THE LIBRARY OF THE UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA LOS ANGELES Provided by ths Libra rv of Congresi PL 483 Program BANNU; OUR AFGHAN FRONTIER S. S. THORBURN, INniA HVIL SEUVICE, SETTLEMENT OFKKEU OK THE UANNU DISTRICT. SANG-E-MEEL PUBLICATIONS CHOWK URDU BAZAR LAHORE (PAKISTAN) First Published 1876 First Published in Pakistan 1970 Printed by Manzoor Printing Press, Lahore Published by Niaz Ahmad, Sang-e-Meel Publications, Lahore. [Pakistan] BANNU; P5 .1' X ^ 'I'/i OUR AFGHAN FRONTIER. S. S. THORBURN, INniA CIVIL SERVICE, SETTLEMENT OFFICEU OK THE BANNU DISTRICT. •^ LONDON: TRUBXER & CO.. 57 and 59, LUDGATE HILL. 1876. All Rights Reserved. PREFACE. In the spring of 1848, just twenty-eight years ago, the late Sir Herbert Edwardes, then a young lieutenant in the service of the East India Company, achieved in a few months the bloodless conquest of the Bannu valley — a valley studded with 400 village-forts, which all the might of a military nation like the Sikhs had failed to subdue, though for twenty years and more they had made repeated efforts to do so. Lieutenant Edwardes had been supplied with the means wherewith to compel submission, or rather to attempt it, in the shape of several Sikh regiments ; but happily his personal influence and tact enabled him to accomplish his task without resorting to physical force. The troops, as well as the people they hud been sent to conquer, saw with wonder and admiration how diflficulties, formerly deemed insurmountable, disappeared in a few weeks before the earnest enthusiasm of one Englishman, The good work had hardly been completed, when the second Sikh war broke out, and Edwardes hastened away with what troops and levies he could collect to stem the tide of rebellion by boldly laying siege to Multan. Tl PREFACE. At the close of the war, in which he had proved him- self a heroic soldier and skilful officer, he went home on furlough to find himself the lion of the hour. There he devoted his leisure to the production of a book called *' A Year on the Punjab Frontier ^''^ in which he de- scribed, in vivid and glowing language, the events of 1848-49 in the Punjab, and his own share in them. This work is perhaps the best of its class ever yet published on a!i Indian subject, and, owing to its deliglitful sparkle and graphic scene-painting, bearing the impress of reality in every line, its pages afford charming reading to young and old alike, whether in- terested in India or not. The very school-boyish vanity and ingenuousness of the writer enhance the pleasure of the reader, who sees the author before him as he then was, a young officer, who had bravely and wisely used a great opportunity, and who liad gone to England, fresh from the scene of his conquests, to find himself made a hero of by liis countrj'iiien. In Part I. of the following ])ages extracts are intro- duced from EJwardes' book, which is now, I believe, out of print ; and the previous and subsequent history, social and political, of the Trans-Indus tracts of this District are sketched. A short account is then given of the revenue system as it was under the Sikhs, and as it is under the British; of the primitive collective form of property in land, which still survives in some parts of Marwat; and of the Settlement operations now in progress. 1 have endeavoured to interweave with the narrative some account of how rulers and ruled spend their live^f PREFACE. VU in this far-away corner of the British Empire, which may, perhaps, prove not uninteresting to Englishmen at home. Part II. is devoted to an account of the customs and folklore, the proverbs, ballads and popular tales, the unwritten but fondly treasured literature of the Pashto-speaking inhabitants of the District, from which some insight into the thoughts and opinions which govern their actions may be gained. Let me now tell how and why this piece of patch- work, which I am venturing to publish, ever came to be written. In 1872 I began the Settlement of this District, and ray duties as Settlement Oflficer afforded me great oppor- tunities of studying the people, and caused them to be ready to serve me in any way I desired. I then com- menced making a collection of their proverbs for my own pleasure, and, meeting with encouragement from GoveiTimcnt, the idea of having it published occurred to me. "With this intention I arranged the collection as it appears in Part II. daring the hot weather of 1874. Having done so, I felt that an introduction, descriptive of the people whose thoughts and sayings I had strung together, was required. Accordingly when in camp during the cold season of 1874-75, I wrote in odd hours of leisure the six chapters which comprise Part I., and it was not until the last sheet was laid aside, that the unconscionable length of what had at first been meant to be a short introduction dawned upon me. Finally, possessing a number of Pashto stories, I Vlll PREFACE. translated some of them, and wrote a chapter on Pathan social life. As the subject was a dry one, I adopted a narrative form, hoping by that means to render the account less uninteresting than if no thread of connexion had run through it. As the book has been composed amidst the hurry and wony of engrossing and constant work, I hope all shortcomings will be pardoned, and that want of time may be accepted as my excuse for having failed to prune these overgrown pages. For the accompanying map, my acknowledgments are due to Colonel H. C. Johnstone, C.B., Bengal Staff Corps, Deputy Superintendent of Survey, North- western Frontier. I have also to thank Henry Priestley, Esq., late Bengal Civil Service, for having corrected the proofs of the sheets printed in Pashto type. The task of revising the work and seeing it througli the press has been kindly undertaken by my cousin, Captain W. Stewart Thorburn, 41st Regiment, to whom will belong all the credit should errors be few. S. S. THORBURN, Settlement Ofucek. Banni. Edwaudesabad, Maif. 1S76. CONTENTS. PAET I. Chapteu I. — GEoaRAPHiCAL. Bannu and its Environs . . 1 11. — Bannu Independent and under Native Rule . 12 III. — Bannu under British Rule 42 IV.— The Muhammad Khel Rebellion, and its Lesson 65 V. — Times of Peace and Plenty 86 VI.— Land Revenue System— Tenures and Settlements 107 PAKT II. Chapter I.- -Social Life, Customs, Beliefs and Superstitions of the Peasantry 141 „ IL- —Popular Stories, Ballads and Riddles. 171 Class L — Humorous and Moral . 173 „ II. — Comic and Jocular 192 „ III.— Fables 217 Manvat Ballads 224 Riddles ........ 228 „ IIL — Pashto Proverbs translated into English 231 Begging 236 Boasting 238 Bravery 241 Class and Local 245 Co-operation 256 Cowardice 257 Custom 259 Death . . . 260 CONTENl'S. Chapter III. (continued) : — TAtiK Enmity 2(!3 Family ......... '2iu Fate ■2K) Friendship ........ 271 God 278 Good Looks ....... 281 Good and Bad Luck 281 Goodness and Wickedncs.>< .... 28:) Haste and Dclilwrntioii 288 Home 21)1 Honour and Shuniu 202 Husbandry, Weather and Health . 21)G Ignorance and F(>olishnc.s.s .... 308 Joy and Sorrow ;312 Knowledge ....... 31(> Labour 310 Lying 322 Liberality and Parsimony .... 324 Man'.s Justice. ..... 330 Old Age. 332 Poverty ........ . 3:33 Pride, Self-conceit and Lame Exciuses . . 338 Selfishness and Ingratitude .... 342 Strength ....... . 344 Wealth . 34 .s Women . 350 Uncla.ssed, Ethical, Ditlaetit and MiscellaDCOUs . 3G1 „ IV.— The same PROvERii.s in Pasuto . 114 Appendix . 475 PART I. INTRODUCTORY. TOEING AN Account of ins Dit^xuicT of Bannu, its People and THEiK Rulers, Past and ruESKxr. OUR AFGHAN FRONTIER CHAPTER I. GEOGRAPHICAL. BANNI/ AN^D ITS ENVIRONS. Competition is now so keen, that any ordinary English- man who aspires to a competence by the time he is fifty has to spend the first twenty-five years of his life in pre- paring for and passing examinations, and the next twenty- five in one continuous grind of work, broken by the occasional brightness'of a holiday — at home a trip abroad or to the sea-side ; in India a month in the hills or a run to England, During those busy years his early bookish acquirements are forgotten, and most of his general know- ledge consists of a smattering, gleaned from periodicals and newspapers hastily read in leisure hours. If the bi*ead-making Englishman at home has little unconcern of ,.,..., . , . , bu^ Englishmen spare time and inclmation to devote to picking: up greneral >■» England or , * ^ . ^ X o r o injja j„ matters information on subjects which do not interest him pro- ""[wk"**''** fessionally, his countrymen out here, with the exception p™^*****^' perhaps of those resident at the capitals, or the few always at Government Head Quarters, have less. Climate, isola- tion, the monotony of work, distance from any great BANNU AND ITS ENVIRONS. l|n>orancc of EnKlishraen in India about India. world-centre of thought and action, all combine to render his mind more or less indifferent to matters which do not directly concern him. The House of Commons, nay the all-powerful British Public itself, are proverbially callous on Indian subjects, and perhaps it is well they should be 80 ; for when their interest is roused in any special case^ they, with the omniscience of ignorance, have the effrontery to dictate what ought of" ought not to be done, and always cause mischief. Such pernicious interference was attempted during the late Bengal famine, and again in the Baroda