See G. McCall Theal’s History of South Africa and other works cited under [Cape Colony]; also The Native or Transkeian Territories, by C. C. Henkel (Hamburg, 1903), a useful handbook by an ex-official in the Transkeian Territories.
KAFIRISTAN, a province of Afghanistan. Very little of this country was known with accuracy and nothing at first hand until General Sir W. (then Colonel) Lockhart headed a mission to examine the passes of the Hindu Kush range in 1885-1886. He penetrated into the upper part of the Bashgal valley, but after a few days he found himself compelled to return to Chitral. Previously Major Tanner, R.A., had sought to enter Kafiristan from Jalalabad, but sudden severe illness cut short his enterprise. M’Nair, the famous explorer of the Indian Survey department, believed that he had actually visited this little-known land during an adventurous journey which he made from India and through Chitral in disguise; but the internal evidence of his reports shows that he mistook the Kalash district of Chitral, with its debased and idolatrous population, for the true Kafiristan of his hopes. In 1889 Mr G. S. Robertson (afterwards Sir George Robertson, K.C.S.I.) was sent on a mission to Kafiristan. He only remained a few days, but a year later he revisited the country, staying amongst the Kafirs for nearly a year. Although his movements were hampered, his presence in the country being regarded with suspicion, he was able to study the people, and, in spite of intertribal jealousy, to meet members of many of the tribes. The facts observed and the information collected by him during his sojourn in eastern Kafiristan, and during short expeditions to the inner valleys, are the most trustworthy foundations of our knowledge of this interesting country.
Kafiristan, which literally means “the land of the infidel,” is the name given to a tract of country enclosed between Chitral and Afghan territory. It was formerly peopled by pagan mountaineers, who maintained a wild independence until 1895, when they were finally subdued by Abdur Rahman, the amir of Kabul, who also compelled them to accept the religion of Islam. The territory thus ill named is included between 34° 30′ and 36° N., and from about 70° to 71° 30′ E. As the western and northern boundaries are imperfectly known, its size cannot be estimated with any certainty. Its greatest extent is from east to west at 35° 10′ N.; its greatest breadth is probably about 71° E. The total area approximates to 5000 sq. m. Along the N. the boundary is the province of Badakshan, on the N.E. the Lutkho valley of Chitral. Chitral and lower Chitral enclose it to the E., and the Kunar valley on the S.E. Afghanistan proper supplies the S. limit. The ranges above the Nijrao and Pansher valleys of Afghanistan wall it in upon the W. The northern frontier is split by the narrow Minjan valley of Badakshan, which seems to rise in the very heart of Kafiristan.
Speaking generally, the country consists of an irregular series of main valleys, for the most part deep, narrow and tortuous, into which a varying number of still deeper, narrower and more twisted valleys, ravines and glens pour their torrent water. The mountain ranges of Metamorphic rock, which separate the main drainage valleys, are all of considerable altitude, rugged and difficult, with the outline of a choppy sea petrified. During the winter months, when the snow lies deep, Kafiristan becomes a number of isolated communities, with few if any means of intercommunication. In the whole land there is probably nothing in the shape of a plain. Much of the silent, gigantic country warms the heart as well as captivates the eye with its grandeur and varied beauty; much of it is the bare skeleton of the world wasted by countless centuries of storms and frost, and profoundly melancholy in its sempiternal ruin. Every variety of mountain scenery can be found: silent peaks and hard, naked ridges, snowfields and glaciers; mighty pine forests, wooded slopes and grazing grounds; or wild vine and pomegranate thickets bordering sparkling streams. At low elevations the hill-sides are covered with the wild olive and evergreen oaks. Many kinds of fruit trees—walnuts, mulberries, apricots and apples—grow near the villages or by the wayside, as well as splendid horse-chestnuts and other shade trees. Higher in elevation, and from 4000 to 8000 ft., are the dense pine and cedar forests. Above this altitude the slopes become dreary, the juniper, cedar and wild rhubarb gradually giving place to scanty willow patches, tamarisk and stunted birches. Over 13,000 ft. there are merely mosses and rough grass. Familiar wildflowers blossom at different heights. The rivers teem with fish. Immense numbers of red-legged partridges live in the lower valleys, as well as pigeons and doves. Gorgeously plumaged pheasants are plentiful. Of wild animals the chief are the markhor (a goat) and the oorial (a sheep). In the winter the former are recklessly slaughtered by hunters, being either brought to bay by trained hounds, or trapped in pits, or caught floundering in the snow-drifts; but in the summer immense herds move on the higher slopes. The ibex is very rare. Bears and leopards are fairly common, as well as the smaller hill creatures.
