired was to be left alone in their mountain fastnesses. They had sometimes internecine feuds, but would unite against the common foe. It was merely emasculating their powers of resistance to subject them, either on the one side to Bokhara, which meant Russia, or to Afghanistan or Kashmir, which meant Great Britain, or to China, which meant dependence on a Power that might be utilized any day against Great Britain after the completion of the trans-Siberian railway. Diplomatists, frontier delimitation commissions, and officers, both British and Russian, anxious for promotion, had, continued Dr. Leitner, created the present confusion; and it was now high time to rely rather on the physical obstacles that guaranteed the safety alike of the British, Russian, and Chinese frontiers than on the chapter of political accidents.
Dr. Leitner, who is going to give a lecture at the Westminster Town-hall to-morrow afternoon on “The Races, Religions, and Politics of the Pamir Regions,” then showed our representative Col. Grambcheffsky’s map, which put Hunza where Nagyr ought to be, and ignored the latter place altogether, just as did the last map of the Geographical Society in connection with Mr. Littledale’s tour. Grambcheffsky’s map, however, had since been corrected by evidently an English map, and it was strange that Russians had easier access to English maps than Englishmen themselves. In fact, all this secrecy, Dr. Leitner maintained, was injurious to the acquisition of full knowledge regarding imperfectly known regions. Attention was then directed to a number of maps, that of Mr. Drew, a Kashmir official, showing Hunza-Nagyr to be beyond Kashmir influence. This was practically confirmed by several official maps and the statements of Colonels Biddulph and Hayward, the latter of whom placed the Kashmir frontier towards Hunza at Nomal, whilst the British are now fighting sixteen and a half miles beyond in front of Mayun, where the first Hunza fort is. The Nagyr frontier Dr. Leitner places at Jaglot, which is nineteen miles from Nilt, where we are simultaneously fighting the first Nagyr fort.
Dr. Leitner, in conclusion, expressed his conviction, from his knowledge of the people concerned, that any one with a sympathetic mind could get them to do anything in reason; but that encroachments, whether overt or covert, would be resisted to the utmost. Indeed, England’s restlessness had brought on the present trouble.
In 1866, he stated, the very name of Russia was unknown in these parts, and in 1886 was only known to a few. Yet the English Press in both these years spoke of Russian intrigues among the tribes. He did not fear them as long as the Indian Empire relied on its natural defences, its inner strength, and on justice to its chiefs and people, and as long as its policy with the tribes was guided by knowledge and good feeling.
APPENDIX II.
NOTES ON RECENT EVENTS IN CHILÁS AND CHITRÁL.
In 1866 I was sent by the Punjab Government on a linguistic mission to Kashmir and Chilás at the instance of the Bengal Asiatic Society and on the motion of the late Sir George Campbell, who hoped to identify Kailás or the Indian Olympus with Chilás.[108] Although unable to support that conjecture, I collected material which was published in Part I. of my “Dardistan” and which the Government declared “as throwing very considerable and important light on matters heretofore veiled in great obscurity.” That some obscurity still exists, is evident from the Times telegram of to-day (5th December, 1892), in which an item of news from the Tak [Takk] valley is described as coming from Chitrál, a distant country with which Chilás has nothing to do. The Takk village is fortified, and through the valley is the shortest and easiest road to our British district of Kaghán. It is alleged that some headmen of Takk wished to see Dr. Robertson at Gilgit, who thereupon sent a raft to bring them, but the raft was fired on and Capt. Wallace, who went to its assistance, was wounded. [Chilás is on the Kashmir side of the Indus, and the Gilgit territory is reached by crossing the Indus at Bunji.]
The incident is ascribed either to “the treachery of the men who professed willingness to come in” or to the mischievousness of “other persons.” It is probable from this suggestion of treachery and the unconscious use of the words “to come in,” which is the Anglo-Indian equivalent for “surrender,” that the headmen of Takk were not willing to make over their Fort to the British or to open the road to Gilgit. The Takk incident, therefore, is not a part of the so-called “Chitrál usurpation,” under which heading it immediately appears, but is a part of our usurpation on the tribes inhabiting the banks of the Indus. In 1843, these tribes inflicted a severe loss on the Sikh invaders, and in my “history of the wars with Kashmir” the part taken by the manly defenders of Takk, now reduced from 131 to some 90 houses, is given in detail. It seems to me that as the Gilgit force was unable to support “the Chitrál usurpation” of our protégé, Afzul-ul-Mulk, owing to his being killed by his uncle Sher Afzul, it is to be employed to coerce the Indus tribes to open out a road which ought never to have been withdrawn from their hold. About 50 years ago the Takk men were stirred into so-called rebellion by Kashmir agents in order to justify annexation. It is to be hoped that history will not repeat itself, or that, at any rate, the next 50 years will see the Indus tribes as independent and peaceful as they have been since 1856, especially in Chilás (before 1892), and as mysterious as Hunza ought to have remained till our unnecessary attack on that country caused practically unknown Russia to be looked upon as the Saviour of Nations “rightly struggling to be free” (see Baron Vrevsky’s reply to the Hunza deputation). Quem Deus vult perdere, prius dementat; and no greater instance of folly can be conceived, than the construction of a military road through countries in which the chamois is often puzzled for its way. Nor was the attention of the Russians drawn to them before we made our own encroachments.
As for the Pamirs, whatever may be the present interpretation of Prince Gortchakoff’s Convention, the Russians were unwilling to let political consequences or limits accompany the erratic wanderings of Kirghiz sheep in search of pasturage in that region. Prince Gortchakoff’s advocacy of a Neutral Zone and of the autonomy of certain tribes was justified by the facts (which he, however, rather guessed than knew) and was worthy alike of that Diplomatist and of our acceptance in the interests of India and of peace. The incorporation of certain Districts in the domain, or under the sphere of influence, of Afghanistan, was distasteful to tribes attached to their hereditary rulers or to republican institutions and was not too willingly accepted by the Amir of Afghanistan, who now expects us to defend the white Elephants that we have given him better than we did Panjdeh. Some Muláis that had fled from Russian tyranny to Afghan territory assured me that “the finger of an Afghan was more oppressive than the whole Russian army.” Indeed, so far as Central Asia is concerned, Russia, with the exception of certain massacres, has hitherto behaved, on the whole, as a great civilizing power.[109]
As for Sirdar Nizám-ul-Mulk, this is his name and not his title. He is the “Mihtar” or “Prince” Nizám-ul-Mulk, and neither an Indian “Sirdár” nor a “Nizám.” He is also the “Badshah” of Turikoh, this being the district assigned to him in his father’s lifetime as the heir-apparent. He was snubbed by us for offering to relieve that excellent officer, Col. Lockhart, when a prisoner in Wakhan! He has written to me from Turikoh for “English phrases and words with their Persian equivalents as a pleasure and a requirement.” This does not look like hostility to the British. He spoke to me in 1886 of his brother Afzul’s bravery with affection and pride, though he has ever maintained his own acknowledged right as the successor of his father Amán-ul-Mulk. If he has been alienated from us or has ever been tempted to throw himself into the arms of Russia, it has most assuredly been our fault. Besides, just as we have abandoned the Shiah Hazaras, our true friends during the late Afghan War, to be destroyed by their religious and political foe, the Sunni Amir Abdurrahman, so have the Amir Sher Ali and the Tham of Hunza, Safdar Ali Khan, rued their trust in Russian Agents. I regret, therefore, to find in the Times telegram of to-day that “the Nizám” “is acting without the support of the British Agent” “who has not interfered,” when he had already interfered in favour of the usurper Afzul-ul-Mulk.
As for the connivance of Amir Abdurrahman, my “rough history of Dardistan from 1800 to 1872” shows that, in one sense, Chitrál is tributary to Badakhshán and as we have assigned Badakhshán to the Amir, he, no doubt, takes an interest in Chitrál affairs. I believe, however, that interest to be somewhat platonic, and he knows that his friend Jehandár Shah (the late wrongfully deposed hereditary ruler of Badakhshán) never paid any tribute to Afghanistan. But Chitrál once also paid tribute to Dîr, with whose able Chief, Rahmat-ullah-Khan, “the Nizám” is connected by marriage. Chitrál on the other hand has received a subsidy from Kashmir since 1877, but this was as much a tribute from Kashmir to Aman-ul-Mulk, as a sign of his subjection to Kashmir, for shortly after he made offers of allegiance to Kabul. With all alike it is
“The good old rule, the simple plan,
That they should take who have the power
And they should keep who can.”
It is misleading to speak of their relations to neighbouring States as “tributary.” Are the Khyberis tributary to us or we to them, because we pay them a tribute to let our merchants travel through their Pass? Have we never ourselves come, first as suppliants, then as merchants, then as guests, then as advisers, then as protectors, and, finally, as conquerors?
The procedure of Afghanistan, of Chitrál, of Kashmir, and of our own is very much alike and so are the several radii of influence of the various factors in “the question.” We have our fringe of independent frontier tribes with whom we flirt, or wage war, as suits the convenience of the moment. Afghanistan has a similar fringe of independent Ishmaelites round it and even through it, whose hands are against everybody and everybody’s hands against them. Chitrál is threatened all along its line by the Kafirs, who even make a part of Badakhshán insecure, but are nevertheless our very good friends. Kashmir has its fringe on its extreme border, especially since, in violation of our treaty of 1846, it has attacked countries beyond the Indus on the west, including the Kunjûtis of Hunza, who resumed their raiding—which had ceased in 1867—during and after Col. Lockhart’s visit in 1886. Yet there can be little doubt about “the loyalty” of those concerned. The Amirs of Afghanistan consider themselves “shields of India,” as I have heard two of them say, and so did our Ally of Kashmir, who ought never to have been reduced to a subordinate feudatory position. What wonder then that old Amán-ul-Mulk of Chitrál should also have tried to become a buffer between Afghanistan on the West, Kashmir on the East, India on the South and, latterly, Russia in the North, if indeed the whole story of Russian intrigue in Chitrál be at all truer than a similar mare’s nest which we discovered in Hunza? It is the policy of Russia to create false alarms and thereby to involve us in expenditure, whilst standing by and posing as the future saviour of the tribes. Our tendency to compromises and subservient Commissions of delimitation and to “scuttling” occasionally, is also well known and so we are offered in Russian papers “an Anglo-Russian understanding on the subject of Chitrál,” as if Chitrál was not altogether out of the sphere of Russia’s legitimate influence! It is also amusing to find in the Novosti that Russia’s sole desire is “to prevent Afghanistan from falling into British hands.” We are already spending at Gilgit on food etc. for our troops more in one year than were spent in the 40 years of the so-called mismanagement of Kashmir, which I myself steadily exposed, but which kept the frontier far more quiet than it has been since the revival of the Gilgit Agency. There is every prospect now of heavier and continued expenditure as the policy of the Foreign Department of the Government of India develops. On that policy a veto should at once be put by the British Parliament and public, if our present Liberal Administration cannot do so without pressure from without. We should conciliate Nizam-ul-Mulk before it is too late. He is connected with Umra Khan of Jandôl and with the influential Mullah Shahu of Bajaur through his maternal uncle, Kokhan Beg. He has also connections in Badakhshan, Hunza and Dîr, as already stated. Indeed, we ought to have given him our support from the beginning. I doubt whether it would be desirable to subdivide Chitrál as stated in to-day’s Times, letting Sher Afzul keep Chitrál proper, giving Yasin to “the Nizám” and letting Umra Khan retain what he has already seized of Southern Chitrál. As for Sher Afzul, I believe, that he is also “loyal.”
As for Hunza, I am not at all certain that the fugitive, Safdar Ali Khan, really murdered his father. At all events when the deed was committed, I find that it was attributed to Muhammad Khan,[110] probably not the present Mir Muhammad Nazim who has acknowledged the suzerainty of England (through Kashmir) and of China. The latter power has always had something to say to Hunza, and the very title of its Chief “Tham” is of Chinese origin. The subsidy that China used to pay for keeping open the commercial road from Badakhshan and Wakhan through the Pamirs along Kunjût (Hunza) to Yarkand, was about £380 per annum, and this sum was divided between four States and ensured the immunity of the route from raids.[111] I doubt whether in future £380 a year on Hunza alone will enable us to keep it quiet, and I am sure that the lofty superciliousness with which Chinese officials discuss the Pamir question, as something that scarcely concerns them, is no evidence of that pertinacious power abandoning claims to a suzerainty in those regions which are historically founded, although their exercise has been more by an appeal to imagination of the glorious and invincible, if distant, “Khitái,” than by actual interference.
Indeed, it is China alone that has a grievance—against Russia for the occupation of the Alichur Pamir—against Afghanistan for expelling her troops from Somatash (of subsequent Yanoff fame)—and against England for encroaching on her ancient feudatory of Hunza, whose services in suppressing the Khoja rebellion in 1847 are commemorated in a tablet on one of the gates of Yarkand.
H. H. Mihtar Nizam-ul-Mulk and his late Yasin Council.
Chitrali Musicians and the Badakshi Poet, Taighun Shah.
Note.—We add a reproduction of the photographs of the Mihtar and Badshah Nizam-ul-Mulk, sitting in Council with his uncle, Bahadur Khan, now at Gilgit, where he represented Afzul-ul-Mulk. On the Nizam’s left is his foster-uncle, Maimun Shah, whilst behind him stand our Indian Agent, Wafadár Khan and a Chitráli office-holder, Wazîr Khan, of corresponding rank. We also give the portrait of the Chitrál Court poet and musician, the celebrated Taighûn Shah, one of whose songs, with its notation, was published in our issue of the 1st of January, 1891. He is seated with the two flute-players who always precede the King of Chitrál when on a tour.