poisoning inquiry. In the former case the home press caused the expenditure of two or three millions more than was absolutely necessary ; and in the latter the issue of fact was prejudged, the Viceroy's action condemned, and the Gaek war's reinstatement demanded ; and all this whilst the Commission was still sitting. If home interest in Indian affairs is to give rise to a system of hasty, unfair, and presumptuous criticism, such as we have just had specimens of in certain journals whilst the charges against the Gaekwar were being investigated, total unconcern would be preferable, and certainly less mischievous. That the vast majority of people at home know little about India is not surprising, if we consider for a moment what a profundity of ignorance Englishmen in India often display about the people and country in which their lot happens to be cast for a few years. An example in point was afforded by a relation of my own, wliose corps was stationed at Peshawar in 1868, and who, when he came down the frontier on a inad-cap ride to visit me, actually admitted he did not know whether the mass of the inhabi- tants in the Pesliawar valley were Hindoos or Muhamma- dans — they were all " niggers " in his eyes, that was enougli ; and though he had once before crossed the Indus, he never thought of inquiring what river it was, until, on the second occasion, he happened to get a ducking in it. BANNU AND ITS ENVIRONS. 3 Now, tliouj^h most of us possess an atlas and a j^eography, Bannu a terr^ _ <=> " ^ •> incog It It a. yet not ten educated men in a hundred could state ofF-hand where New Granada, Trinidad, Manilla, and Yemen are, and to whom they belong. I shall therefore take it for granted that not one in five hundred, whether resident in India or England, knows anything about such an in- significant little place as Bannu, its environs, and its inhabitants; and I shall proceed to describe both, begin- ning of course " from earliest times," which will not take long, as neither countrj'^ nor people has any as- certained ancient history to speak of. The Punjab is divided into thirty-two districts, amongst which, with reference to size, Bannu stands tenth on the list. Its superficial area is 3786 square miles,' which is greater than that of any English county except Yorkshire, and a little more than half the size of Wales. The District, as formed in 1861, is divided by nature into two valleys, nearly equal in size. The western comprises that portion shown in the map rhy* o,,i fruirrs which accompanies this book as now occupied by Bannu- chis,2 Waziri, Khataks, and Marwats, and is surrounded on all sides by a wall of bare crumbling sand and limestone hills, the height of which vary from about 2000 feet to 6000 feet above sea-level. The plain itself slopes gently ' This is the result obtained from my survey, before which 3471 square miles used to be the sliited area. In it. however, the wliole of " Pakkar " ami a strip of laijd running aloiij,' the base of the Kliatak >»iuzai Hills were not taken into aeeountat all. - Until about three years back no two men spelt Indian names alike; hence maps, f,'azetteers, >riiide-b()oks. etc., wcri' often unintilliirible, and the postal department bad bard times of it. M;iny a will-knnwn station, as. for instance, Jullundur (.lalandai) was sj)elt in stvcn or lii^bt dilfi rent ways. At last, after vears of discussion, tbe "■ moditicd .Joncsi;iu '' svsti-in has been ])rescribed. llnder it all names, except those wliicli liave ac(iuire(l a set spelling, e.g. Calcutta, Delhi, have to be traiisliteiated according to a fi.\ed method. This system has been followed in this book. 'I'lmugh latiimal. it has its drawbacks, for, when once ;iccustomed to it. one is inclined to use it in spelling English names and words, r.y. to write " Mai di'r !Sar" fi'r " Mv dear Sir," " Narth- briik " fndent territory, which its inhabitants can boast with truth has never yet submitted to the " proud foot of a conqueror." Of those hills only two call for special notice. To the nortb, a stupendous mass termed Kafirkot, that is, " infidels' fort," from its fancied resemblance to one, and long supposed to be of man's handiwork ; and to the west, the Gabar, so called from its resemblance to the tumulus over a Muhammadan grave, which rises with a comparatively easy ascent from the Marwat plain to the height of 0378 feet, and which, strange as it may appear, though only twenty miles south- west of the Bannu cantonments, has never yet been trodden BAKNU AND ITS ENVIRONS. 5 on by English foot. Beyond this first rampart of inde- pendent hills, but connected with them, appear towards the north the everlasting snows of the lofty Sufecl Koh, or, as Pathans call them, the Spinghar chain, both of which terms mean simply " white mountain." The im- petuous Kiirm takes its rise in them near Gha/ni ; and after entering the valley at its most north-westerly comer, and fertilizing the tract occupied by the Bannuchis, travels through the country of the Marwats in a south-easterly direction, and pierces the hills at a point called Tang Darrah, or " the narrow pass." Behind the Gabar appear the peaks known as Pirghal (hoary thief), or Pirghar (hoary mountain), the elevation of which is 11,583 feet, and Shivi Dhar (10,998 feet), both belonging to the Siili- raan Range, the mighty chief of which, the Takht-i-Siili- man, or " Solomon's Throne," so familiar to every school- boy, rises with clear-cut outline directly over the thick belt of low Bhattani hills, which run eastward from the Pirghal to the Pezu Pass at the foot of Shekhbudin. Viewed from some coigne of vantage on this mountain, a dust-storm in the approach of a dust-storm sweeping southwards over the Marwat plain is a grand and impressive sight. At first but a speck on the distant horizon, it rapidly elongates, until it stretches from east to west — a mighty threatening wall, about one thousand feet in height and thirty miles in length. Nearer and nearer it comes phantom-like, its rushing noise being as yet inaudible to the spectator. Now one wing is pushed forward, now another ; nearer still : and now the birds — ^kites, vultures, and a stray eagle or two — circling in its front are visible, and one by one the villages at the foot of the hill are enveloped and hidden from the eye : a few seconds more, and the summit of Shekhbudin. till then bathed in sunshine, and sleeping in the sultry stillness of the June morning, is shrouded in yellow scudding clouds. Vanished is the grandeur of the 6 BANNU AND ITS EXVIBOXS. scene in a moment, and nought remains but a stifling be- griming dust flying and eddying about in all directions, penetrating everywhere. Outside nothing can be seen but a darkness which can be felt, and nothing is audible but the whistling of the wind and the flapping of bungalow chicks ; but inside the lamps are lighted, and a quarter of an hour is idl}' passed, until the storm, which generally expends its fury on the hill-side, subsides or passes on. ^I^iV'^'i^e Geology tells us that long long ago, ages before the Aryan race had commenced to spread east and west from their cradle in the high plateaux of Central Asia, this western valley was the basin of a lake, and continued so until its soft sandstone barrier of hill gave way at Tang Darrah, through which the treacherous £urm — treacherous because full of shifting quicksands and subject to sudden rises — now rushes impatient to lose itself a few milos lower down in the waters of its mighty brother, tlic Indus. Once an exit had been worked, the subsidence of the lake must have been rapid, owing to the soft friable nature of the rocks at Tang Darrah ; but many ccutarics must have elapsed before the Kurm, and its tributary the Gram- bila, had contracted their banks to their present narrow limits. This supposition is supported by the fact that the traditionary name of the country between these two streams was for some time after the Bannuchi immigration had commenced Daud, that is, marsh. This shows how re- cently the richest part of this valley has been formed, partly owing to the gradual degradation of the bod of the Kurm, and partly no doubt to the canals and drains which the Bannuchis or their predecessors cut throughoat tlus marshy country. The picture Edwardes drew of this comer of the valley is too pretty to be lost. Here it is : — K«TOdK> pk- "III spring it is a vegetable emerald ; and in winter its many- tMK of BumA coloured harvests look as if Ceres had stumbled against the Groat BANNU AND ITS ENVIRONS. 