another tribe. The rich wore their best clothes, and some put on black fillets ornamented with cowry shells, one for every Mussulmaun whom the wearer had killed. They sung a war-song as they marched away, in which were the words, Chera hi, Cheri hi, Mahrach, and he learned that when they had succeeded in coming on an enemy unprepared, they set up a loud whistle, and sing a song, of which the chorus is Ushro oo Ushro: on such occasions they put every soul to death. But their chief glory is to slay the Mussulmauns; a young Caufir is deprived of various privileges till he has performed this exploit, and numerous distinctions are contrived to stimulate him to repeat it as often as may be in his power. In the solemn dances on the festival of Numminaut, each man wears a sort of turban, in which is stuck a long feather for every Mussulmaun he has killed: the number of bells he wears round his waist on that occasion is regulated by the same criterion, and it is not allowed to a Caufir who has not killed his man to flourish his axe above his head in the dance. Those who have slain Mussulmauns are visited and congratulated by their acquaintances, and have afterwards a right to wear a little red woollen cap (or rather a kind of cockade) tied on the head; and those who have killed many may erect a high pole before their doors, in which are holes to receive a pin for every Mussulmaun the owner has killed, and a ring for every one he has wounded. With such encouragement to kill them, it is not likely the Caufirs would often make Mussulmauns prisoners: such cases have happened when the Caufirs were defending their own village, and they then made a feast with great triumph, and put the unfortunate prisoner to death in much form, or perhaps sacrificed him to their idols.

"They, however, have sometimes peace or truce with Mussulmauns. Their way of striking a league is as strange as their mode of war. They kill a goat and dress the heart, bite off half, and give the rest to the Mussulmaun; the parties then gently bite each about the region of the heart, and the treaty is concluded.

"Though exasperated to such fury by the persecution of the Mahommedans, the Caufirs are in general a harmless, affectionate, and kind-hearted people. Though passionate, they are easily appeased: they are merry, playful, fond of laughter, and altogether of a sociable and joyous disposition. Even to Mussulmauns they are kind when they admit them as guests, and though Moollah Nujeeb was once obliged to be kept by the other Caufirs out of the way of a drunken man of their nation, he was never threatened or affronted on account of his religion by any man in possession of his faculties."

The Koh-i-ghar Kafirs shave the head; but when they kill an enemy allow a lock to grow. The Koh-i-kaf and Koh-i-loh tribes reverse this process. The hair grows naturally, but has a lock taken away from it when a Mussulman has been slain. Hence, whilst the Koh-ighar heroes rejoice in long locks, those of the Koh-i-kaf and Koh-i-loh may be bald shavelings. A party of Bhuri, with some Kafir girls for sale, had one of extraor dinary beauty; the price asked for her being about half an ounce of silver. This tells us the state of the frontier. The Mahometans steal the Kafir women; the Kafirs kill the Mahometan marauders. The country is one which suggests legends and superstitions of all kinds. Sometimes the torrent disappears in some mysterious chasm leading to vast caves. Sometimes the caves themselves bear signs of human occupancy, excavated in labyrinthine

windings, intricate, sculptured, and carven into pillars, the pillars themselves being figured.

In some of the chasms it is customary to consecrate certain medicinal herbs. Down one, near the Ziárat of Abba Shah, it is customary to hang a sort of gentian, and to leave it suspended for a month. After which it serves as a panacea.

Then there are the ruins of old cities; some of the monuments of which apparently bear inscriptions. About a mile and a half north of Esh, a Kafir district, bare and barren, is a colossal horse in pitchstone, measur ing fifty-five feet from ear to hoof, forty-two from chest to tail. Nor is it the only one. Two otherslike the first, in ruins-lie on the other two sides of the town.

The basaltic rocks, as is their habit in similar countries, assume fantastic shapes; sometimes that of a man, or man-like being. When this is the case, the Mussulman of the neighbourhood sees a petrified Kafir; and if asked who effected the petrifaction, answers Abraham. One of these, the Babo Bulan, is about twenty-five feet high, with red eyes, and an aquiline nose. Art has here, most probably, assisted nature. The Babo Bulan is an object of mysterious awe.

The fort of Ustam is said to have been built by Rustum, whose name is that of the great Persian hero. However, the legend makes him a son of Timur. Such are the elements of the Kafir fictions, and such their mixture. Half the inhabitants of the parts about Ustam are Mahometan, half Akaa. The foundations of the fort are Cyclopean, i. e. they consist of vast blocks of more than twenty feet in length.

Of the Akaa, the most Mahometan tribe is that of the

Ujuem. Elsewhere the belief in the Koran is but slight. The men are short, stout, hardy, and clothed in skin; the women plain.

The Keiaz tribe seem to be among the rudest. The caves of the highest peaks are their occupancies. They hunt, eat raw flesh (which is unlikely), and are said to be cannibals, which is more unlikely still. Their women are handsome. When a Keiaz lover wishes to marry, he lays his bow at the foot of the fair one. If she take it up, kiss, and return it, the knot is tied, and she is his wedded wife. By varying this practice she can divorce herself, i. e. by taking her husband's bow and flinging it on the ground before him. Thirdly-she may make the offer herself, by unslinging one from the shoulder of the man she selects. On the other hand, their husband can sell them. He can also make them over to his visitor; who, if he be a Hindu devotee, may have the choice of the whole Keiaz wifedom; for the credulous mountaineers venerate these impostors, and believe that such progeny as their wives or daughters may bear to them are more or less divine.

The ruins of Mahu are in the Akaa country; the Turks of the neighbourhood being of the Kibi tribe.

Ma and Hu were twin brothers, descendants of Toth, Emperor of the East. Ma was a righteous prince; but Hu was wicked. Hu murdered Ma by burying him alive.

Before his death, however, Ma invoked the same fate on Hu. So the mountain tumbled down upon him and his. This is the account of the origin of the vast excavated tumulus of Ma-hu.

Such are the fragmentary notices of the northern Kafirs, and their congeners, the half-Mahometans, as

taken from an appendix to Elphinstone's Caubul, and a paper of Dr. Gardiner's in the Asiatic Transactions of Bengal.

The following vocabularies for the parts nearest the Tibetan frontier are from Cunningham's Ladakh. The Khajunah of Hunz and Nagar is a very remarkable form of speech. All that can be said is that its nearest affinities are Paropamisan.