Although the period may be past in which a great English Journal could ask, “what is Gilgit?” the contradictory telegrams and newspaper accounts which we receive regarding the countries adjoining Gilgit show that the Press has still much to learn. Names of places, as far apart as Edinburgh and London, are put within a day’s march on foot. Names of men figure on maps as places and the relationships of the Chiefs of the region in question are invented or confounded as may suit the politics of the moment, if not the capacity of the printer. The injunctions of the Decalogue are applied or misapplied, extended or curtailed, to suit immediate convenience, and a different standard of morality is constantly being found for our friends of to-day or our foes of to-morrow. The youth Afzul-ul-Mulk was credited with all human virtues and with even more than British manliness, as he was supposed to be friendly to us. He had given his country into our hands in order to receive our support against his elder brother, the acknowledged heir of the late Aman-ul-Mulk of Chitrál, but that elder brother, Nizám-ul-Mulk, was no less friendly to English interests, although he has the advantage of being a man of capacity and independence. The sudden death of Aman-ul-Mulk coincided with the presence of our protégé at Chitrál, and the first thing that the virtuous Afzul-ul-Mulk did, was to invite as many brothers as were within reach to a banquet when he murdered them. No doubt, as a single-minded potentate, he did not wish to be diverted from the task of governing his country by the performance of social duties to the large circle of acquaintances in brothers and their families which Providence bestows on a native ruler or claimant in Chitrál and Yasin. A member of the Khush-waqtia dynasty of Yasin, which is a branch of the Chitrál dynasty, told me when I expressed my astonishment at the constant murders in his family: “A real relative in a high family is a person whom God points out to one to kill as an obstacle in one’s way, whereas a foster-relative (generally of a lower class) is a true friend who rises and falls with one’s own fortune” (it being the custom for a scion of a noble house to be given out to a nurse.)
The dynasty of Chitral is said to have been established by Baba Ayub, an adventurer of Khorassan. He adopted the already existing name of Katór, whence the dynasty is called Katore. The Emperor Baber refers to the country of Katór in his Memoirs and a still more ancient origin has been found in identifying Katór with “Kitolo, the King of the Great Yuechi, who, in the beginning of the 5th century, conquered Balkh and Gandhara, and whose son established the Kingdom of the Little Yuechi, at Peshawur.” (See Biddulph’s “Tribes of the Hindoo Koosh,” page 148.) General Cunningham asserts that the King of Chitrál takes the title of Shah Kator, which has been held for nearly 2,000 years, and the story of their descent from Alexander may be traced to the fact that they were the successors of the Indo-Grecian Kings in the Kabul valley. If Katór is a corruption of Kaisar, then let it not be said that the remnant of the Katore exclaimed with the Roman gladiator: “Ave, Kaisar-i-Hind, morituri te salutant.”
Amán-ul-Mulk, the late ruler of Chitrál, was, indeed, a terrible man, who to extraordinary courage joined the arts of the diplomatist. He succeeded his elder brother, surnamed Adam-Khôr or “man-eater.” His younger brother, Mir Afzul, is said to have been killed by him or to have committed a convenient suicide; another brother, Sher Afzul, who is now in possession of Chitrál, was long a fugitive in Badakhshan whence he has just returned with a few Afghans (such as any pretender can ever collect) and a hundred of the Chitráli slaves that used to be given in tribute to the Mir of Badakhshan, which itself never paid a tribute to Kabul before the late Sher Ali of Afghanistan installed Mahmud Shah, who expelled his predecessor Jehandar Shah, the friend of Abdur-Rahman, the present Amir of Afghanistan. Another brother of Aman-ul-Mulk was Kokhan Beg, whose daughter married the celebrated Mullah Shahu Baba, a man of considerable influence in Bajaur, who is feared by the Badshah of Kunar (a feudatory of Kabul and a friend of the British) and is an enemy of the Kamôji Kafirs, that infest one of the roads to Chitrál. This Kokhan Beg, who was a maternal uncle of Afzul-ul-Mulk, was killed the other day by his brother Sher Afzul coming from Badakhshan. I mention all this, as in the troubles that are preparing, the ramifications of the interests of the various pretenders are a matter of importance. Other brothers of Aman-ul-Mulk are: Muhammad Ali (Moriki), Yádgar Beg, Shádman Beg and Bahádur Khán (all by a mother of lower degree), and another Bahádur Khán, who was on the Council of Nizám-ul-Mulk. Nizám-ul-Mulk has therefore to contend with one or more of his uncles, and by to-day’s telegram[112] is on his way to the Chitrál Fort in order to expel Sher Afzul with the aid of the very troops that Sher Afzul had sent to turn out Afzul-ul-Mulk’s Governor from Yasin. I believe that Nizám-ul-Mulk has or had two elder half-brothers, Gholam of Oyôn and Majid Dastagir of Drôshp; but, in any case, he was the eldest legitimate son and, according to Chitrál custom, was invested with the title of Badshah of Turikoh, the rule of which valley compelled his absence from Chitrál and not “his wicked and intriguing disposition” as alleged by certain Anglo-Indian journals. Of other brothers of Nizám-ul-Mulk was Shah Mulk (of lower birth), who was Governor of Daraung and was killed by Afzul-ul-Mulk. He used to live at Dros (near Pathan in Shashi). Afzul-ul-Mulk of Drasun, whom we have already mentioned as a wholesale fratricide, was killed in his flight to one of the towers of the Chitrál Fort from the invading force of his uncle, Sher Afzul of Badakhshan. A younger half-brother is also Behram-ul-Mulk (by a lower mother), called “Viláyeti,” of Moroi in Andarti. Other brothers are: Amin-ul-Mulk, a brother of good birth of Oyôn (Shoghôt), who was reared by a woman of the Zondré or highest class; Wazir-ul-Mulk (of low birth) of Brôz; Abdur-Rahman (low-born) at Owir (Barpèsh), and Badshah-i-Mulk, also of Owir, who was reared by the wife of Fath-Ali Shah. There are no doubt other brothers also whose names I do not know. Murid, who was killed by Sher Afzul, is also an illegitimate brother.
A few words regarding the places mentioned in recent telegrams may be interesting: Shogôth is the name of a village, of a fort, and of a district which is the north-western part of Chitrál, and it also comprises the Ludkho and tributary valleys. Through the district is the road leading to the Dara and Nuqsán passes, to the right and left respectively, at the bottom of which is a lake on which official toadyism has inflicted the name of Dufferin in supersession of the local name. Darushp (Drôshp) is another big village in this district and in the Ludkho valley, and Andarti is a Fort in it within a mile of the Kafir frontier. The inhabitants of Shogôth are descendants of Munjanis, whose dialect (Yidgah) I refer to elsewhere, and chiefly profess to be Shiahs, in consequence of which they have been largely exported as slaves by their Sunni rulers. Baidam Khan, a natural son of Aman-ul-Mulk, was the ruler of it. The Ludkho valley is traversed by the Arkari river which falls into that of Chitrál. At the head of the Arkari valley are three passes over the Hindukhush, including the evil-omened “Nuqsán,” which leads to Zeibak, the home of the heretical Maulais (co-religionists of the Assassins of the Crusades) in Badakhshán. It is shorter, more direct, and freer from Kafir raids than the longer and easier Dora pass. Owir is a village of 100 houses on the Arkari river, and is about 36 miles from Zeibak. Drasan is both the name of a large village and of a fort which commands the Turikoh valley, a subdivision of the Drasan District, which is the seat of the heir-apparent to the Chitrál throne (Nizám-ul-Mulk). Yet the Pioneer, in its issue of the 5th October last, considers that Lord Lansdowne had settled the question of succession in favour of Afzul-ul-Mulk, that Nizám-ul-Mulk would thus be driven to seek Russian aid, but that any such aid would be an infringement of the rights of Abdur-Rahman. Now that Abdur-Rahman is suspected, on the flimsiest possible evidence, to have connived at Sher Afzul’s invasion of Chitrál, we seek to pick a quarrel with him for what a few weeks ago was considered an assertion of his rights. Let it be repeated once for always that if ever Abdur-Rahman or Nizám-ul-Mulk, or the Chief of Hunza or Kashmir or Upper India fall into the arms of Russia, it will be maxima nostra culpa. I know the Amir Abdur-Rahman, as I knew the Amir Sher Ali, as I know Nizám-ul-Mulk, and of all I can assert that no truer friends to England existed in Asia than these Chiefs. Should Abdur-Rahman be alienated, as Sher Ali was, or Nizám-ul-Mulk might be, it will be entirely in consequence of our meddlesomeness and our provocations. Russia has merely to start a will-o’-the-wisp conversation between Grombcheffsky and the Chief of Hunza, when there is internal evidence that Grombcheffsky was never in Hunza at all, and certainly never went there by the Muztagh Pass, that we, ignoring the right of China and of the treaty with Kashmir in 1846, forgetful of the danger in our rear and the undesirability of paving for an invader the road in front, fasten a quarrel on Hunza-Nagyr, and slaughter its inhabitants. No abuse or misrepresentation was spared in order to inflame the British public even against friendly and inoffensive Nagyr. What wonder that a Deputation was sent from Hunza to seek Russian aid and that it returned contented with presents, and public expressions of sympathy which explained away the Russian official refusal as softened by private assurances of friendship? Whatever may be the disaster to civilization in the ascendancy of Russian rule, the personal behaviour of Russian agents in Central Asia is, generally, pleasant. As in Hunza, so in Afghanistan, some strange suspicion of the disloyalty of its Chief, suggested by Russia, may involve us in a senseless war and inordinate expense, with the eventual result that Afghanistan must be divided between England and Russia, and their frontiers in Asia become conterminous. Then will it be impossible for England ever to oppose Russia in Europe, because fear of complications in Asia will paralyze her. Then the tenure of India will depend on concessions, for which that country is not yet ripe, or on a reign of terror, either course ending in the withdrawal of British administration from, at any rate, Northern India. Yet it is “Fas ab hosti doceri,” and when Prince Gortschakoff urged the establishment of a neutral zone with autonomous states, including Badakhshan, he advocated a policy that would have conducted to centuries of peace and to the preservation of various ancient forms of indigenous Oriental civilization by interposing the mysterious blanks of the Pamirs and the inaccessible countries of the Hindukush between Russian and British aggression.
Instead of this consummation so devoutly to be wished, and possible even now, though late, if action be taken under good advice and in the fulness of knowledge, either Power—
“Thus with his stealthy pace
With Tarquin’s ravishing strides, towards his design
Moves like a ghost.”
If ever the pot called the kettle black, it is the story of Anglo-Russian recriminations. Russian intrigues are ever met by British manœuvres and Muscovite earth-hunger can only be paralleled by English annexations. Here a tribe is instigated to revolt, so that its extermination may “rectify a boundary,” there an illusory scientific frontier is gradually created by encroachments on the territories of feudatories accused of disloyalty, if not of attempts to poison our agents. By setting son against father, brother against brother and, in the general tumult, destroying intervening republics and monarchies, Anglo-Russian dominions are becoming conterminous. Above all
“There’s not a one of them but in his house
I keep a servant fee’d.”
And it is this unremitting suspicion which is alike the secret of present success and the cause of eventual failure in wresting and keeping Asiatic countries and of the undying hatred which injured natives feel towards Europeans.
The attempt to obtain the surrender of the Takk fort, and of the Takk valley, a short and easy road to the British District of Kaghán, has merely indicated to Russia the nearest way to India, just as we forced her attention to Hunza and are now drawing it to Chitrál. David Urquhart used to accuse us of conspiracy with Russia in foreign politics. Lord Dufferin in his Belfast speech sought the safety of India in his friendship with M. de Giers and his Secretary popularized Russia in India by getting his work on “Russia” translated into Urdu. Certainly the coincidence of Russian as well as British officials being benefited by their respective encroachments, Commissions, Delimitations, etc., would show their “mutual interest” to consist in keeping up the farce of “Cox and Box” in Central Asia, which must end in a tragedy.
As an official since 1855, when I served Her Majesty during the Russian War, I wish to warn the British public against the will-o’-the-wisp of our foreign policy, especially in India. I can conceive that a small, moral and happy people should seek the ascendancy of its principles, even if accompanied by confusion in the camps of its enemies. I can understand that the doctrines of Free Trade, of a free Press, a Parliamentary rule, the Anti-Slavery propaganda and philanthropic enterprises generally, with which the British name is connected, should have been as good as an army to us in every country of the world in which they created a Liberal party, but these doctrines have often weakened foreign Executive Governments, whilst “Free Trade” ruined their native manufacture. What I, however, cannot understand is that a swarming, starving and unhappy population should seek consolation for misery at home in Quixotism abroad, especially when that Quixotism is played out. If bread costs as much now as in 1832 although the price of wheat has fallen from 60s. to 27s. a quarter, it is, indeed, high time that we should lavish no more blood and treasure on the stones of foreign politics, but that we should first extract the beam from our own eye before we try to take out the mote from the eye of others.
What these foreign politics are worth may be inferred from the growing distrust on the Continent of British meddlesomeness or from what we should ourselves feel if even so kindred a race as the Prussians sought to monopolize British wealth and positions. It would be worse, if they did so without possessing a thorough knowledge of the English language or of British institutions. Yet we are not filled with misgivings when our Indian Viceroys or Secretaries of State cannot speak Hindustani, the lingua franca of India or when an Under-Secretary has a difficulty in finding Calcutta on the Map.