7 Salt llange, and spilt half her cornucopia in this favoured vale. As if to make the landscape perfect, a graceful variety of the sheeshum-tree, whose boughs droop like the willow, is found here, and here alone ; while along streams, and round the villages, the thick mulberry, festooned with the wild vine, throws a fragrant sliadc, beneath which well-fed Syuds look exquisitely happy, sleeping midway through their beads. Roses, too, without which Englishmen have learnt from the East to think no scenery complete, abound in the upper parts at the close of spring. Most of the fruits of Kabul are found wild, and culture would bring them to perfection : as it is, the limes, mulberries, and melons are delicious. Altogether, nature has so smiled on Bunnu, that the stranger thinks it a paradise; and when he turns to the people, wonders how such spirits of evil ever found admittance." Beyond the northern border of this " vegetable emerald," which extends along the left bank of the Kurm for a dis- tance of nearly twenty miles, lies the Waziri and Khatak Thai, a high unirrigated sandy plain, which gradually gives place to clay and gravel towards the hills. AVith seasonable rain it affords excellent pasturage, and repays the labour of the husbandman with a heavy out-turn of wheat and grain. Tlie southern portion of the valley is called Marwat after Marwat its inhabitants. It is a vast treeless plain of undulating sandy downs, merging to the west into a fringe of soft loamy clay, furrowed, as with some giant's plough, with numerous deep narrow water-courses, whiclj converge almost at the same point, in the Gambila, or lose themselves before reaching it in the sand. Immediately under the hills to the west this loamy soil is overlaid by a layer of gravel, and smooth rounded stones, called by the people " dozahhi hdnri " or " hell stones," owing to their black scorched appearance, which have been washed down from the hills during the long ages that have elapsed since God said, " Let the dry land appear." It is a country of wonderful contrasts. Seen in autumn or in a year of drought, it appears a bleak howling wilderness, fit 8 BANNU AyD ITS EXVIRONS. The eutera Talley. The Indus and its Magarics. home for the whistling heat-laden dust storm that often sweeps across its surface in the hot months ; but seen in late spring, if a few showers of blessed rain have fallen op- portunely, it presents to the eye an interminable waving sea of wheat, the vivid green of which gives place here and there to streaks and patches of darker-shaded grain. The outline of the distant hills is positively a relief to the eye wearied from the monotony of the never-ending green. Regarded from the top of the Tang Darrah Pass, the eastern valley presents a marked contrast to its western neighbour. When entering it from the Marwat side, you feel that you are descending into a new country, for the general level of Isakhel is considerably below that of Marwat. Although, too, the dominant class of its inhabitants are Pathans, and nearly related to the Marwats, they have long since discarded their mother Pashto, which they speak like foreigners, for the broken Punjabi dialect of the hardy Jat cultivators of the soU. An amphitheatre of hills known as the Salt Range to the east, and its Khatak- Niazai branch on the west, of an average elevation of two thousand feet above the plain, incloses this valley on all sides but the south, to which it is open. The broad- bosomed Indus, after a narrow tortuous course amongst hills and mountains of more than one thousand miles, bursts through a gorge of its own making in the Salt Range at the quaint old town of Kalabagh,' and KSlabSgh. ' That is, "bl.ick prardon," and such it was until (in 1841 I think) a cata- clysm of the Indus swept half the town and its gardens away. It is an odd little place still, containing .3131 inhabitants, and is picturcsiiuciy situated on the light bank of the river, at the point of its dcbouchuie from the Salt Kange into the jjlains. The houses rise one ailovc the othir on the liill-sidc, nestling close packed in an abandon of dirt and confusion, amidst the glistening carnation-Coloured salt of the rocks. It has a municipality, and an old standing grievance ; for as (ioverniiiciit levies a duty of about eight shillings and four- pence on every hundredweight of salt r|U:irricd in the Uange, and as half the town is built of salt and on salt, the pcuph- aretinid In :ivily should thoy attempt to eat their houses, and their cattle, when they loiter by the way in order to lick the rocks or the house walls, are ordered to " move on *' by itern- visajjcd constables, whose mud- and siit-huilt sentry boxe'S are perehed about on every couiDianding knoll. Amongst the advuiilagea of liie position — for the BANNU AND ITS ENVIRONS. 9 flows placidly through the valley in a southerly direction for the first forty miles of its course. Immediately above Kalabagh it is under a quarter of a mile in width when at its highest flood ; but a few miles lower down, as if re- joicing in its newly-gained freedom, and greedy for con- quest, its breadth from bank to bank increases to ten miles, and during the summer floods, when swollen by a thousand torrents, and fed by the melting snows of the Himalayas, its waters reach from one bank to the other. The reader can easily conceive what a capricious tyrant this mighty stream is, and how anxiously tens, nay hundreds of thousands, who acknowledge it as the dispenser to them of life and death, watch its annual rise and fall. From the point of its final debouchure from the hills to Karrachi, near which it discharges its waters from many mouths into the Indian Ocean, the Indus travels about six hundred miles, and has an average width during the flood season of from six to twelve miles. The number of villages on its banks, or in its bed, which are subject to its influence, cannot be under two thousand five hundred, and the average population in each is certainly over two hundred. We have thus, at the lowest computation, no fewer than half a million of human beings whose subsistence depends on this river's vagaries. Within the last twenty years it has ruined many of the once thriving villages of Isakhel and Mianwali, by converting their lands into sand wastes or engulfing them altogether ; whilst others it has enriched with a fertilizing deposit, and raised their in- habitants from the position of wretched cattle graziers, struggling for existence, to that of prosperous peasant proprietors. Its last freak in this district was to shift its chief channel eight miles eastwards, a feat it accomplished i-onstal)lcs — not the least is, tliat from tluir liigli places tin y can admire the iloniestic urrani^.'iiiriits iu liou^its bcucatU tlicm. The peyjilc arc used to it now, and duu't oljict. 10 BANNU AND ITS ENVIRONS. between 1856 and 1864. In doing so it submerged be- tween seventy and eighty square miles of cultivated land and seventeen villages. From this we may judge how it may have fared within the same period with the hundreds of villages within its influence farther south. ?o"cJs'JlndTe« The country lying right and left of its high banks has an excellent soil of soft white and red clay, with a varying immixture of sand, and slopes gently upwards to the foot of the hills on either side. After every fall of rain, nume- rous mountain torrents spread their waters in shallow channels fan-like over the plain beneath, which is thus supplied three years out of four with a suflBciency of irri- gation for all agricultural purposes. The open country to the south, being beyond the influence of these torrents, is little cultivated, and, except in years of drought, resembles the pictures drawn in books of an American " boundless prairie " — a rolling sea of green sward sprinkled over with shrubs and bushes, and covered in spring with flowers ; in short, a pastoral paradise. Three small corners of the district still remain to be Bhangikhci. noticcd : Bhangikhcl, lying trans-Indus to the north of Kcilabagh, a wild mountainous tract of steep hills and stony ravines, covering an area of 173 square miles, and in- habited by a hardy race of Pathans, who claim to be of Khatak descent, and who have supplied many a recruit to the gallant little army which, under the designation of "The Punjdb Frontier Force," guards our trans-Indus territories, and stands sentinel for India on its most exposed rakkai . and vulnerable border : Pakkar, a narrow strip of ridges and depressions, occupied by a quiet industrious race of Awans, which runs along the northern base of the Salt Range from the left bank of the Indus opposite Kalabagh to Sakesar (5010 feet), the highest hill in the whole chain ; and, lastl}', at the other extremity of the district, the little valley of Muiaiai. Mulazai, occupied by a Marwat tribe of that name, which BANNU AND ITS ENVIRONS. \l runs vredge-Uke into tlie Suliman Range, and is only con- nected with Marwat by a long narrow pass called Darrah Bain, in which travelling is unsafe without an armed escort, although it is daily patrolled, and protected by a fort at its southern exit, and a chain of towers along the line of road. The above geogniphical sketch will I hope enable any reader who has followed me so far to judge what Bannii is by nature. I shall now endeavour to describe what man has made of it. 12 CHAPTEE IL B-iKNir IXDEPEXDENT AOT) IIM)ER NATIYE RULE. Earliest occu- pants of whom traces remain •were Greeks. Although it is more than two thousand years since Alexander the Great lived and died, he has left us clear and indelible marks of his conquests throughout all the wide regions to which he carried his arms. The silver and copper coins, the moulded bricks and figures, and other antiquities found in the mounds of Akra, Islamnagar, and elsewhere, attest his presence in this district, and would alone be suflBcient, were no other extraneous evidence forthcoming, to satisfy us that the successors of his general Seleucus ruled here until the subversion of the Graxjo- Bactrian kingdom, more than two centuries after Alexander's death. The encroachments of the Indus itself, which has been steadily undermining its left bank for the last eleven years, annually disclose further proof of the