All the northern passes leading into Badakshan or into the Minjan valley of Badakshan seem to be over 15,000 ft. in altitude. Of these the chief are the Mandal, the Kamah (these two alone have been explored by a European traveller), the Passes and Roads. Kti, the Kulam and the Ramgal passes. Those to the east, the Chitral passes, are somewhat lower, ranging from 12,000 to 14,000 ft., e.g. the Zidig, the Shui, the Shawal and the Parpit, while the Patkun, which crosses one of the dwindled spurs near the Kunar river, is only 8400 ft. high. Between neighbouring valleys the very numerous communicating footways must rarely be lower than 10,000, while they sometimes exceed 14,000 ft. The western passes are unknown. All these toilsome paths are so faintly indicated, even when free from snow, that to adventure them without a local guide is usually unsafe. Yet the light-framed cattle of these jagged mountains can be forced over many of the worst passes. Ordinarily the herding tracks, near the crest of the ridges and high above the white torrents, are scarcely discoverable to untutored eyes. They wind and waver, rise, drop and twist about the irregular semi-precipitous slopes with baffling eccentricity and abruptness. Nevertheless the cattle nose their way along blunderingly, but without hurt. Of no less importance in the open months, and the sole trade routes during winter, are the lower paths by the river. An unguided traveller is continually at fault upon these main lines of intercourse and traffic.
All the rivers find their tumultuous way into the Kabul, either directly, as the Alingar at Laghman, or after commingling with the Kunar at Arundu and at Chigar-Serai. The Bashgal, draining the eastern portion of the country, empties Rivers. itself into the Kunar at Arundu. It draws its highest waters from three main sources at the head of the Bashgal valley. It glides gently through a lake close to this origin, and then through a smaller tarn. The first affluent of importance is the Skorigal, which joins it above the village of Pshui. Next comes the noisier Manangal water, from the Shawal pass, which enters the main stream at Lutdeh or Bragamatal, the chief settlement of the Bashgal branch of the Katir tribe. By-and-by the main stream becomes, at the hamlet of Sunra, a raging, shrieking torrent in a dark narrow valley, its run obstructed by giant boulders and great tree-trunks. Racing past Bagalgrom, the chief village of the Madugal Kafirs, the river clamours round the great spur which, 1800 ft. higher up, gives space for the terraces and houses of Kamdesh, the headquarters of the Kam people. The next important affluent is the river which drains the Pittigal valley, its passes and branches. Also on the left bank, and still lower down, is the joining-place of the Gourdesh valley waters. Finally it ends in the Kunar just above Arundu and Birkot. The middle part of Kafiristan, including the valleys occupied by the Presun, Kti, Ashkun and Wai tribes, is drained by a river variously called the Pech, the Kamah, and the Presun or Viron River. It has been only partially explored. Fed by the fountains and snows of the upper Presun valley, it is joined at the village of Shtevgrom by the torrent from the Kamah pass. Thence it moves quietly past meadowland, formerly set apart as holy ground, watering on its way all the Presun villages. Below the last of them, with an abrupt bend, it hurries into the unexplored and rockbound Tsaru country, where it absorbs on the right hand the Kti and the Ashkun and on the left the Wai rivers, finally losing itself in the Kunar, close to Chigar-Serai. Concerning the Alingar or Kao, which carries the drainage of western Kafiristan into the Kabul at Laghman, there are no trustworthy details. It is formed from the waters of all the valleys inhabited by the Ramgal Kafirs, and by that small branch of the Katirs known as the Kalam tribe.
The climate varies with the altitude, but in the summer-time it is hot at all elevations. In the higher valleys the winter is rigorous. Snow falls heavily everywhere over 4000 ft. above the sea-level. During the winter of 1890-1891 at Kamdesh Climate. (elevation 6100 ft.) the thermometer never fell below 17° F. In many of the valleys the absence of wind is remarkable. Consequently a great deal of cold can be borne without discomfort. The Kunar valley, which is wet and windy in winter, but where snow, if it falls, melts quickly, gives a much greater sensation of cold than the still Kafiristan valleys of much lower actual temperature. A deficiency of rain necessitates the employment of a somewhat elaborate system of irrigation, which in its turn is dependent upon the snowfall.
The present inhabitants are probably mainly descended from the broken tribes of eastern Afghanistan, who, refusing to accept Islam (in the 10th century), were driven away by the fervid swordsmen of Mahomet. Descending upon The Kafirs. the feeble inhabitants of the trackless slopes and perilous valleys of modern Kafiristan, themselves, most likely, refugees of an earlier date, they subjugated and enslaved them and partially amalgamated with them. These ancient peoples seem to be represented by the Presun tribe, by the slaves and by fragments of lost peoples, now known as the Jazhis and the Aroms. The old division of the tribes into the Siah-Posh, or the black-robed Kafirs, and the Safed-Posh, or the white-robed, was neither scientific nor convenient, for while the Siah-Posh have much in common in dress, language, customs and appearance, the Safed-Posh divisions were not more dissimilar from the Siah-Posh than they were from one another. Perhaps the best division at present possible is into (1) Siah-Posh, (2) Waigulis, and (3) Presungalis or Viron folk.