India should be governed in the fulness of knowledge and sympathy, not by short cuts. It should not be the preserve of a Class, but the one proud boast of its many and varied peoples. When Her Majesty assumed Her Indian title, it was by a mere accident, in which pars magna fui, at the last moment, that the Proclamation was translated to those whom it concerned at the Imperial Assemblage. This superciliousness, wherever we can safely show it, the cynical abandonment of our friends, the breach of pledges, the constant experimentalizing on the natives, the mysteriousness that conceals official ignorance, is the enemy to British rule in India, not Russia. A powerful Empire can afford to discard the arts of the weak, and should even “show its hand.” India should be ruled by a permanent Viceroy, a member of the Royal family, not by one whom the exigencies of party can appoint and shift. When in 1869 the Chiefs and people of the Panjab deputed me to submit their petition that H.R.H. the Prince of Wales be pleased to visit India, it was because they felt that it was desirable in the interests of loyalty to the Throne. If it be true that H.R.H. the Duke of Connaught is going out as the next Viceroy, I can only say that the longer his admirers miss him in England, the better for India, which requires its best interests to be grouped round a permanent Chief.
Dec. 7th.—As for the wanton aggression on Chilás which never gave us the least trouble, as all our Deputy Commissioners of Abbottabad can testify, it is a sequel of our interference last year with Hunza-Nagyr. The Gilgit Residency has disturbed a peace that has existed since 1856 and now continues in its suicidal policy of indicating and paving the nearest military road to British territory to an invader. In November 1891 I wrote of the possibility of driving even the peaceful, if puritanical, Chilásis into aggression and now the Times telegraphs the cock-and-bull story of the raft, enlarged in to-day’s Times telegram into an attack of the Chilási tribesmen aided by those of Darêl (another newly-created foe) on our convoy proceeding from Bunji—the extreme frontier of Kashmir according to the treaty of 1846—to Dr. Robertson’s Camp at (now) Talpenn (spelt “Thalpin” in the telegram) and (then) Gôr, with, of course, the inevitable result of the victory of the heroism of rifles against a few old muskets and iron wrist-bands (which the Chilásis use in fighting).
There are still other realms to conquer for our heroes. There is the small Republic of Talitsha of 11 houses; there is Chilás itself which admits women to the tribal Councils and is thus in advance even of the India Office and of the Supreme Council of the Government of India; there is the Republic of Muhammadan learning, Kandiá, that has not a single fort; there is, of course, pastoral Dareyl; there are the Koli-Palus tribes, agricultural Tangîr and other little Republics. Soon may we hear of acts of “treachery,” “disloyalty,” etc. from Hôdur and Sazîn, till we shoot down the supposed offenders with Gatlings and destroy the survivors with our civilization. I humbly protest against these tribes being sacrificed to a mistaken Russophobia. I have some claim to be heard. I discovered and named Dardistan and am a friend of its peoples. Although my life was attempted more than once by agents of the Maharaja of Kashmir, I was the means of saving that of his Commander-in-Chief, Zoraweru, when on his Dareyl expedition. This is what the Gilgit Doctor did in 1866 and what the Gilgit Doctor should do in 1892. This is how friendship for the British name was, and should be, cemented, and not by shedding innocent blood or by acts worthy of agents provocateurs.
As for the “toujours perdrix” of the Afghan advance from Asmar (Times, December 8th) it is better than the telegram in the Standard of the 2nd December 1892, in which the Amir makes Sher Afzul Ruler of Kafiristan, a country that has yet to be conquered, and which says “Consequently there is now no buffer-state between Afghanistan and the Pamirs”!! “Goods carried from India to Russian Turkestan, through Chitral and Kafiristan, will pay duty to the Amir.” Such journalistic forecasts and geography are inevitable when full and faithful official information, such as it is, is, in a free country, not obtainable by Parliament, the Press, and the Public. Reuter’s Central Asian Telegrams, though meagre, are more correct than those of certain correspondents of the Times and Standard.
Dec. 9th.—Dr. Robertson has, at last, entered Chilás, and found it deserted. Solitudinem faciunt, pacem appellant. The Times Correspondent now admits that Chilás has no connexion with Chitrál, but he still gives us “Tangail” for “Tangir,” and omits the name of the member of the ex-royal family of Yasin, who is supposed to have stirred up against us the tribes of Darel and “Tangail,” among whom he has resided for years. This is one of the Khushwaqtias, though not the loyal chief to whom I have referred, and who has rendered us good service. So we have now an excuse for entering Tangir also. In the meanwhile, the Russian Svet points out that the Russians “would only have to march some 250 miles along a good road to enter Cashmere,” “since it is impossible to invade India viâ Afghanistan.” Yet are we nibbling at the Amir Abdurrahman, whose troops merely occupy the status quo ante at Asmar, confronted by Umra Khan on the other side of the Kuner river. We are forgetting the lessons of the Afghan campaigns, and especially that, although Abdurrahman allowed himself to be proclaimed by us, in his absence, as Amir, he marched in at one side of Kabul, whilst we marched out at the other. We forget that, with the whole country against us in a revived Jehád, with the discontent among our native troops and with a crushing expenditure, we preferred a political fiasco in order to avoid a still greater military fiasco. The Russians also urge “the construction of a military road on their side from Marghelan across the Pamirs” leaving us to finish it for them on our side of the Hindukush. The pretension to Wakhan, however, is already disposed of in Prince Gortchakoff’s Convention with Lord Granville in 1872, and no notice need be taken of the preposterous claim of the Svet to place Chitrál under a Russian protectorate! Thus have we sown the wind and reaped the whirlwind. Our real defence of India lies, as Lord Lawrence ever held, in its good government, and to this I would respectfully add, in justice to its Chiefs, wherever they have a legitimate grievance. Mere speeches of Viceroys, unaccompanied by acts, will not convince them of our “good intentions.” It is also not by emasculating the Dard tribes and breaking down their powers of resistance to the level of Slaves to the British, that we can interpose an effectual barrier to the invading Myriads of Slavs that threaten the world’s freedom. By giving to the loyalty of India the liberty which it deserves, on the indigenous bases that it alone really understands and in accordance with the requirements of the age, we can alone lead our still martial Indian Millions in the defence of the Roman Citizenship which should be the reward of their chivalrous allegiance to the Queen.
G. W. Leitner.
P.S.—15 Dec. 1892. The just cause of Nizám-ul-Mulk appears to have triumphed. Sher Afzul is said to have fled. So far Chitrál. As for Chilás, the people have come to Dr. Robertson’s Camp and express friendliness.
LETTERS FROM MIHTAR NIZAM-UL-MULK TO DR. LEITNER:
My kind and true friend and dear companion, may you know:
That before this, prompted by excess of friendship and belief in me, you had written to me a letter of sincerity full of pleasing precepts and words of faithfulness. These were received and caused joy to my heart. My true friend, whatever words of faith and sincere regard there were, these have been written in my mind. For I am one of your disciples and well-wishers here, and have no other care but that of serving and well-wishing my friends. My heart sorrows at separation from friends, but there is no remedy except resignation. As I consider your stay there [in London] as my own stay, I hope from your friendship that you have expressed words of my well-being and my sincerity towards the Lord Bahadoor and the Great Queen and thus performed the office of friendship and caused joy there. Another request is that if you have found a good dog like “Zulu,” when you come to Delhi please send it to Jummoo. My men are there, and shall bring it to me. Further, the volume of papers on the customs of Chitrár and the old folk-tales have been written partly in Persian and partly in the Chitrári language. We are frontier and village people, and are deficient in intelligence and eloquence. They have not been very well done, and I don’t know if they will please you or not. But we have no better eloquence or practice as we are hillmen.
Tuesday 11th Shavval 1304 despatched from Turikoh to London.
The standard of affection and friendship, the foundation-stone of kindness and obligation, my friend, may his kindness increase!
After expressing the desire of your joy-giving meeting be it known to your kind self, that the condition of this your faithful friend is such as to call for thanks to the Almighty. The safety and good health of that friend [yourself] is always wished for. As you had sent me several volumes of bound papers to write on them the customs of the Chitrar people and their folk-tales, partly in Persian and partly in Chitrari language, I have in accordance with this request of that true friend got them written partly in Persian and partly in Chitrari and sent to you. Inshallah, they will reach you, but I do not know whether they will please you or not; in any case you know, that whatever may be possible to do by a faithful friend or by his employés I will do, with the help of God, if you will forgive any faulty execution of your wishes, and continue to remember me for any services in my power, and keep me informed continually of your good health so as to dispel my anxiety. The condition here is of all news the best, as no new event has happened; but three persons, wayfarers and travellers, have come from Wakhan to Mastuch and two of these persons I have sent on to Chitrar, and one of these wanderers has remained (behind) at Mastuch. They don’t know anybody. Sometimes they say we are Russians, and sometimes they say we are Frenchmen. And I with my own eye have not seen them. If I had seen them, they might have told me. Another desire is that you send me something worth reading in English words and write opposite to them their translation into Persian, so that it may be a pleasure and useful to me. I have another request to make which is that you may be pleased to give an early fulfilment to your kind promise of visiting Chitrar with your lady for the purpose of sight-seeing and sport and study. I have been waiting ever since for your arrival. It is really only right that you should come now when the weather is very delightful, game is abundant, and I have made every arrangement for our hunting together. Everything is tranquil and you will be able to return before the winter, greatly pleased. Let this become a fact. The writer Sirdar Nizam-ul-Mulk, Tuesday the 11th of Shevvál, from Turikoh to London. May it be received!
APPENDIX III.
FABLES, LEGENDS, AND SONGS OF CHITRAL[113]
(called Chitrár by the natives).
Collected by H. H. Sirdar Nizám-ul-Mulk, Raja of Yasin, etc., and by Dr. G. W. Leitner, and translated from Persian or Chitráli.
I. Fables.
1. The Vindictive Fowl.
A fowl sat near a thistle, and opened a rag, in which corals were tied up. Suddenly one fell into the thistle; the fowl said, “O thistle, give me my coral.” The thistle said, “This is not my business.” The fowl said, “Then I will burn thee.” The thistle agreed. The fowl then begged the fire to burn the thistle. The fire replied, “Why should I burn this weak thorn?” The fowl thereupon threatened to extinguish the fire by appealing to water: “O water, kill this fire for my sake.” The water asked, “What is thy enmity with the fire, that I should kill it?” The fowl said, “I will bring a lean cow to drink thee up.” The water said, “Well”; but the cow refused, as it was too lean and weak to do so. Then the fowl threatened to bring the wolf to eat the cow. The wolf refused, as he could feed better on fat sheep. The fowl threatened the wolf with the huntsman, as he would not eat the lean cow. The huntsman refused to shoot the wolf, as it was not fit to eat. The fowl then threatened the huntsman with the mouse. The huntsman replied, “Most welcome.” But the mouse said that it was feeding on almonds and other nice things, and had no need to gnaw the leather-skin of the huntsman. The fowl then said, “I will tell the cat to eat thee.” The mouse said, “The cat is my enemy in any case, and will try to catch and eat me, wherever it comes across me, so what is the use of your telling the cat?” The fowl then begged the cat to eat the mouse. The cat agreed to do so whenever it was hungry: “Now,” it added, “I do not care to do so.” The fowl then became very angry, and threatened to bring little boys to worry the cat. The cat said, “Yes.” The fowl then begged the little boys to snatch the cat one from the other, so that it might know what it was to be vexed. The boys, however, just then wanted to play and fight among themselves, and did not care to interrupt their own game. The fowl then threatened to get an old man to beat the boys. The boys said, “By all means.” But the old man refused to beat the boys without any cause, and called the fowl a fool. The fowl then said to the Pîr (old man), “I will tell the wind to carry away thy wool.” The old man acquiesced; and the wind, when ordered by the fowl, with its usual perverseness, obeyed the fowl, and carried off the old man’s wool. Then the old man beat the boys, and the boys worried the cat, and the cat ran after the mouse, and the mouse bit the huntsman in the waist, and the huntsman went after the wolf, and the wolf bit the cow, and the cow drank the water, and the water came down on the fire, and the fire burnt the thistle, and the thistle gave the coral to the fowl, and the fowl took back its coral.
2. The Story of the Golden Mouse who tells the Story of a Mouse and a Frog.
There was a kind of mice that had a golden body. They never went out of their hole. One day one of them thought: “I will go out and see the wonders of God’s creation.” So it did; and when thirty or forty yards from its hole, a cat, prowling for game, saw it come out from the hole. The cat, that was full of wiles, plotted to get near the hole, awaiting the return of the mouse, who, after its peregrinations, noticed the mouth of the hole closed by the wicked cat. The mouse then wished to go another way, and turned to the left, towards a tree, on which sat concealed a crow, expecting to devour the mouse when it should run away from the cat. The crow then pounced on the mouse, who cried out to God, “O God, why have these misfortunes overtaken such a small being as myself? My only help is in thee, to save me from these calamities.” The mouse was confused, and ran hither and thither, in vain seeking a refuge, when it saw another cat stealthily approaching it; and, in its perplexity, the mouse nearly ran into the cat’s paws; but that cat had been caught in a hunter’s net, and could do nothing. The crow, and the cat which was watching at the hole, saw that the mouse had got near another cat between the two. They thought that the mouse had fallen a victim to the second cat, and that it was no use remaining. It was the fortune of the mouse that they should be so deceived. The trembling mouse saw that the two enemies had gone. It thanked the Creator for having escaped from the cat and the crow, and it said, “It would be most unmanly of me not to deliver the cat in the net, as it has been the instrument of my safety; but then, if I set it free, it will eat me.” The mouse was immersed in thought, and came to the conclusion to gnaw the net at a distance from the cat, and that as soon as the hunter should come in sight, the cat then, being afraid of the hunter, would seek its own safety, and not trouble itself about the mouse. “Thus I will free the cat from the hunter and the net, and deliver my own life from the cat,” was the thought of the mouse. It then began to gnaw the net at a distance. The cat then said to the mouse, “If you want to save me, for God’s sake, then gnaw the net round my throat, and not at a distance; that is no use to me when the hunter will come. You err if you think that I will eat you as soon as I get out. For all the faults, hitherto, have been on the side of cats, which you mice have never injured, so that, if you are magnanimous and release me, there is no such ungrateful monster in the world as would return evil for the unmerited good that I implore you to bestow on me.” The golden mouse, which was very wise, did not attend to this false speech, but continued to gnaw the net at a distance, so that, when the hunter came, there only remained the threads round the neck of the cat, which the mouse bit asunder at the last moment and then ran back into its hole. The cat bolted up the tree where the crow had sat, the huntsman saw that the cat had escaped, and that his net was gnawed in several places, so he took the net to get it repaired in the Bazaar.