permanence of the Macedonian occupation of this country, or at least of the influence of Macedonian art on its inhabitants ; for as each year's floods subside, ruins, which had been buried for ages past under twenty or thirty feet of superincum- bent sand and gravel, are brought to the light of day, and in and about them life-sized sculptured or moulded heads and busts of the human figure, made of artificial stone, and clearly of Grecian manufacture or imitated from the Greeks, BANNU UNDER NATIVE RULE. 13 are found. " Sikandar Badshah," too, that is, "King Alex- ander," is at the present day as great a popular hero amongst the people as our King Arthur is among ourselves. Be- tween Gra3C0-Bactrian and Muhammadan there is a blank of one thousand years, which local traditions thus fill up. " Then the idolaters took heart when they saw there was The gap of looo years filled up by no longer a ruler in the land, and strove amongst them- tradiuon. selves for the mastery ; but the children of the tribe of Badui seized on the citadel of Akra, and named it Sat Ram, after their king. And they married and gave in marriage, and waxed exceeding numerous, and there ^as peace in the land for forty generations. But in a.h. 391 (a.d. 1001) the Emperor Sultan Mahmud marched from Ghazni with a great host of the faithful, and took Sat Ram, and destroyed it with fire, and slew all the unbelievers with the edge of the sword, so that not one was left, and the land was desolate for two hundred years." Heaps of broken bricks, pottery, and calcined bones, and B'^ddhist ruins, numerous Hindoo ornaments and idols, found at Akra, so far confirm this tradition as to demonstrate that its destruc- tion was sudden, complete, and by fire. Two old ruins — both called by the people, as usual, Kafirkot or " Infidels' Forts," the smaller perched on the summit of a hill at Mari, on the left bank of the Indus, opposite Kalabagh ; and the larger forty miles lower down on its right bank in the Rattah Roh or Red Mountain — appear to have been fortified Buddhist monastei'ies ; for, although they have not been examined by any one competent to give an opinion, they conform in appearance and style of architecture to other ruins scattered about in the Salt Range and hills sur- rounding the Peshawar valley, some of which have been examined by antiquarians and pronounced to be Buddhist, and we know that Buddhism flourished in many parts of India for several centuries before and after the commence- ment of the Christian era. The lower ruin is chiefly re- 14 BAimU UNDER NATIVE RULE. markaUe for its good preserration, extent, and the stupen- dous size of some of its stones still in sitit in its walls, which makes one wonder how they got there. PathniotBign- The ancestors of all the Pathan* tribes now settled in the District immigrated into it from the "West. Each tribe represents a distinct ware of conquest, and was impelled eastwards by the superior pressure of other Pathan races, whose younger branches, finding home too narrow for them, had, like bees, left the parent hive in successive swarms, to seek out new resting places for themselves either in the hills of TTaziristan or in the plains and valleys of the Upper Derajat. Order of descent The Order in which they descended from their mountains from kke hiilft. / is as follows. The Bannuchis, who about five hundred years ago displaced two small tribes of Mangals and Hanis, of whom little is known, as well as a settlement of Khataks, from the marshy but fertile country on either bank of the Kurm. The Niazais, who some one hundred and eighty years later spread from Tank (a tract of country lying at the foot of the Takht-i-Suliman in the Derah Ismail Kh4n District, in which they had settled some years previously), over the plain now called Marwat, then sparsely inhabited bv a race which has left us nothing but their name, PothL The Marwats, a younger branch of the same tribe, who. Who are the i "WriHng of Pathav, it w^t be exported I shoald say something on the Afghus T Texed qtH:>tioo of their nationality and language ; bat as " doctors diffir " still on both sabjcrts, and I can say nothing new on cither, I have refrained from di»jti<>u. and many ptToliar euston»s obtaining amongst triliis of purt^t blood, r.f. the P.iss»»Ter-like practice of sacrificing an animal aud smeanng the dv>«rway »uh its IiIimmI in order to avert calamity, the otTtring np of sacrifices, stoning to death of blasphemers, the " />»A" lawl tenun, etc.. — all »opp»rt thts tmw. Still ni;uiy leanie*! men, mostly those howevi r who hare little or no pt r^onal aeqnaintanee with I'athans, eontend that they ure a distinct nation, haxipg a siparatc and more or less traceable history Ixom the time of Herodotus dowswank. BANNU UKDER NATIVE RULE. 15 within fifty years of the Niazai colonization of Marwat, followed in their wake and drove them farther eastward into the countries now known as Isakhel and ISIianwaii, the former of which they occupied, after expelling the Awdns they found there, and reducing the miscellaneous Jat inhabitants to serfdom. Lastly, the Darweshkhel AYa- zirs, whose appearance in the noi-them parts of the valley as permanent occupants is comparatively recent, dating only from the close of last century, and who had suc- ceeded in wresting large tracts of pasture lands from the Khataks and Bannuchis, and had even cast covetous eyes on the outl3ring lands of the Marwats, when the advent of British rule put a final stop to their encroachments. I propose to follow the above order in giving a brief historical sketch of each of the four great Pathan tribes of the District. I shall touch very lightly on their distribution and internal feuds hnd friendships until I come to a time within the re- collection of every village grey beard, when I shall pause to contemplate the picture of what they were on the eve of British conquest, in order subsequently to view them as they now are, after a quarter of a century of enforced peace under a strong Government. It will be convenient to adopt the simple style of narration in which the people themselves relate their story, and which would bear almost literal translation into idiomatic Pashto. Now when the abomination of idolatry haH ceased in the c»ise of expui- noo of ih« Man- land, it remained desolate for two hundred years,* untiL in «*'* »='• *'»°''3 ^ ' ' m ftKirteentii the reign of Shahab-u-din Ghori, it was peopled by a race «***™^- of true believers of the tribes of Mangal and Hani. They lived in peace for many generations, untQ they forsook the laws of the Lord and his prophets, and withheld tithes firom ' It may be said tltat this style of narration is Biblical, and its adoption objf ctionattte ; bat I snbmit it is wise to use it where sticii a style so cI»)6i.'Ey and fiuthfnlly repnfsents the diction of the pctrpLe ab«nt wLum I am writing that if the iianrutiTe were translated word for word into their Latgouge, it wooLl be an idiomatie tiansslation. 15 BANNJJ UNDER NATIVE RULE. their Pir Shekh Muhammad. Then the holy Pir, seeing that their ways were evil, was vexed in his heart, and called Jais son, and said, " Go thou to the hill called Shaw41, and say to the sons of Shah Farid, ' Come, and ye shall inherit the land ; ' " and the young man rose up, and went and said, "Come, for my father calleth you." Then the children of Shah Farid, who was also called Shitak, were glad, for they were sore pressed at the hands of men of the tribe Wazir, and they girded up their loins, and with their wives and little ones came down from the mountains, and camped at the mouth of the pass called Tochi. Then their elders assembled to- gether, and said, " Let us send three pigeons to the Man- gals and Hanis, as a sign of what we shall do unto them." Then they took three pigeons, and the first they left entire, and the second they plucked of its wing- feathers alone; but on the third they left not a feather, and moreover they cut off its head and feet; and they sent a messenger with them, who said to the elders of the Mangals and Hanis, "The Lord is wroth with you, for you have treated his Pir scornfully, and he has delivered you into our hands ; if ye rise and flee, even as this pigeon ye shall be safe ; if ye remain, ye shall be maimed even as this one ; and if ye resist, ye shall be Bannddzais . ,, i_ -if- scizethc country degtrOVed even as this one. Ihen the Mangals and for themselves •' ^ '-' and settle in it. jjanis fcaro^l exceedingly, and it happened unto them as unto the pigeons. When the children of Khatak also had been *»xpelled, the Bannudzais divided the land amongst theinselves by lot. Now Bannu was the wife of Shitak, whence his descen- dants were called Bannudzais, and she had two sons. Kiwi, which was the father of Miri and Sami, and Suraui. The share of the sons of Miri fell to the south, of the sons of Sami in the middle, and of the sons of Surani to the north and west. Now the name of the land was Baud, for there was much water; but the Bannudzais dug drains and sowed Name changed com, and said, "Let us call this place Bauuii, after our to BannG. ' ' •*■ Annexed to Kabul. BANNV UNDER NATIVE RULE. 17 mother, for it is fruitful, even as she was." • And they did so. Then there was peace in the land for four hundred years, and the people waxed great and multiplied, and obeyed the commands of their priests. In those days holy men, hearing there was plenty in Bannu, came there from the west and the south — a vast multitude; but there was room for them all. After many generations Bannu passed from the hands of ^^ the Kings of Delhi, and became a part of the kingdom of Kabul ; but when the power of the king waxed faint, the leaders of the Bunniidzais raised their heads, and each said in his heart, " There is no ruler in the land, lo, I shall make myself chief! " And the people were perplexed, saying in their hearts, "Whom shall we follow? " So they divided themselves into two parties, the " black " and the " white," and there was war in the land for many years. Then the "Wazirs saw there was strife and discord in Bannu, and rionlThiMrsikhs that the land was good, so they stretched their hands on Buima.'