1866.-Adam Khor (some say at the instigation of his elder brother, Amán

ul-Mulk). Malik Shah seeks refuge with the Maharaja who will not give him up to Amán-ul-Mulk. Amán-ul-Mulk then sprung the mine he had long prepared, and when the long contemplated campaign against Hunza took place in 1866, all the Mussulman Chiefs who had been adherents of the Maharaja, including Mir Vali, fell away. The Kashmir troops which had advanced on Nummal were betrayed, and defeated by the Hunza people (now ruled by Ghazan Khan, son of Ghazanfar).

All the hill tribes combine against Kashmir and reduce the Dogras to the bare possession of Gilgit, which however held out successfully against more than 20,000 of the allied Dards, headed by Amán-ul-Mulk, Ghazan Khan and Mir Vali. Very large reinforcements were sent by Kashmir,* at whose approach the besiegers retreated, leaving, however, skirmishers all over the country.

Wazir Zoraweru followed up the advantage gained by invading Dareyl. Whilst the place was yet partially invested, Dr. Leitner made his way to the Gilgit Fort and frustrated two attempts made against him by the employés of the Maharaja, who ostensibly were friends.

1867.-Jehandár Shah of Badakhshan is expelled from his country by the Governor of Balkh and seeks refuge in Kabul, where he is restored a year afterwards to his ancestral throne by the influence of Abdurrahman Khan, son of the Amir Afzal Khan and by his popularity. His rival, Mahmud Shah, leaves without a struggle. Mir Vali, joining Mulk Amán, made an unsuccessful attack on Isa Bahadur and Azmat Shah, who beat them off with the help of Kashmir troops from Gilgit. The consequence was general disappointment among the Muhammadan Chiefs and the Hill tribe of Dareyl (which had been subdued in the meantime) and all opened friendly relations with Kashmir, especially.

1868.—Mir Vali rules Yasin with Pahlwan.† Mulk Amán flees to Chitral. 1869.-Mulk Amán takes service with Kashmir and is appointed on a

salary, but under surveillance, at Gilgit.

1870. Mr. Hayward visits Yasin in March; is well received by the Chief, Mir Vali, but returns, as he finds the passes on to the Pamir closed by snow-visits the country a second time in July, after exposing the conduct and breach of treaty of the Kashmir authorities, and is murdered, apparently without any object, at

*

Jewahir Singh went by Shigar with 13,000 Baltis (Little Tibetans), 2,000 light infantry came vid Jagloth under Sirdar Mahmud Khan. The general of all the "Khulle' Regiments was Bakhshi Radha Kishn. Colonel Hoshiára went by the Nomal road to Nagvr, and after destroying 3,000 head of sheep and many villages returned. Wazir Zoraweru went to Darêl with Colonel Devi Singh and 10,000 men (?). Bija Singh was at Gor (?) and Hussani Ali was in command of the Artillery.

Mir Vali and Pahlwan are brothers by different mothers. Mulk Amán and Nura Guzá (Mir Ghazi ?) are brothers by the same mother-so one of my men says. Pahlwan is Amán-ul-Mulk's sister's son (vide "History of Wars with Kashmir," Dardistan, Part III., page 67).

Darkôt in Yasin, one stage on to Wakhan, by some men in the service of his former friend, Mir Vali, who, however, soon filies the country in the direction of Badakhshan, then seeks refuge with the Akhund of Swat, and finally returns to Yasin, where he is reported to have been well received by Pahlwan. Whilst in Chitral, he was seen by Major Montgomerie's Havildar and was on good terms with Amán-ul-Mulk, who is supposed, chiefly on the authority of a doubtful seal, to be the instigator of a murder which was not, apparently, to his interests and which did not enrich him or Mir Vali with any booty, excepting a gun and a few other trifles. Much of the property of Mr. Hayward was recovered by the Kashmir authorities, and a monument was erected by them to his memory at Gilgit, where there is already a shrine, which is referred to on pages 46 and 51.

1871.-Jehandár Shah, son of Mir Shah, who had again been turned out

of the rule of Badakhshan in October 1869 by Mir Mahmud Shah with the help of the Afghan troops of Amir Sher Ali, finds an asylum in Chitrál with Amán-ul-Mulk (whose daughter had been married to his son) after having for some time shared the fortunes of his friend, the fugitive Abdurrahman Khan of Kabul. (Chitrál pays an annual tribute to the Chief of Badakhshan in slaves, which it raises either by kidnapping travellers or independent Kafirs or by enslaving some of its own Shiah and Kafir subjects the ruler being of the Sunni persuasion.)

1872.-Late accounts are confused, but the influence of Amir Sher Ali

seems to be pressing through Badakhshan on Chitral and through Bajaur on Swat on the one hand and on the Kafir races on the other. The Maharaja of Kashmir on the one side and the Amir of Kabul on the other seem to endeavour to approach their frontiers at the expense of the intervening Dard and other tribes. Jehandár Shah infests the Kolab road and would be hailed by the people of Badakhshan as a deliverer from the oppressive rule of Mahmud Shah, as soon as the Kabul troops were to withdraw.