Then the cat descended from the tree and said to herself, “The time of meals is over, it is no use to go home; I had better make friends with the mouse, entice it out of the hole, and eat it.” This she did, and going to the hole, called out: “O faithful companion and sympathizing friend, although there has been enmity between cats and mice for a long time, thou hast, by God’s order, been the cause of my release, therefore come out of the hole, and let us lay the foundation of our friendship.” The mouse replied: “I once tried to come out, and then I fell from one danger into another. Now it is difficult for me to comply with your request. I have cut the threads encircling your throat, not out of friendship for you, but out of gratitude to God. Nor is our friendship of any use in this world, as you will gather from the story of
3. “The Frog and the Mouse.”
The mouse then narrated: “There was once a mouse that went out for a promenade, and going into people’s houses, found food here and there, and in the dawn of the next morning it was returning to its home. It came to a place where there was a large tank, round which there were flowers and trees; and a voice was heard from out of the tank. Coming near, it saw that it emanated from a being that had no hair on its body, no tail, and no ear. The mouse said to itself: ‘What is this ill-formed being?’ and thanked God that it was not the ugliest of creatures. With this thought the mouse, that was standing still, shook its head to and fro. The frog, however, thought that the mouse was smitten with astonishment at his beauty and entranced with pleasure at his voice, and jumping out of the corner of the tank came near: ‘I know, beloved, that you are standing charmed with my voice; we ought to lay the firm basis of our friendship, but you are sharper than I am, therefore go to the house of an old woman and steal from it a thread, and bring it here.’ The mouse obeyed the order. The frog then said: ‘Now tie one end to your tail and I will tie the other end to my leg, because I want to go to your house, where you have a large family and there are many other mice, so that I may know you from the others. If again you visit me, the tank is large, my friends many, and you too ought to distinguish me from the rest. Again, when I want to see you I will follow the thread to your hole, and when you want to see me you will follow it to the tank.’ This being settled, they parted. One day the frog wanted to see the mouse. Coming out of the tank he was going to its hole, when he saw the mouse-hawk, who pounced upon the frog as he was limping along, and flew up with him in its claws. This pulled the end to which the mouse was tied. It thought that its lover had come to the place and wanted to see it; so it came out, only to be dragged along in the air under the mouse-hawk. As the unfortunate mouse passed a Bazaar it called out: ‘O ye Mussulmans, learn from my fate what happens to whoever befriends beings of a different species.’
“Now,” said the golden mouse to the cat, “this is the story which teaches me what to do; and that is, to decline your friendship and to try never again to see your face.”
4. The Quail and the Fox.
The Quail said: I teach thee art.
Night and day I work at art;
Whoever lies, the shame is on his neck.
A quail and a fox were friends. The fox said: “Why should you not make me laugh some day?” The quail replied, “This is easy.” So they went to a Bazaar, where the quail, looking through the hole in the wall of a house, saw a man sitting, and his wife turning up and down the “samanak” sweetmeat with a big wooden ladle (much in the same way as the Turkish rakat lokum, or lumps of delight, are made). The quail then settled on the head of the man. The woman said to him, “Don’t stir; I will catch it.” Then the quail sat on the woman’s head, so the man asked the woman to be quiet, as he would catch the quail, which, however, then flew back to the head of the man. This annoyed the wife, who struck at the quail with the wooden ladle, but hit instead the face of her husband, whose eye and beard were covered with the sweetmeat, and who thereupon beat his wife. When the fox saw this, he rejoiced and laughed greatly; and both the fox and quail returned to their home. After a time the fox said to the quail: “It is true that you have made me laugh, but could you feed me?” This the quail undertook to do, and with the fox went to a place where a woman was carrying a plate of loaves of bread to her husband in the fields. Then the quail repeated her tactics, and sat on the head of the woman, who tried to catch it with one hand. The quail escaped and settled on one shoulder, then on another, and so on till the woman became enraged, put the plate of bread on the ground, and ran after the quail, who, by little leaps, attracted her further and further away till she was at a considerable distance from it, when the fox pounced on the bread and appeased his hunger.
Some time after, the fox wanted to put the cleverness of the quail again to the test, and said: “You have made me laugh, you have fed me, now make me weep.” The quail replied, “Why, this is the easiest task of all,” so she took the fox to the gate of the town and called out: “O ye dogs of the Bazaar, come ye as many as ye are, for a fox has come to the gate!” So all the dogs, hearing this good news, assembled to hunt the fox, which, seeing the multitude of its enemies, fled till he reached a high place. Turning round, he saw the dogs following, so he jumped down and broke his back. The fox therefore helplessly sat down and said to the approaching quail: “O sympathizing companion, see how my mouth has become filled with mud and blood, and how my back has been broken. This is my fate in this world; now, could you kindly clean my mouth from mud and blood, as my end is near?” The intention of the fox was, that he should take the opportunity of this artifice to swallow the quail in revenge of her being the cause of its death. The quail, in her unwise friendship, began to clean the fox’s mouth. The accursed fox caught her in his mouth; but the quail, which was intelligent and clever, said, “O beloved friend, your eating me is lawful, because I forgive you my blood, on condition that you pronounce my name, otherwise you will suffer an injury.” The base fox, although full of wiles, clouded by approaching death, fell into the trap, and as soon as he said “O quail,” his teeth separated, and the quail flew away from him and was safe, whilst the fox died.
II. Stories and Legends.
There is a story which seems to illustrate the fact that private hatred is often the cause of the injury that is ascribed to accident. A man slaughtered a goat, and kept it over-night in an outhouse. His enemy put a number of cats through the airhole, and when their noise awoke the master of the house he only found the bones of his goat. But he took their bones, and scattered them over the field of his enemy the same night; and the dogs came, smelling the bones, searched for them, and destroyed the wheat that was ripe for reaping. One blamed the cats, the other blamed the dogs; but both had the reward of their own actions.
Sulei was a man well known on the frontier of Chitrál for his eloquence. One day, as he was travelling, he met a man from Badakhshan, who asked him whether he knew Persian. Sulei said, “No.” “Then,” replied the Badakhshi, “you are lost” [nobody, worthless]. Sulei at once rejoined, “Do you know Khowár?” (the language of Chitrál). “No,” said the Badakhshi. “Then you too are lost,” wittily concluded Sulei (to show that personal worth or eloquence does not depend on knowing any particular language).
It is related that beyond Upper Chitrár there is a country called Shin or Rashan. It is very beautiful, and its plains are gardens, and its trees bear much fruit, and its chunars (plane trees) and willows make it a shaded land. Its earth is red, and its water is white and tasty. They say that in ancient times the river of that district for a time flowed with milk without the dashing (of the waves) of water.
Besir is a place near Ayin towards Kafiristan. The inhabitants were formerly savage Kafirs, but are now subjects of the Mehter (Prince) of Chitrár. They carry loads of wood, and do not neglect the work of the Mehter. They are numerous and peaceful, and in helplessness like fowls, but they are still Kafirs; though in consequence of their want of energy and courage they are called “Kalàsh.” The people of Ayin say that in ancient times five savages fled into the Shidi Mount and concealed themselves there.
Shidi is below Ayin opposite Gherát on the east (whence Shidi is on the west). Between them is a river. It is said that these savages had to get their food by the chase. One day word came to them from God that “to-day three troops of deer will pass; don’t interfere with the first, but do so with the others.” When, however, the troops came, the savages forgot the injunctions of God, and struck the first deer. Now there was a cavern in the mountain where they lived, into which they took the two or three deer that they had killed and were preparing to cook, two being sent out to fetch water. By God’s order the lips of the cavern were closed, and the three men imprisoned in it. God converted the three into bees, whilst the two who had gone to fetch water fled towards Afghanistan. Thus were created the first honey-bees, who, finding their way out of the cavern, spread themselves and their sweet gift all over the world. This is a story told by the Kalàsh, who credit that the bees are there still; but it is difficult to get there, as the mountains are too steep, but people go near it and, pushing long rods into the hole of the cavern, bring them back covered with honey.
Shah Muhterim is the name of a Mehter (prince), the grandfather of the present Ruler of Chitrár. This Mehter was renowned as a descendant of fairies, who all were under his command. Whatever he ordered the fairies did. Thus some time passed. From among them he married a fairy, with whom he made many excursions. She bore him a daughter. Seven generations have passed since that time. This daughter is still alive, and her sign among the fairies is that her hair is white, which does not happen to ordinary fairies. Whenever a descendant of the Shah Muhterim leaves this transitory world for the region of permanence, all the fairies, who reside in the mountains of Chitrár, together with that white-haired lady, weep and lament, and their voices are clearly heard. This statement is sure and true, and all the men on the frontiers of Chitrár are aware of the above fact.
The People of Aujer (the Bœotia of Chitral).
There is a country “Aujer,” on the frontier of Chitrár (or Chitrāl as we call it), the inhabitants of which in ancient times were renowned for their stupidity. One had taken service at Chitrár, and at a certain public dinner noticed that the King (Padishah) ate nothing. So he thought that it was because the others had not given anything to the king. This made him very sorry. He left the assembly, and reached home towards evening; there he prepared a great amount of bread, and brought it next day to the council enclosure, beckoning to the king with his finger to come secretly to him. The king could not make this out, and sent a servant to inquire what was the matter; but the man would not say anything except that the king should come himself. On this the king sent his confidant to find out what all this meant. The man answered the inquiries of the confidant by declaring that he had no news or claim, but “as they all ate yesterday and gave nothing to the king, my heart has become burnt, and I have cooked all this bread for him.” The messenger returned and told the king, who told the meeting, causing them all to laugh. The king, too, smiled, and said: “As this poor man has felt for my need, I feel for his;” and ordered the treasurer to open for him the door of the treasury, so that he might take from it what he liked. The treasurer took him to the gate, next to which was the treasurer’s own house, where he had put a big water-melon, on which fell the eye of that stupid man from Aujer. He had never seen such a thing, and when he asked, “What is it?” the treasurer, knowing what a fool he had to deal with, said, “This is the egg of a donkey.” Then he showed him the gold, silver, jewels, precious cloths, and clean habiliments of the treasury from which to select the king’s present. The man was pleased with nothing, and said, “I do not want this; but, if you please, give me the egg of the donkey, then I shall indeed be glad.” The treasurer and the king’s confidant, consulting together, came to the conclusion that this would amuse the king to hear, and gave him the melon, with the injunction not to return to the king, but to take the egg to his house, and come after some nights (days). The fool was charmed with this request, went towards his home, but climbing a height, the melon fell out of his hand, rolled down towards a tree and broke in two pieces. Now there was a hare under that tree, which fled as the melon touched the tree. The fool went to his house full of grief, said nothing to his wife and children, but sat mournfully in a corner. The wife said, “O man, why art thou sorry? and what has happened?” The man replied: “Why do you ask? there is no necessity.” Finally, on the woman much cajoling him, he said: “From the treasury of the prince (mehter) I had brought the egg of the donkey; it fell from me on the road, broke, and the young one fled out from its midst. I tried my utmost, but could not catch it.” The woman said: “You silly fellow! had you brought it, we might have put loads on it.” The man replied, “You flighty thing! how could it do so, when it was still so young? Why, its back would have been broken.” So he got into a great rage, took his axe, and cut down his wife, who died on the spot.
Once, a donkey having four feet, in this country of donkeys having two feet, put his head into a jar of jáo (barley), but could not extricate it again. So the villagers assembled, but could not hit on a plan to effect this result. But there was a wise man in that land, and he was sent for and came. He examined all the circumstances of the case, and finally decided that they should do him “Bismillah”; that is to say, that they should cut his throat with the formula, “in the name of God,” which makes such an act lawful. When they had done this to the poor donkey, the head remained in the jar, and the wise man ordered them now to break the jar. This they did, and brought out the head of the donkey. The wise man then said: “If I had not been here, in what manner could you have been delivered of this difficulty?” This view was approved by all, even by the owner of the donkey.
Two brothers in that country of idiots, being tired of buying salt every day, decided on sowing it over their fields, so that it may bring forth salt abundantly. The grass grew up, and the grasshoppers came; and the brothers, fearing that their crop of salt would be destroyed, armed themselves with bows and arrows to kill the grasshoppers. But the grasshoppers jumped hither and thither, and were difficult to kill; and one of the brothers hit the other by mistake with an arrow instead of a grasshopper, and he got angry, and shot back and killed his brother.
A penknife once fell into the hands of this people, so they held a council in order to consider what it was. Some thought it was the young one of a sword, the others that it was the baby of an axe, but that its teeth had not yet come out. So the argument waxing hot, they fell to fight one another, and many were wounded and killed.
A number of these people, considering that it was not proper that birds alone should fly, and that they were able to do so, clad themselves in posteens (some of which are made from the light down of the Hindukush eagle), and threw themselves down from a great height, with the result that they reached the ground killed and mangled.