* '"^^ forth for the prey. There was sore trouble in those days, but the cup of bitterness was not yet full, for a race of infidels came from the east and harassed the land even for twenty years. "We shall leave the Banniichis alone in their misery for a little, a prey to disunion amongst themselves, with the grasp of the savage Wazirs tightening round them, and victims to the periodical depredations of a Sikh army, to turn our glance southwards over the plain of Marwat, and to cross the Kurm at Tang Darrah with the fleeing Niazais. As the exodus of the Isakhel Niazais from their moun- settlement of Niazaisand Mar- tain homes and settlements in Tank was soon after followed ^^^ *"* ^^''■ by similar movements on the part of the Marwats, and from the time of the seizure of Marwat by the latter until quite recently they were in a position of mutual antagonism, I shall not give a separate account of each, as was at first 18 BAJmU UNDER NATIVE RULE. inteaded, bat oombme that of both into ase oa tl»e |^'0«ii)d,'tie the pbil «r sberl, vhach tixy ordiiiaiil; «HiaT om tibe neck aad «ibii«lden, raaad their \ms» aud kiKTis lead them into laaBT crrftrs, which in prooeBs of time become aooepted as f^ts. This is ;& oomaaok £niliia^ aration of Hie genca]og;»cal t7e«« W t3i t!u' viunitry iil \h\-\ have iiiv:,i!iilily Ixiii 1'i.at.ii, and arc lo>in" tcrritoiv. The (Utt.etion of llic IJatliiklul ulan Vroni tin- Ica;,'ue ai,'ain.st the Mahsiid's— anil this clan can put Suo li-iitiu^ uien into the lielJ— has (juite turiKi! the scales airaiust tin- Dtirwi'-liklivl, 24 HAXNU UNDER NATIVE RULE. Ahmad Shah Durrani swept like irresistible torrents through the land, to destroy for ever the last phantom of ro)'al authority in the sack and massacre of Delhi. wuiu'rai':*'"' In 1738 a portion of Nadir Shah's army, on its way to invade India, entered Bannii by the valley of Dawar, and by its atrocities so cowed the Bannuchis and Marwats as to extract a heavy tribute from them. Ten years later a Dur- rani army, under one of Ahmad Shah's generals, entered the valley by the same route, and crossing the Indus at Kala- bagh, drove the Ghakkars, who still ruled in the Cis-Indus tracts of this District, owing nominal allegiance to the Emperor of Delhi, out of the country, and razed Moazzira- nagar, their southern capital and stronghold, to the ground. For the next seventy years Ahmad Shah and his successors to the throne of the newly-created kingdom of Kabul main- tained a precarious hold on its Eastern Provinces, amongst which was this District, collecting tribute in the western ■\allfcy by an army sent periodically to extort it at the sword's point, and in the Eastern through local chiefs, to whom A large share was remitted as the price of their good will; but with them, too, the presence of royal troops was cften required to overcome them and their clansmen into oltedience. As the King's authority grew weaker, that of his va$S4«l8 in his Eastern or Indus Provinces grew stronger, null I one by one each declared himself independent, and ccmmenccd to make war on his neighbours, only to fall an easy prey a few years later to the devouring Sikh. In the general Sfifamble for territory which commenced early in this century amongst those quondam vassals, but now indepen- dentprlnees, Nawabllafiz Ahmad Khan of Mankera managed isAkhpi annrxwi to anncx Isikhcl and part of the Cis-Indus tract as well ; but by the Nawab of . ■, ctc\c\ i • iii ^ o•^ ^ /> t ManWri. in loZz he resigned the latter to the Sikhs, after standing a short siege in his fortress of Mankera, prudently declining further contest with Ranjeet Singh, "the Lion of the Pun- jdb." AVith a keen eye for his own aggrandizement and BANNU UNDER NATH^ RULE. 95 coming events, this prudent Nawab had, three or four years before his withdrawal to Trans-Indus, taken advantage of the distracted state of Marwat to assist one of the two factions ^ar'vat also at- tiicked and over- into which that country was divided. The " black " ' ^'^■ faction had lately gained a decided superiority over the " white," which latter in its distress was unpatriotic enough to call in foreign aid. The Nawab of Mankera despatched his troops, accompanied by a revenue collector named DiwanManak Rai, and with their assistance the " whites " overthrew the " blacks " in a pitched battle at a place caUed Lagharwahnear the Torwah torrent, on which the wily Diwan informed both that his master had ordered him to take possession of the country for himself.^ From that date Marwat lost its independence, and for the next four years the Nawab's troops each spring, when the crops were ripe, ravaged the lands of the "blacks," and extorted a large share of the produce from the " whites." On one occasion the Diwan had the temerity to advance to Akra in the Bannu valley, and requisition the maliks or village head men for supplies and tribute ; but they shut themselves up in their villages, and defied him and his master, on which the disappointed Diwan had the discretion to retire, vowing future vengeance. His departure was hastened by the loss of half his baggage camels, which had been cleverly cut off when out grazing, and of several men who had in- cautiously ridden within matchlock range of one of the Banniichi village forts, which, like hornets' nests, dotted the valley. The Nawab annexed Isakhel in 1818, and overran The sikhs appear Marwat in the following year, but was not left long to enjoy the fruits of either conquest by the insatiable Ranjeet \ Division of Marwat into two great factions dates from ninety to one hun- dred years back. Party feeling is as strong now as ever, and it is very im- portant that a deputy commissioner should know to which side the head men of the country belong. "^ See the ballad on this event, Part II. Chapter II. 26 liAXXr UNDER NATIVE RULE. Singh, who had no sooner gained the Indus for a frontier, than he determined to advance it to the Siiliman range itself. In 1823 he crossed the Indus at the head of a large force, marched through Isakhel and Mar\vat without op- position, and pushed on to the outskirts of Bannu. After a sta}' of a month or two, he retired without attempting to plant a garrison in the country at all. For the next twelve or thirtcx>n j'cars the troops of the Derah Nawab and of ]\Iaharajah Kan jeet Singh harried the Marwat plain altern- atively, until, in 183G, the Nawab's short-lived semi-inde- pendence was finally extinguishetl, and the Sikhs had it all to themselves. The Marwats never offered any combined resistance to tlie Sikhs, but on each visitation either fled to the hills, carrying their flocks and herds with them, or remained and paid what they could of the " Kalnng " or arbitraiy money and grain assessment put on each village or Tappah. i!c>ist.inr( llcsislancc would liave been useless, as their villages |iiis>iblc for 11 • .1 •% o ' itaunuciKs. wcro mcrc collections ol huts constructed of twigs, osiers, impossible for _ o » ' Murwais. q^^^ rccds, either open or encircled with a thorn hedge. Not so the Bannuchis, who from 1823 to 1845 were every second or third year invaded b}' a large Sikh army, which never entered their valley without fear and trembling ; and although it generally succeeded in squeezing out of them a considerable revenue, never quitted it without having suffered severe loss at the hands of some stout rebel. Thus on one occasion Malik Dilasa Khan, head of the Diiudsliah Tappah, stood a siege of several days • in his mud fort, and repulsed the Sikhs after inflicting upon them a loss of over two hundred men.' Now the I>annuchis as a tribe were a nation of cowards compared with the Marwats ; but thej' had nearly four hundred com- pact villages, each a fort in itself, surrounded by a thick * See the fragment of the ballad celebrating his victor)- infra. i BANNU UNDER NATIVE RULE', 27 mud wall, strengthened with numerous towers, behind which they fought well. Added to this they were adepts at night assassination, and on the entrance of the Sikhs into their little Pandemonium, they by common consent suspended their own feuds for the time, called their Waziri foes "brothers," and attacked with one accord the Kdfir (infidel) enemy whenever they could with safety to them- selves. From first to last no attempt was made to occupy the valley permanently, and in open Marwat even it was not until 1844 that a fort was erected, a Sikh garrison located in it, and the country consigned to the tender mercies of a Kardar or revenue collector. It was far otherwise in the eastern valley, where no ?'