So far my "Dardistan," in which a detailed "History of the Wars with Kashmir" will be found. The events since 1872 need only to be indicated here in rough outline, and, unfortunately, confirm my worst anticipations as to the destruction of the independence of the Dardu tribes, of their legendary lore, and, above all, of the purity of their languages, including the prehistoric Khajuná or "Burishki " spoken in Hunza-Nagyr, and a part of Yasin. What are the admitted encroachments of our Ally, the Maharaja of Kashmir, have been utilized in our supposed interests, and we have stepped in to profit, as we foolishly think, by his sins, whilst he is tricked out of their reward. Falsely alleging that Hunza-Nagyr were rebellious vassals of Kashmir, when Hunza at all events was under Chinese protectorate, we have reduced their patriotic defenders to practical servitude, and, by to-day's Times (21st November, 1892), are starting, along with 250 rifles and two guns, some 100 men of a Hunza levy to Chitral to put down a trouble which our ill-judged interference has created in another independent principality, where we have put aside the rightful heir, Nizám-ul-Mulk, for his

younger brother, Afzul-ul-Mulk, on the pretext that the former was intriguing with the Russians. I believe this allegation to be absolutely false, for I know him to be most friendly to British interests. In 1886 he offered to send a thousand men from Warshigum over the passes to the relief of Colonel (now General Sir) W. Lockhart, then a temporary prisoner at Panjah Fort in Affghan hands. As Padishah of Turikoh, Nizám-ul-Mulk was, in his father's life-time, the acknowledged heir to the Chitrál throne, and he was made by his father Raja of Yasin in succession to Afzul, who had taken it in 1884 from Mir Amán, the maternal uncle of Pehliwán, who was ruler of Yasin in 1880, when Colonel Biddulph wrote his "Tribes of the Hindukush," and with whom the Khushwaqtia dynasty, as such, came to an end. This Pehliwan killed Mir Wali, the murderer of Hayward, but Pehliwan made the mistake of attacking Biddulph in 1880, and was ousted by Mir Amán. With Nizám-ul-Mulk, therefore, begins the rule over Yasin by the Kathoria Dynasty of Chitrál. He is now a fugitive at Gilgit; had he been intriguing with Russia he would certainly not have sought refuge from his brother in the British lion's mouth at Gilgit. All I can say is

that in 1886 he did not even know the name of Russia, and that when he wrote to me in 1887 he referred to the advent of the French explorers Capus, Pepin and Bonvalot, as follows: "they call themselves sometimes French, and at other times Russians." In the "Asiatic Quarterly Re

of January, 1891, there is a paper from Raja Nizám-ul-Mulk on "the Legends of Chitrál," he thus being the first Central Asian prince whose literary effusion has appeared in the pages of a British, or indeed of any, Review. His first letters, sent in the hollow of a twig, like his latter ones sent through British officers, all breathe a spirit of what may be called the sincerest loyalty to the Queen-Empress, were he not an absolutely independent ruler. There will be an evil day of reckoning when the "meddling and muddling," which has created the Russian Frankenstein, will be followed by the exasperation of princes and people, within and beyond our legitimate frontier. To revert to Hunza and Nagyr, Mr. F. Drew, an Assistant Master of Eton College, who was in the service of the Maharaja of Kashmir, wrote in 1877 in his "Northern Barrier of India "—which, alas! our practical annexation of Kashmir, and our interference with the Hindukush tribes are breaking down-as follows: "Hunza and Nagyr are two small INDEPENDENT RAJASHIPS. Nagyr has generally shown a desire to be on friendly terms with the Dogras at Gilgit, while Hunza has been a thorn in their side." There is not a word here of these States being tributaries of Kashmir, whilst Colonel Biddulph, who was our Resident at Gilgit, shows that the last Hunza raid was committed in 1867, and that slavery and kidnapping were unknown in inoffensive, if not "timid," Nagyr. My article in the "Asiatic Quarterly Review" of January, 1892, shows that raiding and slavery had been recently revived in consequence of alike Russian and English advances, and that the fussiness and ambition of our officials have alone indicated and paved “the nearest way to India."

Woking, 21st November, 1892.

to my

P.S.-In correcting this proof of a paper on the Fairy-land that adjoins "the Roof of the World," which our imprudence has drawn within the range of practical politics, I never anticipated that I should have to refer "rough sketch of the History of Dardistan" brought down to 1872 as a refutation of the history written to order by some of our leading journals which, to suit the policy of the moment, would make the Amir of Affghanistan responsible for Badakhshan, and yet blame him for interfering with Chitrál, as is hinted in a telegram in to-day's Times. I shall deal with this matter elsewhere.

Woking, 29th November, 1892.