III. Songs.
A Song (of evidently recent date, as the influence on it of Persian poetry is obvious).
The Confession of the Soul.
1. (He.) If thy body be as lithe as (the letter) Alif (ا), thy eye is as full as (the letter) Nûn (ن).
If thou art Laila, this child (or lover) is Majnûn (referring to the well-known story of these true lovers).
2. (She.) If thou art the Prince of the Sultan of Rûm (Turkey)
Come and sit by me, free from constraint;
My eye has fallen on thee, and I now live.
3. My friend had scarcely come near me—why, alas, has he left?
My flesh has melted from these broken limbs.
4. How could I guard against the enmity of a friend?
May God now save me from such grief!
5. (He.) Were I to see 200 Fairies and 100,000 Houris,
I should be a Káfir (infidel), O my beloved!
If my thoughts then even strayed from thee.
6. Yea, not the Houri nightingale, nor my own soul and eyes as Houris,
Would, on the day of judgment, divert my thought from thee.
7. I envy the moth, for it can fly
Into the fire in which it is burnt (whereas I cannot meet thee).
8. (She.) My friend, who once came nigh me, suddenly left me—to weep.
My grief should move the very highest heaven.
A coral bed with its root has been torn out and gone.
9. A ship of pilgrims (Calendárs) has sunk, and yet the world does not care.
The end of all has been a bad name to me.
10. (He.) On this black earth how can I do (sing) thy praise?
Imbedded in the blue heaven (of my heart) thou wilt find it;
And yet, O child (himself), how great a failure (and below thy merits)!
11. Before thy beauty the very moon is nothing,
For sometimes she is full and sometimes half.
May God give thee to me, my perfect universe!
12. (She.) If an angel were a mortal like myself,
It would be ashamed to see my fate (unmoved).
13. (He.) O angel! strangely without pity,
Thou hast written her good with my evil (linked our fates).
14. (Both.) All have friends, but my friend is the Chief (God),
And of my inner grief that friend is cognizant;
His light alone loves our eyes and soul.
15. Break with the world, its vanities, its love;
Leave ignorance, confess, and let thy goal be heaven!
The following is an attempt to render the pretty tune of a more worldly Laila and Majnûn song, which reminds one of the “Yodeln” of the Tyrolese. It was sung to me by Taighûn Shah, the poet-minstrel of the Raja, to the accompaniment of a kind of guitar. The Chitráli language, it will be perceived, is musical.
Shin·djùr is-prûo sar ma bul-bul hut bó·wor Tsá·ren-tu ru-pé
dūr thu mor lo - lé gam - - bū - - ro shūnn donn do - sé
Lai - lī - ki ha - rōsh o - ré Majnun o lo - - lé!
APPENDIX IV.
THE RACES AND LANGUAGES OF THE HINDU-KUSH.
By Dr. G. W. Leitner.
GROUP OF DARDS AND CENTRAL ASIATICS WITH DR. LEITNER.
Standing Nos. 1 2 3 4 5 6 (see next page.)
Sitting Nos. 7 8 9 10 11 (see next page.)
Standing—1. Khundayar, son of a Shiah Akhun (priest) at Nagyr; 2. Maulvi Najmuddin, a poet from Kolab; 3 and 4. Khudadad and Hatamu, pilgrims from Nagyr; 5. A Chitrali soldier; 6. Matavalli, of Hunza.
Sitting—7. Mir Abdullah, a famous Arabic scholar and jurist from Gabrial; 8. Hakim Habibullah, a Tajik, a physician from Badakshan; 9. Ghulam Muhammad, Dr. Leitner’s Gilgit retainer; 10. Ibrahim Khan, a Shiah, Rono (highest official caste), of Nagyr; 11. Sultan Ali Yashkun, of Nagyr.
The accompanying illustration was autotyped some years ago from a photograph taken in 1881, and is now published for the first time. Following the numbers on each figure represented we come first to No. 1, the tall Khudayár, the son of an Akhun or Shiah priest of Nagyr, a country ruled by the old and wise Tham or Raja Zafar Ali Khan, whose two sons, Alidád Khan in 1866, and Habib ulla Khan in 1886, instructed me in the Khajuná language, which is spoken alike in gentle but brave Nagyr and in its hereditary rival country, the impious and savage Hunza “Hun-land,” represented by figure 6, Matavalli, the ex-kidnapper whom I took to England, trained to some Muhammadan piety, and sent to Kerbelá a year ago. No. 2 was an excellent man, an Uzbek visitor from Koláb, one Najmuddin, a poet and theologian, who gave me an account of his country. Nos. 3 and 4 are pilgrims from Nagyr to the distant Shiah shrine in Syria of the martyrdom of Husain at Kerbelá; No. 5 is a Chitráli soldier, whilst No. 7 is a distinguished Arabic Scholar from Gabriál, from whom much of my information was derived regarding a peaceful and learned home, now, alas! threatened by European approach, which my travels in 1866 and 1872, and my sympathetic intercourse with the tribes of the Hindu Kush, have unfortunately facilitated. The Jalkóti, Dareyli, and others, who are referred to in the course of the present narrative, will either figure on other illustrations or must be “taken as read.” No. 8 is the Sunni Moulvi Habibulla, a Tájik of Bukhara and a Hakîm (physician). No. 9 is my old retainer, Ghulám Muhammad, a Shiah of Gilgit, a Shîn Dard (highest caste), who was prevented by me from cutting down his mother, which he was attempting to do in order “to save her the pain of parting from him.” 10. Ibrahim Khan, a Shiah, Rôno (highest official caste) of Nagyr, pilgrim to Kerbelá. 11. Sultan Ali Yashkun (2nd Shîn caste) Shiah, of Nagyr, pilgrim to Kerbelá. The word “Yashkun” is, perhaps, connected with “Yuechi.”
The languages spoken by these men are: Khajuná by the Hunza-Nagyr men; Arnyiá by the Chitráli; Turki by the Uzbek from Koláb; Shiná by the Gilgiti; Pakhtu and Shuthun, a dialect of Shiná, by the Gabriáli. The people of Hunza are dreaded robbers and kidnappers; they, together with the people of Nagyr, speak a language, Khajuná, which philologists have not yet been able to classify, but which I believe to be a remnant of a pre-historic language. They are great wine-drinkers and most licentious. They are nominally Muláis, a heresy within the Shiah schism from the orthodox Sunni Muhammadan faith, but they really only worship their Chief or Raja, commonly called “Thàm.” The present ruler’s name is Mohammad Khan. They are at constant feud with the people of Nagyr, who have some civilization, and are now devoted Shiahs (whence the number of pilgrims, four, from one village). They are generally fair, and taller than the people of Hunza, who are described as dark skeletons. The Nagyris have fine embroideries, and are said to be accomplished musicians. Their forts confront those of Hunza on the other side of the same river. The people of Badakhshán used to deal largely in kidnapped slaves. A refugee, Shahzada Hasan, from the former royal line (which claims descent from Alexander the Great), who has been turned out by the Afghan faction, was then at Gilgit with a number of retainers on fine Badakhshi horses, awaiting the fortunes of war, or, perhaps, the support of the British. He was a younger brother of Jehandár Shah, who used to infest the Koláb road, after being turned out by a relative, Mahmûd Shah, with the help of the Amir of Kabul. Koláb is about eleven marches from Faizabád, the capital of Badakhshán. The Chitráli is from Shogòt, the residence of Adam Khor (man-eater), brother of Aman-ul-Mulk, of Chitrál, who used to sell his Shiah subjects regularly into slavery and to kidnap Bashgeli Kafirs. The man from Gabriál was attracted to Lahore by the fame of the Oriental College, Lahore, as were also several others in this group; and there can be no doubt that this institution may still serve as a nucleus for sending pioneers of our civilization throughout Central Asia. Gabriál is a town in Kandiá, or Kiliá, which is a secluded Dard country, keeping itself aloof from tribal wars. Gilgit and its representative have been described in my “Dardistan,” to which refer, published in parts between 1866 and 1877.
I. POLO IN HUNZA-NAGYR.
Although our first practical knowledge of “Polo” was derived from the Manipuri game as played at Calcutta, it is not Manipur, but Hunza and Nagyr, that maintain the original rules of the ancient “Chaughán-bazi,” so famous in Persian history. The account given by J. Moray Brown for the “Badminton Library” of the introduction of Polo into England (Longmans, Green & Co., 1891), seems to me to be at variance with the facts within my knowledge, for it was introduced into England in 1867, not 1869, by one who had played the Tibetan game as brought to Lahore by me in 1866, after a tour in Middle and Little Tibet. Since then it has become acclimatized not only in England, but also in Europe. The Tibet game, however, does not reach the perfection of the Nagyr game, although it seems to be superior to that of Manipur. Nor is Polo the only game in Hunza-Nagyr. “Shooting whilst galloping” at a gourd filled with ashes over a wooden scaffold rivals the wonderful performances of “archery on horseback,” in which the people of Hunza and Nagyr (not “Nagar,” or the common Hindi word for “town,” as the telegram has it) are so proficient. Nor are European accompaniments wanting to these Central Asian games; for prizes are awarded, people bet freely in Hunza as they do here, they drink as freely, listen to music, and witness the dancing of lady charmers, the Dayál, who, in Hunza, are supposed to be sorceresses, without whom great festivities lose their main attraction. The people are such keen sportsmen that it is not uncommon for the Tham, or ruler, to confiscate the house of the unskilful hunter who has allowed a Markhôr (Ibex) that he might have shot to escape him. Indeed, this even happens when a number of Markhôrs are shut up in an enclosure, “tsá,” as a preserve for hunting. The following literally translated dialogue regarding Polo and its rules tells an attentive reader more “between the lines” than pages of instructions:—
Poló = Bolá.—The Raja has ordered many people: To-morrow Polo I will play. To the musicians give notice they will play.
Hast thou given notice, O (thou)?
Yes, I have given notice, O Nazúr; let me be thy offering (sacrifice).
Well, we will come out, that otherwise it will become (too) hot.
The Raja has gone out for Polo; go ye, O (ye); the riders will start.
Now divided will be, O ye! (2) goals nine nine (games) we will do (play). Tola-half (= 4 Rupees) a big sheep bet we will do.
Now bet we have made. To the Raja the ball give, O ye, striking (whilst galloping) he will take.
O ye, efforts (search) make, young men, to a man disgrace is death; you your own party abandon not; The Raja has taken the ball to strike; play up, O ye musicians!
Now descend (from your horses) O ye; Tham has come out (victorious); now again the day after to-morrow, he (from fatigue) recovering Poló we will strike (play).
Rules:—The musical instruments of Polo; the ground for the game; the riders; the goals; 9, 9 games let be (nine games won); the riders nine one side; nine one (the other) side; when this has become (the case) the drum (Tsagàr) they will strike.
First the Tham takes the ball (out into the Maidan to strike whilst galloping at full speed).
The Tham’s side upper part will take.
The rest will strike from the lower part (of the ground).
Those above the goal when becoming will take to the lower part.
Those below the goal when becoming to above taking the ball will send it flying.
Thus being (or becoming) whose goal when becoming, the ball will be sent flying and the musicians will play.
Whose nine goals when has become, they issue (victorious).
| No. 1. Dareyli. | No. 2. Gabriali. |
| No. 3. Hunza Man. | No. 4. Nagyri. |
II. THE KOHISTÁN OF THE INDUS, INCLUDING GABRIÁL.
Account of Mir Abdulla.
The real native place of Mir Abdulla is in the territory of Nandiyar; but his uncle migrated to, and settled in, Gabriál. The Mir narrates:—
“In the country of Kunar there is a place called Pusht, where lives a Mulla who is famous for his learning and sanctity. I lived for a long time as his pupil, studying Logic, Philosophy, and Muhammadan Law, the subjects in which the Mulla was particularly proficient. When my absence from my native place became too long, I received several letters and messages from my parents, asking me to give up my studies and return home. At last I acceded to their pressing demands and came to my native village. There I stayed for a long time with my parents; but as I was always desirous to pursue my studies, I was meditating on my return to Pusht, or to go down to India.
In the meantime I met one Abdulquddūs of Kohistan, who was returning from India. He told me that a Dár-ul-u’lûm (House of Sciences) had been opened at Lahore, the capital of the Punjab, where every branch of learning was taught, and that it was superintended by Dr. L., who being himself a proficient scholar of Arabic and Persian, was a patron of learning and a warm supporter of students from foreign countries. I was accompanied by two pupils of mine, named Sher Muhammad and Burhánuddin; and I started together with them from my native village. We passed through the territory of Dir, which is governed by Nawab Rahmatulla Khan. The Qazi of that place was an old acquaintance of mine, and he persuaded me to stop my journey, and promised to introduce me to the Nawab, and procure for me a lucrative and honourable post. I declined his offer, and continued my journey. The next territory we entered in was that of Nawab Tore Mian Khan, who reigns over eight or nine hundred people. After staying there some days we reached Kanan Gharin, which was governed jointly by Nawabs Fazl Ahmad and Bayazid Khan. After two days’ march we came to Chakesur, which was under a petty chief named Suhe Khan. Here we were told that there are two roads to India from this place—one, which is the shorter, is infested with robbers; and the other, the longer one, is safe; but we were too impatient to waste our time, and decided at once to go by the shorter way, and proceeded on our journey. We met, as we were told, two robbers on the road, who insisted on our surrendering to them all our baggage. But we made up our minds to make a stand, though we were very imperfectly armed, having only one “tamancha” among three persons. In the conflict which ensued, one of the robbers fell, and the other escaped; but Burhanuddin, one of our party, was also severely wounded, and we passed the night on the banks of a neighbouring stream, and reached next day Ganagar Sirkol Jatkol, where we halted for eight or nine days. In this place the sun is seen only three or four times a year, when all the dogs of the village, thinking him an intruding stranger, begin to bark at him. Burhanuddin, having recovered there, went back to his home, and I, with the other companion, proceeded to the Punjab, and passing through the territory of a chief, named Shálkhan, entered the British dominions. On arriving at Lahore we were told that Dr. L. was not there, and my companion, too impatient to wait, went down to Rampur, and I stayed at Lahore.” He then gave an account of—
THE KOHISTÁN (OR MOUNTAINOUS COUNTRY).