^'i^°™'"'°}?'" J ' the eastern valley serious opposition had ever been experienced by the Sikhs. Their connexion with the Cis- Indus portion of that valley commenced towards the close of the reign of Timiir Shah, the feeble son and successor of Ahmad Shah, the celebrated conqueror of Delhi and destroyer of the Mah- rattas. Before Timiir Shah's death, which occurred in 1793, the Sikh troops had on several occasions overrun the greater part of Mianwali, and levied contributions and tribute from its villages ; but it was not until after the fall of Mankera (1822) that it was completely annexed and settled. The Trans-Indus portion, that is, Isakhel, con- tinued subject to the Nawab of Derah until 183G, when it was formally incorporated into the Sikh kingdom ; but for the ten or twelve years preceding that event, the Nawab's sovereignty was more shadow than substance ; for in their expeditions to Marwat and Bannu, the Sikhs used to march through Isakhel whenever they required it as a highway, and treated the Nawab and his government with scant courtesy. Soon after the close of the first Sikh war, the Council of Edwardes' first expedition to Regency, which had been appointed, under the control ^^^^ „" J^^ of a British Resident, to administer the Punjab during the 28 BANNU UNDER NATIVE RULE. minority of the Maharajah Dhulecp Singh, drew the attention of their adviser, the Lite Sir ironrv Lawrence, to what they were pleased to term the " outstandinp; revenue " of Bannii. After due inquiry into the state of affairs in that quarter, the Resident sanctioned the despatch of a strong Sikh force, accompanied by a IJritish Officer, to compel payment if necessary, but if possible to " conciliate the Bunnoochees (Banniichis) : to subdue them by a peaceful and just treaty ; and reduce the nominal revenue, which was never paid, to a moderate tribute in acknowledgment of sovereignty." ' The liritish Officer selected to accompany the force was Lieutenant Edwardes ; tut as the cold season had well nigh come to an end before his army crossed the Indus, he, after a short stay of six weeks in the valley, retraced his steps to Lahore, arriving at that capital in May, 1847. Although but little revenue had been collected, the expedition was by no means barren of important results, as a thorough reconnaissance of the country had been made, discipline and obedience liad been forced on an imruly soldiery, and a suspicious people had learnt to place confidence in the authority and good faith of an Englishman. In the cold weather of the following year (1847-8) Edwardes returned, and crossing the Kurm at Lakki, marched up its left bank into the Waziri Thai, and was joined by a column from Peshawar, under Lieut. Taylor, at a placed called " The "W'ells," a bleak wild spot in the very heart of the Thai or prairie-like upland, which, with its inhabitants, Edwardes thus describes (pp. 53-4) : — Waziit Thai Uo- " EvcD this is a paradise to the "VVazi'ri tribes, who, expelled scribed by from their own stony and pine-clad mountains by the snow, yearly set before them their flocks of broad-lailcd sheep and goats, and strings of woolly camels and curved-eared horses, and migrate to the sheltered plains of Bunnu. Here they stretch their black blankets or reed mats on the bare earth, over two sticks set up like the letter T, the four sides dragi;ling on the ' Edwardes' A Yiar on the Punjab Front ur, page 17. BANNU UNDER NATIVE RULE. 29 ground, or fastened with a stone if the wind gets high. Under this miserable shelter huddle men, women, and children, afraid neither of the rain's cold nor the sun's hot beams, and in happy ignorance of better things. From the comer of the tent the shaggy muzzle of a hill sheep-dog peeps out, and watches over the tethered donkey and sick goat left at home with the woman while the flocks are out at graze. Tall and stately as a pine, the daughter of the mountains stands at the tent-door in her indigo-dyed petticoat and hood, smiling on the gambols of her naked brats, or else sits down and rubs out corn for her lord who is a-field. The men, stout, fierce, and fearless of man or beast, and clad in shaggy cloaks of brown camel's hair, drive out the herds to feed, and with long jazail in hand, and burning match, lie full-length along the ground, and listen for strange foot-falls on the horizon. Should an enemy approach, the dis- charge of a single matchlock would be heard over the whole plain, and summon thousands of the tribe to the point where danger threatened or plunder allured. Such were the people whose gipsy-like encampments strewed the Thai at the time I speak of." The year before, Edwardes had made a fast friendship with Swahu Khan, chief of the Spirkai "VVazirs, in com- pany with whom he was now able to roam about unmo- lested amongst the Waziri gipsy -like encampments which dotted the plain in all directions. Near one of them an incident occurred curiously illustrative of the place and the times, which Edwardes tells in his happiest vein (pp. 58-9)-:- " At Swahu Khan's approach, a wild creature, all rags and gestures, rushed out, and embraced his knees, with many The scholar— an welcomes in Pashto, which he instantly turned into bad Persian when informed who I was. This prepared me for the announce- ment which followed, that he was the ' Akhoond,' or scholar of the place ; but as he had run out without his turban, I could not help smiling to see the scholar's skull scored all over with sabre cuts. He invited us all to stop and dine, and smoke a chillum ; but as I insisted on proceeding, he made a last request, that ' if ever 1 reduced the valley of Bannu, 1 would recover for him a certain long musket, which a Marwati had taken as spoil, after killing the Akhoond' s father in a raid, and then sold 30 BANXU UNDER NATIVE RULE. to a Bannuchi, named Shah Abhas, for sixteen rupees, though' (and this he whispered in my ear) ' it's worth forty ! ' " I may as well mention here that I did not forget the Akhoond's request ; but long afterwards, when all opposition had ceased in Bannu, discovered Shah Abbas, redeemed the paternal firelock, which was indeed a long one, and had it duly conveyed to the delighted ' scholar ' of Kamar. " As Swahu had reported, Kamas proved to be a kos distant from the water, which the villagers procured from deep wells in the dry bed of a ravine behind the hillocks ; aad we met hundreds of the women going backwards and forwards, with donkeys laden with water-skins. I observed some of the donkeys with cropped ears, and was told that this was a fine levied on them for stray- ing into a neighbour's field. " The drudgery of the household, and much of the out-door work, is done in this country by the women ; and a poor Pathan counts his wives and female relations as so many labourers on his estate. "The girls were all laughing round the weUs, and did not seem to have any Asiatic prejudice about concealing either their faces or ankles from a Faringi, but good-naturedly ran up to me with water, as the only thing anybody could seek in such a place, and were very much vexed that I did not empty a small pitcher." As soon as tlie junction with Taylor had been effected, Edwardes crossed the Kurm, and pitched his camp at Jhandiikhel in Bannu Proper. By that time all the chief Bannuchi Maliks had come in and tendered their submis- sion, and were with the camp, busy watching the course of events and each other. Edwardes writes at page 116 of his book : — "Nothing could exceed their (Bannuchi Maliks) simple astonish- qnesUons. ment when they first came in, at every object they saw ia my posses- sion. They believed ray watch was a bird, and called the 'tick' its song. As for the perambulator with which I measured the marches, they beheld it with perfect awe, and asked me if it was true that it threw itself down on the ground at the end of every mile to let the man who guided it know he had come that dis- tance ? One chief wanted to know whether it was true that English people could not tell lies; and appeared, from his look of commiseration, to attribute it to some cruel malformation of BannOchl BANNU UNDER NATIVE RULE. Zl our mouths. Another inquired whether it was really true that when I was young I had read hooka for twelve years uninter- ruptedly, without sleeping ?' ' Though the chiefs were in, their spiritual advisers, the Sayads and Uluma, that is, the " holy and learned classes," were not. I shall leave Edwardes to introduce them and the other inhabitants of the valley to the reader, omitting passages here and thero in order to condense his account as much as possible, and spelling vernacular proper names according to the system of transliteration I have myself adopted (Chapter II. p. 70 to end of chapter) : — " The Bannuchis, or, as they generaEy style themselves Kdwardes' Bannuwals, are bad specimens of Afghans. Could worse be said Bannachis, of any human race ? They have all the vices of Pathans rankly luxuriant, the virtues stunted. Except in Sindh, I have never seen such a degraded people. Although forming a distinct race in themselves, easily recognizable, at first sight, from any other tribe along the Indus, they are not of pure descent from any common stock, and able, like the neighbouring people, to trace their lineage back to the founder of the family,^ but are descended from many different Afghan tribes, representing the ebb and flow of might, right, possession, and spoliation in a corner of the Kabul empire, whose remoteness and fertility offered to outlaws and vagabonds a secure asylum against both law and labour. The introduction of Indian cultivators from the Punjab, and the settlement of numerous low Hindoos in the valley, from sheer love of money, and the hope of peacefully plundering by trade their ignorant Muhammadan masters, have contributed, by inter- marriage, slave -dealing, and vice, to complete the mongrel character of the Bannu people. Every stature, from that of the weak Indian to that of the tall Durrani ; every complexion, from the ebony of Bengal to the rosy cheek of Kabul ; every dress, from the linen garments of the south to the heavy goat-skin of the eternal snows, is to be seen promiscuously among them, reduced only to a harmonious whole by the neutral tint of universal dirt. "Let the reader take this people, and arm them to the teeth ; * They do trace their descent from a common ancestor, as was shown a few pages back, but the descendants of numerous later settlers from Peshawar, Khatak, and Kabul are now generally termed Bannuchis also. bie laconic. 