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.