[1753.—"The Cligis knowing that his troops must pass thro' their mountains, waited for them in the defiles, and successively defeated several bodies of Mahommed's army."—Hanway, Hist. Acc. iii. 24.]
1842.—"The Ghilji tribes occupy the principal portion of the country between Kándahár and Ghazní. They are, moreover, the most numerous of the Afghân tribes, and if united under a capable chief might ... become the most powerful.... They are brave and warlike, but have a sternness of disposition amounting to ferocity.... Some of the inferior Ghiljís are so violent in their intercourse with strangers that they can scarcely be considered in the light of human beings, while no language can describe the terrors of a transit through their country, or the indignities which have to be endured.... The Ghiljis, although considered, and calling themselves, Afghâns, and moreover employing the Pashto, or Afghân dialect, are undoubtedly a mixed race.
"The name is evidently a modification or corruption of Khaljí or Khilají, that of a great Turkí tribe mentioned by Sherífudín in his history of Taimúr...."—Ch. Masson, Narr. of various Journeys, &c., ii. 204, 206, 207.
1854.—"The Ghúri was succeeded by the Khilji dynasty; also said to be of Turki extraction, but which seems rather to have been of Afghán race; and it may be doubted if they are not of the Ghiljí Afgháns."—Erskine, Báber and Humáyun, i. 404.
1880.—"As a race the Ghilji mix little with their neighbours, and indeed differ in many respects, both as to internal government and domestic customs, from the other races of Afghanistan ... the great majority of the tribe are pastoral in their habits of life, and migrate with the seasons from the lowlands to the highlands with their families and flocks, and easily portable black hair tents. They never settle in the cities, nor do they engage in the ordinary handicraft trades, but they manufacture carpets, felts, &c., for domestic use, from the wool and hair of their cattle.... Physically they are a remarkably fine race ... but they are a very barbarous people, the pastoral class especially, and in their wars excessively savage and vindictive.
"Several of the Ghilji or Ghilzai-clans are almost wholly engaged in the carrying trade between India and Afghanistan, and the Northern States of Central Asia, and have been so for many centuries."—Races of Afghanistan, by Bellew, p. 103.
GHOUL, s. Ar. ghūl, P. ghōl. A goblin, ἔμπουσα, or man-devouring demon, especially haunting wildernesses.
c. 70.—"In the deserts of Affricke yee shall meet oftentimes with fairies,[[137]] appearing in the shape of men and women; but they vanish soone away, like fantasticall illusions."—Pliny, by Ph. Holland, vii. 2.
c. 940.—"The Arabs relate many strange stories about the Ghūl and their transformations.... The Arabs allege that the two feet of the Ghūl are ass's feet.... These Ghūl appeared to travellers in the night, and at hours when one meets with no one on the road; the traveller taking them for some of their companions followed them, but the Ghūl led them astray, and caused them to lose their way."—Maṣ'ūdī, iii. 314 seqq. (There is much more after the copious and higgledy-piggledy Plinian fashion of this writer.)
c. 1420.—"In exitu deserti ... rem mirandam dicit contigisse. Nam cum circiter mediam noctem quiescentes magno murmure strepituque audito suspicarentur omnes, Arabes praedones ad se spoliandos venire ... viderunt plurimas equitum turmas transeuntium.... Plures qui id antea viderant, daemones (ghūls, no doubt) esse per desertum vagantes asseruere."—Nic. Conti, in Poggio, iv.