(A Different Country from one of the Same Name near Kabul.)
Boundaries.—It is bounded on the north by Chitrál, Yasin, and Hunza, on the east by Chilas, Kashmir, and a part of Hazara; on the south by Yaghistán (or wild country); on the west by Swat and Yaghistán.
It is surrounded by three mountainous ranges running parallel to each other, dividing the country into two parts (the northern part is called Gabriál). The Indus flows down through the country, and has a very narrow bed here, which is hemmed in by the mountains.
The northern part, which is called Gabriál, has only two remarkable villages—Kandyá, on the western side of the river, and Siwa on the eastern; and the southern part contains many towns and villages:—
| On the eastern side of the river,— | ||
|---|---|---|
| Town. | Name of influential Malak (Landowner). | |
| (1) | Ladai | Machú. |
| (2) | Kolai | Shah Said. |
| (3) | Palas (9,000 pop.) | Lachur. |
| (4) | Marín | Karm Khán. |
| On the western side of the river,— | ||
| Town. | Name of influential Malak | |
| (5) | Batera | |
| (6) | Patan (8,000 pop.) | Qudrat Ali. |
| (7) | Chakarga | |
| (8) | Ranotia | |
That part of Yaghistán which bounds Kohistan on the west is divided into (1) Thakot, which is governed by Shalkhán, and (2) Dishán, which is under Ram Khan; and that part of Yaghistán which bounds it on the south is divided into three valleys,—
| (1) | Alahi, | governed by | Arsalan Khan. |
| (2) | Nandiyar, | ” | Zafar Khan. |
| (3) | Tikráí, | ” | Ghaffar Khan (has also two cannons). |
Between the southern part of Kohistan and Alahi, in the eastern corner, there is a plain, of a circular form, surrounded on all sides by mountains. This plain is always covered with grass, and streams of clear and fresh water run through it. Both the grass and the water of this vast meadow are remarkable for their nourishing and digestive qualities. This plain is called “Chaur,” and is debatable ground between the Kohistanis of Ladai, Kolai, and Palas, and the Afghans of Alahi.
People.—The people of this country are not allied to the Afghans, as their language shows, but have the same erect bearing and beautiful features.
Language.—Their language is altogether different from that of their neighbours, the Afghans, as will be shown by the following comparison:—
| Kohistani. | Pushto (the Afghan Language). |
|---|---|
| 1. To-morrow night to Lahore I will go. | 1. To-morrow night to Lahore I will go. |
| Douche rate Lahore bajanwa. | Saba shapa ba Lahore shazam. |
| 2. Thou silent be. | 2. Thou silent be. |
| Tohe chut guda. | Tah chup shai. |
| 3. Prepare, ye young men. | 3. Prepared be, O young men. |
| Jubti masha. | Saubhal she zalmú. |
There is a song very current in Kohistan which begins,—
Palas kulal mariga, Patane jirga hotiga, Johle johal madado propár asáli = “In Palas a potter was killed, in Patan the jirga (or tribal assembly) sat.”
“The corrupted (Jirga of Malaks) took a bribe, and retaliation was ignored.” The Afghans are called Pathans.
Religion.—They have been converted to Islám since four or five generations, and they have forsaken their old religion so completely that no tinge of it now remains; and when a Kohistani is told that they are “nau-Muslims,” that is, “new Muhammadans,” he becomes angry.
Muslim learning, and the building of mosques have become common in Kohistan, and now we find twenty or thirty learned mullas in every considerable town, besides hundreds of students, studying in mosques.
Dress.—Their national dress consists of a woollen hat, brimmed like that of Europeans, and a loose woollen tunic having a long جاكى along the right breast, so that one can easily get out the right hand to wield one’s arms in a fight. Their trousers are also made of wool and are very tight. In the summer they wear a kind of leathern shoes borrowed from the Afghans, but in the winter they wear a kind of boots made of grass (the straw of rice) reaching to the knees. They call it “pájola.”
Till very lately their only arms were a small “khanjar” (dagger), bows and arrows; but they have borrowed the use of guns and long swords from the Afghans.
The dress of their women consists of a loose woollen head-dress with silken fringes, a woollen tunic and blue or black trousers of cotton cloth, which they call “shakara.” Generally their women work with their husbands in the corn-fields, and do not live confined to their houses.
Government.—They have no chiefs like the Afghans, but influential Malaks lead them to battle, who are paid no tribute, salary, etc.
When an enemy enters their country they whistle so sharply that the sound is heard for miles; then the whole tribe assembles in one place for the defence of their country, with their respective Malaks at their heads.
Mode of Living, and other Social Customs.—In winter they live in the valleys, in houses made of wood and stones; but in summer they leave their houses in the valleys for those on the peaks of mountains, and the mass of the population spends the summer in the cooler region; but those who cultivate the land live the whole day in the valley, and when night comes go up to their houses on the heights. Their food is the bread of wheat, and milk furnished by their herds of cattle (gaómesh, cows, goats, and sheep), which is their sole property. There are no regular Bazárs even in the large villages; but the arrival of a merchant from India is generally hailed throughout the country. The woollen cloth which they use generally is manufactured by them.
Marriage.—Very lately there was a custom amongst them that the young man was allowed to court any girl he wished; but now, from their contact with the Afghans, the system of “betrothal” at a very early age is introduced, and the boy does not go till his marriage to that part of the village in which the girl betrothed to him lives. The Kohistanis say that they have learned three things from the Afghans:—
(1) The use of leathern shoes,
(2) The use of long swords and guns,
(3) The system of betrothal.
III. A ROUGH SKETCH OF KHATLÁN (KOLÁB) AND ADJOINING COUNTRIES.[114]
By Maulvi Najmuddin, a Theologian and Poet from Koláb.
Names of Manzils (Stations) From Kolab to the Punjab.
| کولاب | (1) | Kolab. |
| صیاد | (2) | Sayad. Situated on this side of the Amoo, and belongs to Badakhshan. |
| ین قلع | (3) | Yan-Qalá. |
| چاھیاب | (4) | Chahyáb. Governed then (18 years ago) by Sultan Azdahar, son of Yusuf Ali Khán. |
| دشت سبز | (5) | Dashti-sabz. A halting-place. |
| رستاق | (6) | Rustáq. Governed then by Ismail Khán, son of Yusuf Ali Khán. |
| قزل درہ | (7) | Kizil Dara. |
| الکاشان | (8) | Elkáshán. The Himalaya begins. |
| اتن جلب | (9) | Átin Jalab. Here the river Kokcha[115] is crossed. |
| دشت سفید | (10) | Dasht-e-sufed. |
| فیض اباد | (11) | Faízabad. Capital of Badakhshan; governed then by Jahandár Shah; is situated on the river Kokchá. |
| رباط | (11) | Rubát. |
| دشت فراخ | (12) | Dashti Farákh. |
| وردوج | (13) | Wardúj. Contains a mine of sulphur. |
| (14) | Names are forgotten. | |
| (15) | ||
| زیباق | (16) | Zibáq. Peopled by Shi’as (or rather Muláis). |
| دہ گول | (17) | Deh Gôl. The frontier village of Badakhshán; only a kind of inn. |
| سنگر | (18) | Sanghar. A halting-place. |
| چترال | (19) | Chitrál. Governed then by Aman-ul-mulk (as now). |
| سرغال | (20) | Sarghál. |
| رباطَك | (21) | Rubatak. |
| دیر | (22) | Dír. Governed then by Ghazan Khán. |
| سوات | (23) | Swat. |
| پشاور | (24) | Peshawar. |
That part of the country lying at the foot of the Hindu Kush mountains, which is bounded on the north by Kokand and Karatigan, on the east by Durwaz, on the south by Badakhshan and the Amu, on the west by Sherabad and Hissar (belonging to Bukhara) is called Khatlan ختلان. Koláb, a considerable town containing a population of about ten thousand, is situated at the distance of five miles from the northern bank of the Amu, and is the capital of the province. The other towns of note are Muminabad مؤمن اباد, Daulatabad دولتاباد, Khawaling خوالنگ, Baljawan بلجوان, and Sarchashmá سرچشمہ.
The country, being situated at the foot of mountains, and being watered by numerous streams, is highly fertile. The most important products are rice, wheat, barley, kharpazá, etc.; and the people generally are agricultural.
There is a mine of salt in the mountains of خواجه مؤمن Khawaja Mumin; and the salt produced resembles the Lahori salt, though it is not so pure and shining, and is very cheap.
Cattle breeding is carried on on a great scale, and the wealth of a man is estimated by the number of cattle he possesses. There is a kind of goat in this country which yields a very soft kind of wool (called Tibit); and the people of Kolah prepare from it hoses and a kind of turban, called Shamali (from shamal, the northern wind, from which it gives shelter).
Religion.—Generally the whole of the population belongs to the Sunni sect (according to the Hanafi rite).
Tribes.—The population of the country is divided into Laqai, Battash, and Tajiks. The Laqais live in movable tents (khargah) like the Kirghiz, and lead a roving life, and are soldiers and thieves by profession. The Battashes live in villages, which are generally clusters of kappás (thatched cottages), and are a peaceful and agricultural people. The Tajiks live in the towns, and are mostly artisans.
Language.—Turki is spoken in the villages and a very corrupt form of Persian in the towns. Most of the words are so twisted and distorted that a Persian cannot understand the people of the country without effort.
Government.—The country is really a province of Bukhárá; but a native of Kolab, descended from the Kapchaqs by the father’s and from the Laqais by the mother’s side, became independent of Bukhará. After his death, his four sons, Sayer Khan, Sara Khan, Qamshin Khan, Umra Khan, fought with one another for the crown; and Sara Khan, having defeated the other three, came to be the Chief of the province, but was defeated by an army from Bukhará and escaped to Kabul.
When Najmuddin left his country, it was governed by a servant of the court of Bukhárá.
The houses are generally built of mud, cut into smooth and symmetrical walls, and are plastered by a kind of lime called guch. Burnt bricks are very rare, and only the palace of the governor is made partially of them. The walls are roofed by thatch made of “damish” (reeds), which grow abundantly on the banks of the Amoo.
The dress consists of long, flowing choghás (stuffed with cotton) and woollen turbans. The Khatlanis wear a kind of full boot which they call chamush, but lately a kind of shoe is introduced from Russia, and is called nughai.
The country is connected with Yarkand by two roads, one running through Kokand and the other through the Pamir.
The above and following accounts were in answer to questions by Dr. Leitner, whose independent researches regarding Kandiá in 1866-72 were thus corroborated in 1881, and again in 1886, when the photographs which serve as the basis of our illustrations were taken.
IV. THE LANGUAGE, CUSTOMS, SONGS, AND PROVERBS OF GABRIÁL.
Position.—A town in Kandiá, a part of Yaghistan (the independent, or wild, country) situated beyond the river Indus (Hawā-sinn), which separates it from Chilás. The country of Kandiá extends along both sides of the Kheri Ghá, a tributary of the Indus, and is separated from Tangir by a chain of mountains.
The town of Gabriál is situated three days’ march from Jalkôt, in a north-west direction, and is one day’s march from Patan, in a northerly direction. Patan is the chief city of Southern Kandiá.
Inhabitants.—The whole tract of Kandiá can send out 20,000 fighting men. They are divided into the following castes:—
(1) Shîn, the highest, who now pretend to be Quraishes, the Arabs of the tribe to which the Prophet Muhammad belonged. (Harif Ullá, the Gabriáli, and Ghulam Mohammad, of Gilgit, call themselves Quraishes.)
(2) Yashkun, who now call themselves Mughals, are inferior to the Shîn. A Yashkun man cannot marry a Shîn woman. Ahmad Shah, the Jalkoti belonged to this caste.
| 3 | (3) | Doeúzgar, carpenters. | In reality these people constitute no distinct castes, but all belong to a third, the Kamin, caste. |
| (4) | Jolá, weavers. | ||
| (5) | Akhár, blacksmiths. | ||
| (6) | Dôm, musicians. | ||
| (7) | Kámìn, lowest class. |
The people of Northern Kandiá (Gabriál) are called Bunzárî, and of the southern part (i.e., Patan) Maní, as the Chilasis are called Boté. A foreigner is called Raráwi, and fellow-countryman, Muqámi.
Religion.—The Gabriális, as well as all the people of Chilás, Patan, and Palas, are Sunnis, and are very intolerant to the Shias, who are kidnapped and kept in slavery (Ghulam Mohammad, the Gilgiti, has been for many years a slave in Chilás, as Ahmad Shah reports). The Gabriális were converted to Muhammadanism by a saint named Bâbâji, whose shrine is in Gabriál, and is one of the most frequented places by pilgrims. The Gabriális say that this saint lived six or seven generations ago. Mir Abdulla (who is really of Afghanistan, but now lives in Gabriál,) says that the Gabriális were converted to Islám about 150 years ago. Lately, this religion has made great progress among the people of Kandiá generally. Every little village has a mosque, and in most of the towns there are numerous mosques with schools attached to them, which are generally crowded by students from every caste. In Gabriál, the Mullahs or priests are, for the most part, of the Shîn caste, but men of every caste are zealous in giving education to their sons. Their education is limited to Muhammadan law (of the Hanifite school), and Arabian logic and philosophy. Very little attention is paid to Arabic or Persian general literature and caligraphy, that great Oriental art; so little, indeed, that Harifullah and Mir Abdulla, who are scholars of a very high standard, are wholly ignorant of any of the caligraphic forms, and their handwriting is scarcely better than that of the lowest primary class boys in the schools of the Punjab.