32 BAXNU UNDER NATIVE RULE. then throwing them down in the bcautifnl country I have de- scribed, bid them scramble for its fat meads and fertilizing waters, its fruits and flowers ; and he will have a good idea of the state of lauded property and laws of tenure, as I found them in 1847. " Owning no external allegiance, let us see what internal govenmient this impatient race submitted to : in truth none. Freed from a king, they could not agree upon a chief; but every village threw a mud wall around its limits, chose its own Malik (master), and went to war with all its neighbours. . . . The tinUk and " I^ Avill easily be iinderstood that many of these forts would be too weak long to maintain entire independence, and accordingly above the Maliks of single forts soon rose up Maliks of four or five ; and these contending, the victors became Maliks of ten, twenty, or thirty. . . . The head of each Tappah was not ' born to greatness,' but 'achieved' it. Either he became so by being the greatest landowner, or the wist-st in council, or the most terrible in fight. In short, he owed his chieftainship to influence, not blood or right, and his sons after him succeeded only to the same privileges on the same conditions. " Hence most likely it is that the chiefs in Eannu, instead of being called ' Khans,' as in other parts of Afghanistan, are called Maliks, which means simply masters, " Once elevated to that position, they then exercised the same authority as ' Khans ' in other tribes, and their state and conse- quence was maintained as follows : — "Every ' Zauiindar,' or land owner, paid to his Malik one- tenth of the produce of his fields in kind ; and this tithe of the whole year's produce was called the Malikd'i, or ^Malik's share. The chief either collected it in his own bnrns, or, if too idle, arf was commonly the case, farmed it to a Hindoo (and, it may be safely added, was remorselessly cheated in the calculation). "When realized, the tithes did not become absolutely the chief 's private property, but fonned a fund, whence all public charges were defrayed ; and out of it the high mud walls around the fortified villuges were repaired, the canals and water-courses kept open, arms and ammunition purchased, the pilgrim feasted on his holy progress, the neighbour, saint, or stranger hospitably entertained, the beggar relieved, and the song of the wandering minstrel rewarded. At the end of the year, if there was any surplus left, it became the chief's private property ; but if there was any deficiency, he was expected to defray it out of his own resources. BANNU UNDJER NATIVE RULE. 33 " In addition to the tithes, the only other revenue which the chief derived was from a few taxes levied on the wretched Hindoos in the town ; such as a per-centage on all sales, and a fee for permission to marry. " The Malik might have land of his own, inherited, purchased, or seized, and thence derive a large private fortune ; but the above are the only public revenues he enjoyed in his capacity of chief, and their whole amount would not perhaps average more than £200 per annum. . . . " Such were the rade and roughly extorted privileges of the few who had the savage strength to rise above their follows in Bannu ; such the surly homage which the Bannuchi, who brooked not the yoke of Kabul or Lahore, paid amid all his licence to the great necessity of man's fallen nature — to be ruled. " Some dozen and a half of chiefs had enjoyed these baronial rights for several years Avhen I first went to Bannu, and no one of their number seemed to be able to ' annex ' another Tappah to his own. But petty aggressions were continual, and the power of every Malik was liable to constant fluctuation from the de- crease or increase of his influence among the landowners of his own Tappah. For instance, a dependent of Mir Alam Khan in the Tappah Mandan would take off'ence and fly to the fort of Dilasah Khan in Tappah Daiid Shah, and the fugitive, under any cir- cumstances, by Pathanaki, or the custom of the Pathan nation, must be hospitably received and admitted. And if Dilasah Khan felt himself at the time (as boys .say at school) able to thrash Mir Alam, he would jump into his saddle, summon his followers, and ride out towards that Malik's fort, where, standing at a safe distance, so as not to be shot during the conference, he would lustily shout out for his neighbour to appear upon the wall, and give up the wife and chattels of his runaway follower; and if this demand was complied with, out of inability to I'esist, Dilasah Khan would thenceforward receive the chieftain's tenth share of the produce of his new vassal's land, albeit not in his own Tappah. On the other hand, if Mir Alam was stronger than Dilasah, the wife and children, and chieftain's tithe, would all remain in possession of the former ; and on this the fugitive, disappointed of revenge, would cool down, sue for permission to return, and be either reinstated on payment of a fine, or else murdered, and his lands confiscated, according to the circum- stances of the case, and the good or ill humour of Mi'r Alam at the moment. 34 BANNU UNDER NATIVE 'RULE. "These fluctuations of power, however, had, at the time I speak of, ceased to be of any great consequence. The ambition, violence, and influence of the few, and the requirements and en- durance of the many, had mutually found their level in the distracted valley ; and the result was, as already stated, that several years had come and gone, and still seen the twenty rich Tappahs of Bannu pretty equally divided among seventeen or eighteen chiefs. GUndUoT "But more securely to preserve this status, and check each other's personal ambition, a political division was resorted to, still more remarkable than the territorial one already related. The chiefs of the twenty Tappahs divided themselves into two gund'is or factions, the leaders of which were the most influential men at the time on either side. When I went first to Bannu, Sher Mast Khan, of Jhandukhel, was at the head of one gundi, mustering nine thousand fighting men, and Jafir Khan, of Ghori- wala, at the head of the other with six thousand. " This division stood to the whole of Bannu in the lieu of government. If any one who * marched ' with Sher Mast Khan was injured, and refused redress, by one who 'marched' with Jafir, he instantly reported it to the head of his gundi, who called on the head of the rival gund'i to do justice, and in case of refusal, beat his drum and proceeded to appeal to arms. " Again, if a man was iU-treated in his own giindi, and his chief did not see him righted, he crossed over in dudgeon to 'the opposition benches,' with his matchlock and powder, and claimed the full rights of citizenship. " Bannvi is proverbial, even among the quarrelsome tribes of the Trans-Indus, for its family dissensions ; and at the time I speak of, there was scarcely a Malik in the whole valley who was not very much embarrassed and kept in check by having. a sou or a nephew at variance with him and enlisted in the ranks of the opposite faction. "In the event of any enemy attacking Bannu from without, the two gundis laid aside their private differences, and with the whole strength of the valley resisted the common enemy. And this was the one solitary occasion on which there was any unity in Bannu. The Bannuchis were literally never at peace unless they were at war ! . . . . other occupants " But the Bannvichis do not constitute the entire population of of Bannu Proper, -gannu, and the reader would have a very imperfect idea of its people and social state if I omiitcd to mention three classes of BANNU UNDER NATIVE RULE. 35 men whose influence materially affects the valley. These are the Uluma or religious charat^ tors, the Hindoos, and the Wazfri interlopers. " A well-educated man wiil, in all probability, be religious. The uiuma or but an ignorant one ie certain to be superstitious. A more {earned c^s. utterly ignorant and superstitious people than the Bannuchis I never saw. The vilest jargon was to them pure Arabic from the blessed Koran, the clumsiest imposture a miracle, and the fattest fakeer a saint. . . . Far and near from the barren and ungrateful hills around, the Moolah and the Kazi, the Pir and the Sayad, descended to the smiling vale, armed in a panoply of spectacles, and owl-like