188

THE INDIAN ANTIQUARY.

[JUNE 7, 1872.

Panjāb in the present cold weather with the view of our obtaining more detailed information than we now possess regarding the Khajuna, that extraor dinary language to which I have several times

resources of that Paradise on earth and killed the

alluded.

some show of respect for religious injunctions, the latter with sole regard to whatever the tax-gatherer can immediately lay his hand upon.

The names of Rá, Rāsh, Raja, applied to Muham madans, may sound singular to those accustomed

intellectual and moral life of its people. The administration of justice and the collection of the taxes in Dardistan are carried on, the former with

to connect them with Hindu rulers, but it is the HABITATIONS.

ancient name for King at Ghilgit (for which Nawāb seems a modern substitute)—whilst Sháh Kator in Chitral, Tham in Hunza and Nagyr, Mitér and Bakhté in Yassen, and Trakhné, in Ghilgit, offer food

for speculation. The Hunza people say the King's race is Mughulot (or Mughul); they call the King Sawwash, and affirm that he is Aishea (this probably means that he is descended from Aisha, the wife of Muhammad). Under the king or chief for the time being, the most daring or intriguing hold office and a new element of disturbance has now been intro

duced into Dardistan by the Kashmir faction at every court [or rather robber's nest], which seeks to advance the interests or ulterior plans of conquest of the Mahārāja, our feudatory. Whilst the

name

of

Vazir

is

now

common

for

a

“minister,” we find the names of the subordinate offices of Trangpa, Yarfá, Zeytū, Gopā, &c., &c., which point to the reminiscences of Tibetan Government.

The villages, are situated on the main lines of

road which, as everywhere in Himalayan countries, generally coincides with the course of rivers. The villages are sometimes scattered, but as a rule, the houses are closely packed together. Stones are heaped up and closely cemented, and the upper story which is often only a space shielded by a cloth or by grass-bundles on a few poles, is general ly reached by a stair-case from the outside. Most villages are protected by one or more wooden forts, which—with the exception of the Ghilgit fort—are rude blockhouses, garnished with rows of beams, behind which it is easy to fight as long as the place is not set on fire.

Most villages also contain an

open space, generally near a fountain, where the villagers meet in the evening and young people make love to each other.

Sometimes the houses

contain a subterranean apartment which is used as a cellar or stable—at other times, the stable forms

the lower part of the house. In Ladak, a little earth I need scarcely add that under a Government . heaped up before the door and impressed with a like that of Chitral, which used to derive a large large wooden seal, was sufficient, some years ago, portion of its revenue from kidnapping, the position to protect a house in the absence of its owner. In of a slave-dealer (Diwán-bigi) was a high official Dardistan bolts, &c., &c., show the prevailing one. Shortly before I visited Ghilgit, a man used insecurity. I have seen houses which had a court to sell for a good hunting dog (of which the Dards yard round which the rooms were built, but are very fond), two men for a pony, and three for a generally all buildings in Dardistan are of the large piece of pattà (a kind of woollen stuff). meanest description—the mosque of Ghilgit, in Women and weak men received the preference, it which I slept one night whilst the sepoys were being difficult for them to escape once they had burying their dead two or three yards away from reached their destination. Practically, all the hill me, being almost as miserable a construction as the men are republicans. The name for servant is rest. The inner part of the house is generally identical with that of “companion ; ” it is only the divided from the outer by a beam which goes right prisoner of another tribe who is a “slave.” The across. progress of Kāshmir will certainly have the effect Water-mills and wind-mills are found. Cradles of stopping, at any rate nominally, the trade in male were an unknown commodity till lately. I have slaves, but it will reduce all subjects to the same already referred to the wine and treasury-cellars dead level of slavery and extinguish that spirit of excavated in the mountains, and which provided freedom, and with it many of the traditions that them with food during the war in 1866, whilst the have preserved the Dard races from the degeneracy invading Kashmir troops around them were starving. which has been the fate of the Aryans who reached Baths (which were unknown till lately) are shel Kashmir and India. The indigenous Government tered constructions under waterfalls ; in fact they is one whose occasional tyranny is often relieved by are mere sheltered douche-baths. There is no rebellion, I think the Dard Legends and Songs pavement except so far as stones are placed where show that the Dards are a superior people to the there are no roads. The rooms have a fire-place, Dogras, who wish to take their country in defiance which at Astor, (where it is used for the reception of treaty obligations, and I for one would almost of live coals) is in the middle of the room. The prefer the continuance of the present anarchy, which conservancy arrangements are on the slope of the may end in a national solution or in a direct alliance hills close to the villages, in front of which are with the British, to the épicier policy of Kashmir fields of Indian corn, &c., &c.—Indian Public which, without shedding blood, has drained the Opinion, Dec. 1.