The most accomplished scholar in Kandiá is the high priest and chief of Patan, named Hazrat Ali, who is a Shîn.
The people generally are peaceful, and have a fair complexion and erect bearing. Their social and moral status has lately been raised very high. Robbery and adultery are almost unknown, and the usual punishment for these crimes is death. Divorce is seldom practised; polygamy is not rare among the rich men (wadán), but is seldom found among the common people.
Government.—Every village or town is governed by a Council of elders, chosen from among every tribe or “taífa.” The most influential man among these elders for the time being is considered as the chief of the Council. These elders are either Shîns or Yashkun. No Kamìn can be elected an elder, though he may become a Mullá, but a Mulla-kamìn also cannot be admitted to the Council.
The reigning Council of Gabriál consists of 12 persons, of whom 9 are Shins and 3 Yashkuns. Patshé Khân is the present chief of the Council. The post of Chief of the Council is not hereditary, but the wisest and the most influential of the elders is elected to that post. Justice is administered by the Mullahs without the interference of the Council, whose operation is limited to inter-tribal feuds.
Customs and Manners.—Hockey on horseback, which is called “lughât” in Gabriál, is played on holidays; and the place where they meet for the sport is called “lughât-kárin-jha.”
Guns are called “nâli” in Gabriál, and are manufactured in the town by blacksmiths.
Dancing is not practised generally, as in the other Shin countries. Only “Doms” dance and sing, as this is their profession; they play on the “surúi” (pipe), rabáb (harp), and shaṇdo (drum).
The “purdá” system, or “veiling” women, is prevalent among the gentry, but it is only lately that the system was introduced into this country.
When a son is born, a musket is fired off, and the father of the newborn son gives an ox as a present to the people, to be slaughtered for a general festival.
Infanticide is wholly unknown.
Marriage.—The father of the boy does not go himself, as in Gilgit, to the father of the girl, but sends a man with 5 or 6 rupees, which he offers as a present. If the present is accepted, the betrothal (lóli) is arranged. As far as the woman is concerned the “lóli” is inviolable. The usual sum of dowry paid in cash is 80 rupees.
A bride is called “zhiyán,” and the bridegroom “zhiyán lo.”
Language.—On account of the want of intercourse between the tribes the language of Kohistan is broken into numerous dialects; thus the structure of the dialects spoken in Kandiá, i.e., in Gabriál and Patan, differs from that of the language spoken in Chilás and Palus, i.e., in the countries situated on this side of the Indus. Harifullah, a Gabriáli, did not understand any language except his own; but Ahmad Shah, an inhabitant of Jalkôt (situated in the southern part of Chilás), understood Gabriáli, as he had been there for a time. Ghulam Mohammad, our Gilgiti man, who had been captured in an excursion, and had lived as a slave in Chilás, also thoroughly understood Jalkóti.
The language of Kohistan (as Chilás, Kandiá, etc., are also called) is divided into two dialects, called Shéná and Shúthun respectively. In the countries situated on that side of the Indus, that is in Kandiá, Shúthun is spoken.
The following pages are devoted to Ballads, Proverbs, Riddles, and Dialogues in the Shúthun dialect.
Songs = Gíla. Meshón gíla = men’s songs; Gharón gíla = female songs.
1. An Elegy.
Fifteen years ago a battle was fought between Arslán Khan of Kali, and Qamar Ali Khan of Pálus, in which 300 men were killed on both sides. Phaju, on whose death the elegy is written by his sister, was one of the killed. The inhabitants of Palus are called “Sikhs,” in reproach.
i.
Rugé níle, jimátyán-kachh-dúkánt,
In a green place, next a mosque, in a sitting (resting) place,
Chá chápár gála mazé, shahzada marégil
In a surrounded fort within, the prince was killed
Rugé níle, jimátyán kachh, dúkánt
In a green place, next a mosque, in a resting place
Sheú wále, bathrí, sóh viráti walégil.
Bring the bier, lay it down, (so that) that heirless one may be brought to his home.
ii.
Rúge níle, wo Shérkot shar hogaé,
In the green place, that Sherkot, where the halting-places of guests
Diri Sikáno qatle karégil.
Are deserted, the Sikhs (infidels, that is the Pálusis) slaughter committed (did).
Rúge níle, Shérkot, barí bigá hojowo,
In the green place, in Sherkot, a great fight happened to be,
Kali Khel, Phajú dasgír marégil.
O Kalikhel (a tribe of Kohistan) Phajú is captured and killed.
Translation.
1. In a green place, next the mosque, in a place of rest.
Within an enclosure the prince was killed.
In a green place, next a mosque, in a spot of rest,
Bring the bier and lay it down, to bring him home who has no heir.
2. In the green place, that Sherkôt, where the halting-place of guests
Is deserted, the Sikhs committed slaughter.
In the green place, in Sherkot, a great fight took place,
Oh, Kalikhel tribe, Phajú was captured and killed.
2. The following song is a chârbait, or quatrain, composed by Qamrán, a Gabriali poet. The song treats of the love between Saif-ul-mulk, a prince of Rúm, and Shahparì (the Fairy-queen).
The first line of a charbait is called Sarnâmâh, and the remaining poem is divided into stanzas or “Khhàṛáo,” consisting each of four lines. At the end of every stanza the burden of the song is repeated:
Sarnamah.—Ma húga musfar, mi safár hugâe Hindustan waín
I became a stranger, my travel became towards Hindustan.
Mí duâ’ salám, duâ’ salámi ahl Kohistan waín
My prayer-compliments, prayer-compliments, to the inhabitants of Kohistan (may go forth).
Malá Malúkh thû, O Badrái tou ínê haragilua
I myself am Malukh (name of the Prince Saif-ul-mulk), O Badra, thou didst lose me.
Burden.—Hái, Malá Malúkh thû, O Badrái, ché Malúkh tîṇ tâó bar zíthu
Woe, I am Malukh, O Badra, now thy Malukh from thy sorrow has lost his senses.
i.
Stanzas.—1. Mala Malukh thu, O Badrai, Malúkh tîṇ, tâó thú dazélo
I myself am Malukh, O Badra, thy Malukh burnt has been from thy heat.
2. Hyó níeṇ nidhéto qarâré, Malúkh Badré wátbe thú harzélo
In the heart there is no ease, which Malukh after Badra has lost.
3. Be tí áṇs yârâúâ, mah pai-mukhé á’ṇs soh wéloṇ
Ours, yours, was friendship, I beardless at that time.
4. Gini kirí thi, háê háê, mi Azli qalam zikzithu
Why dost thou ... woe! woe! the pen of Eternity wrote so.
Burden.—5. Hái, Malá Malúkh thu, O Badrai, Ché Malukh tîṇ tâó harzi thu.
Woe, I am Malukh, O Badra, etc., etc.
ii.
1. Gini kiri the, hae hae, mi azló mazé lìkh taqdîr thú
Why dost thou ... woe, woe! in Eternity did Fate write so.
2. Darwázoṇ mazá galáchhe dhuî Mato tiṇ daráṇ faqîr thu
On thy gate I lit fire (like Jôgís), I a boy was the beggar of thy door.
3. To hikmat biu báz-shâî thi kishéu lûṇgo maza zanzîr thu
By thy stratagem thou takest the eagle a prisoner in the chain of thy black locks.
4. Kisheu lûngá, narai narai, panar mûṇla bé the zetdu
Black locks, in strings, on thy bright face are twined.
5. Hae Mala Malukh thu....
Woe, I am Malukh, etc....
iii.
1. Kisheu lûngá narai narai, panar mûṇ la âwizâṇ thu
Black locks in strings on thy bright face are hanging.
2. Mi laṛmûṇ mazá karáé, tiu makhchúe gi mi armâṇ thu
In my body is the knife, thine is this deed which was my desire.
3. A’khir dhar héṇti nímgaré shoṇ fáni na, malá rawâṇ thu
At length will remain unfinished this waning (world), I now depart.
4. Hyó mi kir súraí súraí, Jandun giná thu, ma mari thu
My heart didst thou pierce in holes, where is my life, I am dead.
5. Hae Hae....
Woe, I am Malukh, etc.
iv.
1. Hyó mi kir súraí súraí térubir, teṇ shon niázah ghiu
My heart didst thou pierce throughout, by this thy spear.
2. Mála thu muṛé, ti dalbaráṇ, lailo bá mi janázah ghiu
I am thy dead boy, thy lover, O dearest, go off from my bier.
3. Khún tiu gḥaṛ hoga, ghi tulá nibháé ansi khévah ghiu
My blood is on thy neck, alas! thou didst not sit with me, being engaged in thy toilet.
4. Khévah kirethi zhare tin soh khiyál mudá chaizbithú
Thy toilet do now, now that thy remembrance of me is slackened by Time.
Matal (Masl = Proverbs).
Proverbs.—(1) Zánda chapélo razan bhiyáṇt.
One who is struck by all, fears even a rope.
(2) Zoṛoṇ waé nhálé k hurá zhiká.
Looking towards (the length of) the sheet, extend your feet.
(3) Háte ché rachhélú darwáze aṛat kara.
Elephant if you keep, make your door wide.
(4) Kaṛotál ghutágir, láwáṇ na hol kir.
The Lion attacks, the Jackal makes water.
(5) Qá mil tillu gûṇ kaáṇt, báz mil tillu máséu khánt.
With crow went, ate dung; with eagle went, ate flesh.
i.e. In the company of the crow you will learn to eat dung and in that of the eagle, you will eat flesh.
(6) Taṇgá gatam karé rupaé balyúṇ.
A penny, for collecting went, lost rupee.
(7) Aíṇ tale kaṇwalé déthé, mazé háṛ shárá túṇ.
Big mouth flattery does, inwardly (in mind) breaks bones.
(8) Dúṇí lawáṇo karú márch.
Two Jackals a lion kill.
(9) Dhon mazé ek bakrí budi agalu, bûtoṇ bakroṇ ethi.
In a flock, if a contagious disease to one goat come, it comes to all goats.
(10) Gúṇ khuch táṇt soṇ, gháṇo cháí hont.
Dung is spread out however much, bad smell so much more becomes.
(11) Zhá zhui dárú.
Brother’s remedy is brother.
(12) Tálaiṇ uthi, kozá dishál, tiu dú boṇdi.
A sieve rose, to pot said, “You have two holes.”
(13) Zar bádshah tamam hotoṇ, hiyá bandgár shilát.
Money of the king is spent, heart of the treasurer pains.
Isholá (Question).
Riddles.—(1) Shúṇ ghélá chíz thuṇ, che naháláṇt tasi wáiṇ pasháṇt amá?
Such what thing is, which they see towards it, they see themselves in it?
Answer: Mirror. Shúṇ áhan thi. = Such mirror is.
(2) Shúṇ gheḷá chíz thúṇ che surat záné thi, tilháṇt nai?
Such what thing is, whose figure serpent-like is, does not move?
Answer: Rope. Shúṇ rás thi. = Such rope is.
(3) Shúṇ ghelá chíz thúṇ, aṇgár dheráni gellú, dhúaṇ darya bau nikáṇt?
Such what thing is, fire is applied to dry grass, the river of smoke flows from it.
Answer: Hookâh.
(4) Shúṇ ghélá chíz thúṇ, che mut surté waré nahále? hasáṇt, khuroṇ we nahále roṇt?
Such what thing is, who seeing towards other body laughs, seeing towards feet, weeps?
Answer: Peacock.
SHÚTHUN.
WORDS AND DIALOGUES.
Words.
- God, Khávaṇd.
- fairy, kháperé.
- demon, div.
- female demon, balái.
- paradise, janat.
- fire, aṇgár.
- earth, uzmuk.
- water, wí.
- heaven, asmán.
- moon, yúṇ.
- star, tará.
- darkness, tamáí.
- shadow, chhoṇl.
- day, des.
- light, láwar.
- night, rál.
- midday, mazardi.
- midnight, áṛ-rál.
- evening, nosháṇ.
- to-day, ázuk des.
- yesterday, bayaluk des.
- to-morrow, rályaṇk des.
- heat, taó, tát.
- cold, hewán.
- flame, lám.
- smoke, dhúáṇ.
- thunder, hagá-dazi-gé.
- lightning, mili.
- rain, ájo.
- drop, ájo-tìpo.
- rainbow, bijonṛ.
- snow, hiṇ yúṇ.
- ice, kambuk.
- hail, mékh.
- dew, palús.
- earthquake, bhúnál.
- dust, udhún.
- pebbles, lakh-bato.
- sand, sighál.
- mud, chichál.
- plain, maidán, meráh.
- valley, dará.
- mount, kháu.
- foot of mountain, múndh.
- river, sín.
- wooden bridge, síú.
- rivulet, uchhu.
- streamlet, kháṛ.
- avalanche, hiṇál.
- lake, dhám.
- pond, dhamkalú.
- confluence, milil.
- banks, sin-kaí.
- yonder bank, pír sinkai.
- this bank, ár sinkai.
- a well, kohi.
- country, watau.
- village, gáụ.
- place, zhaí.
- army, kauár.
- leader, kauár sardár.
- lumberdár, malak.
- tax-gatherer, jám kai.
- policeman, zeitú.
- cannon, tof.
- gun, náli.
- sword, tarwál.
- dagger, karái.
- lance, naizá, shel.
- powder, náláṇ daru.
- ball, goli.
- ditches, kahe.
- war, kali.
- thief, lú.
- sentinel, ráth.
- guard, chár.
- guide, pan-pasháṇtuk.
- coward, khiá to.
- traitor, fatandár.
- bribe, baṛi.
- prisoner, bandi.
- slave, dim.
- master, maulá.
- servant, naukar.
- drum, shaudo.
- sheath, káti.
- grip, kauzá.
- bottom of sheath, kundi.
- hatchet, ckháí.
- file, soán.
- smoothing iron, rambi.
- scythe, liṇzh.
- tongs, ochhúṇ.
- razor, chhúr.
- mirror, áhin.
- plough, hól.
- oar, phiyá.
- yoke, úṇ.
- ladle, tagú.
- kneading roller, chhagór.
- kettle, chati.
- little kettle, chedin.
- stone kettle, botá-bháṇ.
- pan, to.
- coal, phúthe.
- key, kunji.
- lion, khará.
- shawl, shíyúṇ.
- bedding, bathár.
- lock, sáṛ.
- bolt, hul.
- vineyard, dháṇgá.
- stable, ghozai.
- ” for cattle, gáṇ zai.
- ” for sheep, bakroṇ-ghuzál.
- water mill, yáṇzh.
- iron peg, kili.
- bullet-bag, koti.
- powder-flask, darú kothi.
- iron and flint, tíz.
- tinder, khú.
- bow, sháe.
- arrow, káṇó.
- quiver, káṇó bhaṇ.
- ship, jaház.
- boat, heṛi.
- century, shol kála.
- year, kála.
- half-year, aṛa-kála.
- three months, sha-yúṇ.
- week, sát-dés.
- spring, basáṇ.
- summer, barish.
- autumn, sharal.
Lunar Muhammadan Months.
- Khudá tálá yúṇ, Rajab.
- Shahqadar, Shaaban.
- Rozoṇ yúṇ, Ramazan.
- Lukut (smaller) eed yúṇ, Shawal.
- Kháli yúṇ, Zi Qáad.
- Gháíṇ eed yúṇ, Zi Haj.
- Hasan Husain yúṇ, Muharram.
- Chár bheyáṇ (four sisters), four months of Rabiulawwal: Rabi 2, Jamadi 1, Jamadi 2.
- man, máṇsho.
- male, mésh.
- woman, gharoṇ.
- new-born child, chinot.
- girl, mati.
- virgin, bikra-mati.
- bachelor, cháur.
- old man, zárá.
- old woman, zírí.
- puberty, zuáni.
- life, zhigi.
- death, máreg.
- sickness, ráṇs.
- sick, najúr.
- health, mith ráhat.
- relation, zhává.
- brotherhood, sak zhá.
- friend, yár.
- aunt, máfi.
- father, abá.
- paternal uncle, pichá.
- mother, yá.
- brother, zhá.
- sister, bhiyúṇ.
- son, púsh.
- daughter, dhí.
- daughter’s husband, zamá zhú.
- grandson, pázho.
- granddaughter, pozhi.
- nephew, zhá-lichh.
- husband, baryú.
- wife’s brother, shábri.
- wife’s mother, ichosh.
- wife’s father, shor.
- pregnancy, ghaleíṇ.
- nurse, razáí mahal.
- priest, moláṇ.
- mosque, jamáat.
- pupil, shágar.
- sportsman, dháuzír.
- goldwasher, keryáṇ.
- peasant, déqán.
- horse-stealer, gálwáṇ.
- robber, lú.
- brick-baker, ustá kár.
- butcher, qasábi.
- shepherd, payál.
- cowherd, go-chár.
- groom, kharbal.
- body, surté adúmá.
- skin, chám.
- bones, hár.
- marrow, métho.
- flesh, maséṇ.
- fat, miyún.
- blood, rát.
- veins, rage.
- head, shish.
- occiput, shisháṇ-kokar.
- brain, metho.
- curls, chaṇdú.
- tresses, pétú.
- forehead, tál.
- eyes, aṇchhi.
- eyebrow, ruzí.
- eyelids, papáíṇ.
- pupil, machhá.
- tears, áṇchhe.
- ears, kaná.
- hearing, shúoṇ.
- cheeks, hargel.
- chin, dáí.
- nose, nathúr.
- nostrils, shúli.
- odour, gháṇ.
- sneezing, zhitá.
- upper lip, bul-dhút.
- nether lip, múṇ-dhút.
- mouth, áiṇ.
- taste, khoṇd.
- licking, chara.
- sucking, chúshoṇ.
- beard, dáí-bál.
- moustaches, phuṇge.
- teeth, daná.
- tongue, zíb.
- jaw, tálú.
- throat, marri.
- neck, shák.
- shoulder, phyá.
- back, dah.
- fore-arm, mutá.
- palm, kát-zil.
- nails, naḳhá.
- thumb, aṇgú.
- middle finger, mazwál angúi.
- breast, heṇ li.
- lungs, phap.
- liver, shúr.
- kidneys, juká.
- breath, dhéṇs.
- coughing, kháṇg.
- spleen, shiyáṇ.
- belly, vari.
- side, shígát.
- ribs, pash.
- thighs, sethi.
- knee, kútá.
- feet, khurá.
- sole, sháṇdá.
- anger, rush.
- aversion, achháq.
- boastful, amá-tikú.
- cheating, tḥag.
- courage, hyo-kura.
- cowardice, bhiyáto.
- blind, shéo.
- deaf, borá.
- dumb, cháo.
- dwarf, khátoṇ.
- giant, zhigo.
- hunch-back, dakoro.
- stammering, hup-hup.
- one-eyed, ek-áchhá.
- bed, shi-úṇ.
- broom, láhúli.
- canal, yáh.
- fort, kalá.
- house, báo.
- ladder, párchaṇgi.
- street, durro.
- water-jug, dhomb-lú.
- wall, kúṛ.
- window, bá-úṇ.
- guest, maláshi.
- host, malásh-khais.
- breakfast, vépli.
- midday meal, ashari-goli.
- luncheon, mazardiṇ-goli.
- evening meal, bilalú-ki-goli.
- sour dough, kham birá.
- light, lawár.
- I, má.
- thou, tú.
- he, úṇ.
- we, améṇ.
- you, tus.
- they, áiṇ.
- great, ghéroṇ.
- small, lakho.
- much, che.
- beautiful, sugá.
- ugly, adash.
- clean, sáf.
- dirty, mulgán.
- deep, khatoṇ.
- rich, poyandá.
- poor, kám toáṇ.
- miserly, sakh.
- oath, súgáu.
Dialogues.
What is your name? tiṇ ná gi thú?
Where do you come from? tú guláṇ ethú?
Where do you go to? tú guláṇ byáṇ thú?
When did you come? tú kal ethú?
Come quickly, zino é.
Go slowly, suple bhá.
Beat him now, as uskéṇ koteh.
Kill him afterwards, as hilék pásrih máreh.
How is the road between this and there? uṇgáí shálgái har páṇ goshe the?
Very bad and dangerous, chaí kharáb thi, chai gi aụ thi.
Very easy; a plain, and nothing to fear, chaí hasán thi; bodi maiaán kingi bhíl nithi.
Is there any water on the road? paú mazé wi thú ya na thú (way-in water is or not is)?
Why should there not be any? giné nithú?
There is plenty, and good water, cho thú, sains thú.
The water is bad and salty, achhak thú, lúsuláe milál thú.
There is a big river on the road, which you will not be able to cross, pánda mazé, ghái sin thi, pir-khingí (on that side) ni biháṇt.
Why? Is there no bridge? ginah? síú nithú?
There was a rope bridge, but to-day it broke, bilálá síú áṇs, áz sher thi.
Can it be not repaired? sáṇdhat nai éṇ?
There are no men for two days’ march all round. There are neither twigs nor ropes to be got. How am I to do? shásh taraf se másh nithu, doṇ diṇ so mazaló-mazé, gishí sandhyí?
How can he come; he has gone about some business, sóh gishé éshóto, soh kámi béjthú.
Go! be silent. Bring him at once, or else I shall be very angry, bóh! chubbó; má khapá hothiú, zino bádi á.
What do you want? tú gi lukhát?
I do not want anything except to drink and eat, mà kiṇgeh ni lukhaṇt, kháṇ púr lukháṇt.
I have nothing; what can I give you? minge kíngé nithú, má gi dáwá?
First of all bring cold water, buttó mú tḥo tú mitḥa wi á.
Afterwards bring milk, ghi, butter, paitóṇ shír, ghil, shishaṇ.
How many days will you stay here? tú ondháṇ ketúk desi bhayáṇto?
I will start to-morrow early, má ráli béṇto.
Get coolies (porters), petwáre á.
How many coolies do you want? ketúk petwáre pakár thú?
The road is full of stones, páṇdá maze batáh chaí vaṇte.
Your loads are very heavy, tíṇ aíṇ (-this) peté chaí abur thíṇ.
The coolies will not be able to carry them, zaṇ petwaré búí ner haṇthé.
I beg that you will make your loads a little lighter, and then you will arrive quicker, mi arzí thi, as peté hilék achhrá; amén hálo chhíl.
Be patient; I will pay for all; I will give the rate to the coolies. If you act well I will reward you, sabar karé; móṇh buto mazdúri dashul; téṇ miṭh kám karlu, má tighé inám dashut.
Get the horses ready, ghúí tayár karáh.
Put the saddle on, ghúí tal kátḥí sambhál karé.
Take the saddle and bridle off, ghúí na maláni alú karé, háṇ káthé.
Catch hold of this, as dháí.
Do not lose it, as phat niré.
Do not forget what I say, míṇ bál (my word) né ushá.
Hear! look! take care, káno hin shúná, anchhí náhlí l fikar karé.
Tie the horse to that tree, gho as gáí mél gáṇdá.
Keep watch all night, rál chokidárí karáh.
Are there many thieves here? úndá lú ché thé?
What is this noise? shún awáz kasiṇ thúṇ?
Who are you? tú káṇ thúṇ?
Get away from here, uṇd gáí báh.
Shoot him the moment he comes near, uṇgáí ígálo, asíṇ tumakáh deh.
This man is treacherous, úṇ másh bepat thú.
Don’t let him go, as másh úṇdú phat niyáréh.
Bind him, imprison him, enchain him; put him into stocks, as gaṇdáh; asiṇ háthe zanzír gáláh; as kundi galáh.
I am going to sleep, hú íṇ má sútá bijáṇtaé.
Don’t make a noise, chozuk niyáreh.
How many people are there in the village? as gáṇó maz katú maṇsh thé?
I have not counted them, méṇ ishmár niyárchí.
Is the soil fertile or sterile? dol níl thé, gíh shíshi thé?
Is there much fruit? mévá chaí thé?
Is there much grain in the village? as watné maz án cho thú?
How many taxes do you pay in the year? ek kál maz ketúk masúl diyáṇt tus?
Are you satisfied? tú khush-hál thú?
How is your health? tú uṇdáṇ arám thú?
I am in good health, arám thú.
Good temper, tabyát sáf.
Bad temper, tabyát asak.
God bless you, khudáé tigé barakat dé.
May God lengthen your life, khudáe tiṇ umar chai kare.
My name is Gharib Shah, míṇ ná Gharíb Sháh thú.
My age is twenty years, míṇ umar bísh káláh thú.
My mother is dead; my father is alive; míṇ mháṇli marigai, míṇ mahálo zaná thú.
How is the road, good or bad? pán mit thi ghi achak thi?
In one or two places it is good, in others bad, ek dú záé mit thíṇ, ek dú záé achak thíṇ.
How did you come from Chilas? tú Chilasúṇ gishéí thú?
I could not get a horse, I went on foot, gho nyans, maton, khuron tal ethú.
Are the mountains on the road high? pán maze kháná úchat thé?
When are you going back? tú kaiá bashotá?
I am poor, má gharíh thú.
We kill all infidels, bé bud kafra maráṇ the.
I have come to learn the language, má zíb chhitáíṇ éthú.
What do I care about? miṇ gi parwá thú?
I make my prayers five times every day, má har dés panjwaqtúṇ nimáz karáṇ thé.
Where did you come from? tu guláṇ ethú?
Come into the house, bá khuní é.
Sit at your ease, mitho bhaí.
Are you well? tú mit thú?
Are your children well? tíu chinomati júṛ thé?
Is your sister’s son well? tíu sazú júṛ thé?
Are you very ill? tú cho ácháq (sick) thé?
May God restore you to health! khudá tálá tú joṛ kéré.
Light the fire, angár guyáh.
Cook the food, goli pazáh.
Spread the bed, bathári karé.
It is very cold, chaí lúí thé.
It is very hot, chaí tut thé.
Put on your clothes, zúr shá.
Catch hold of the horse, gho dhaí.
Look at that man, píshas másh nahálá.
Take care, fikar karé.
You will fall, tú ullá shat.
Take a good aim, mitḥi nazir karé.
I will give you help, ma timál madat karéshat.
I am hungry, bring food that I may eat, má húshoshat, goli á, khéij.
I am thirsty, bring water that I may drink, má chúha húga, wi á, púmá.
I am sleepy now, I will go to sleep, migé nízh íge, nizh karáṇthú.
What do you call this in your language? tus shas chizí taí zíb hín gimá manáth?
How much is the produce of this land? as zaímuz ketúk paidá húnt?
Can you sing? tige gila eṇthe?