looks, miraculous rosaries, infallible amulets, and tables of descent from Muhammad. Each new-comer, like St. Peter, held the keys of heaven; and the v/hole, like Irish beggars, were e(|uully prepared to bless or curse to all eternity him who gave or him who withheld. These v/ere ' air-drawn daggers,' against which the Bannuchi peasant had no defence. For him the whistle of the far-thrown bullet, or the nearer sheen of his enemy's 'shumshor,' had no terrors; blood was simply a red fluid ; and to remove a neighbour's head at the shoulder, as easy as cutting cucuuibcrs. But to be cursed in Arabic, or anything that sounded like it ; to be told that the blessed Prophet had put a black mark against his soul for not gi'S'ing his best field to one of the Prophet's own posterity ; to have the saliva of a disappointed saint left in anger on his door- post; or behold a Ilaji, who had gone three times to Mecca, deliberately sit down and enchant his camels with the itch, and his sheep Avith the rot ; these were things which made the dagger drop out of the Imnd of the awe-stricken savage, his knees to knock together, his liver to turn to water, and his parched tongue to be scarce able to articulate a full and complete con- cession of the blasphemous deniaiid. Even the weak Kings of Kabul availed themselves of these fears, and long after they had ceased to dnnv secular reAcnue from Baunu, found no difficulty in quartering on any of llie TaiJpahs the superfluous saints of Kabul. "It is no wonder, therefore, that wlieii I came to register the lauds, 1 found one-sixth of iiannu in the grasp of the Ulunia. Out of two hundred and seventy-eii;ht forts registered in the richest parts of tlie vdUy, no kss tlian furty-fsii.ner bilities, but with a profound sense of his administrative ^^^ his work, inexperience, Taylor set to work with a will to arrange the affairs of his little kingdom, for it was almost such, nis will was law over an area of about 6500 square Ailes. The fortified posts along an exposed border, ex- tending for nearly one hundred and sixty miles from north to south, some of which had been projected or commenced by Edwardes, were completed and garrisoned by police and military ; the summary settlement of the land revenue was taken in hand ; a jungle tract, covering an area of forty-one square miles, which had long been a haunt for robbers and wild beasts, — as it lay between the cultivated lands of Bannuchis and Marwats, and neither had ever been strong enough to take and retain it, — was, by the extension of the Each Kot canal into it, reclaimed and bi'ought under the plough. A great military road, designed to connect the cantonment of Bannu (Dhuleepgarh) with that of Kohat to the north, and Derah Ismail Khan and Dcrah Ghazi Khan to the south, was commenced, whilst village roads were opened out in all directions. Hindoos were encouraged to settle in Dhuleep-shahar, a new town laid out by Edwardes within range of the guns of his fort, and, like the fort, so called by him in honour of Maharajah Dhuleep Singh, but which has since, on the death of its founder, been re-christened Edwardesabad. Every means was taken to increase the attractions of another of Edwardes' institutions, the weekly Friday fair. This soon became so popular that every Friday each village, both hill and plain, within a radius of thirty miles, began to contribute its quota to it, and the fair is still one of the sights xjf the valley. Besides the mis- 4 50 BANNU UNDER BRITISH RULE. cellaneous executive duties described above, so congenial to a soldier of active habits, Taylor had heavy work to perform of a more irksome nature, which chained him to his desk for five or six hours daily. Criminal, Civil, and Kevenue cases had to be heard and decided ; accounts to be made up and checked ; returns to be pre- pared, and reports to be written. A not unimportant part Interviews -with * *■ _ * * natives of au Qf }jjg ^ork was receivinff native callers of all classes. grades. " Indeed so important was it, that, when he left the Dis- trict, he placed on record that he attributed much of the secret of his early personal influence with the people to the amount of time he had been able to devote to receiving them in an out-of-harness familiar sort of way, and the subsequent diminution of that influence to his having had to curtail such interviews as his desk work increased. There is no doubt that the more time a District Ofiicer can waste, so to speak, in receiving native callers of all grades and encouraging them to chat freely with him, the more confidence the people will have in him and the greater will be his hold both on them and his native officials. And it cannot be too much deplored that the endless amount of writing which is now-a-days required from him leaves him neither time nor temper to sub- mit to much interviewing. A foreign rule, The pcople worc not slow in perceiving the blessings of a just and strong foreign Government, and gratefully appreciated the labours of their Deputy Commissioner in their behalf. The very fact that their rulers were foreign- ers was viewed with satisfaction, as it was a guarantee for an impartiality which Pathans believe is not to be found amongst themselves. They are not far wrong in such a belief, for thoroughgoing partisanship is a national characteristic of all Pathans and one of which they are proud. Knowing that they themselves are incapable of ■why liked. BANND UNDER BRITISH RULE. 51 impartiality, they naturally suppose that other Muham- madans are the same. The earnest way in which Pathans implore an English Hakim, be he even a new-comer utterly ignorant of their customs and language, to hear their cases himself, and not transfer them to a native court, mu^t have at first puzzled and flattered many a young Assistant on his introduction to work Trans- Indus. Though the permanent dwellers in the plain proved umaraia rebcL amenable to the new orders of things, the Wazirs both within and beyond our borders did not, and were a con- stant source of anxiety to Taylor, who, by treating them as an indulgent father does his wayward children, gained a great influence for good over them. During his in- cumbency only one section seriously committed itself. It happened in December, 1849, that Taylor and his Assistant were both absent in the interior of the District, when some of the chiefs of the Umarzai section of the Ahmadzai Wazirs came in by invitation to head-quarters to settle accounts connected with arrears of revenue, due from them to a Bannuchi Malik, named Bazid Khan, within whose Tappah they held lands. The two parties met and some high words ensued between them. The Umarzais went off to the hills in a huff, and, collecting the fighting men of their own tribe and numbers of others, came down that very night over two thousand strong, made a murderous attack on Bazid Khan's village, killing his son amongst others, and sacked and burnt fourteen villa jjes. Having: thus declared war in true Waziri fashion, they kept the border in a fd'rmcnt for over two years, raiding, robbing, and murdering whenever opportunity offered. In 1852 Taylor made over charge to the late General Nicho'son John Nicholson, then a ^lujor, and went to Enq;l!ind on Commlssioacr. furlough. The Umarzais wore still outlaws, although several attempts had been made to bring them to 52 BAAWU UNDER BRITISH RULE. terms. Owing to two years' immunity from attack, they thought their own hills were inaccessible, but Nicholson had not been many weeks in office before he penetrated their mountain fastnesses with fifteen hundred men, and, taking them by surprise, destroyed their principal villages. Thoroughly humiliated, the oflFending tribe sued for peace, and, after the genuineness of their penitence had been sufficiently tested, they were re-admitted into British terri- tory and their lands were returned to them. N^JhMsou'^ Taylor's gentle chivalrous nature had led him, during compared. j^-^ £^^^ years' iucumbcncy, to treat the barbarous tribes over whom he ruled with systematic forbearance, and to investigate all their cases, petty or serious, with an equal amount of exhaustive care, believing that by such a course their savage and bloodthirsty instincts and im- pulses would be gradually eradicated. But Nicholson, though the mirror of chivalrj'' himself, lacked that kindly gentleness of manner and laborious painstakingness in work which so distinguished his predecessor. He was a man of few words, stern and silent towards all, of in- domitable pluck and resolution, capable of any amount of fatigue, and ever ready to undergo it himself; who gave his orders, and expected them to be forthwith obeyed without questioning; in short, one whose character as a man and a ruler of men would have been perfect, had there been a due intermixture of softness and deference to the feelings and even weaknesses of others in its com- position. The first impression in the District was that the new Hakim was a hard-hearted self-willed tyrant, to be feared and disliked. But by degrees, as his self- abnegation, his wonderful feats of daring, the swift stern justice which he meted out to all alike, became known, this impression gave way to a feeling of awe and ad- miration ; and the people both within and beyond the border became so cowed that, during Nicholson's last year BANNU UNDER BRITISH RULE. 53 of office, raids, robberies, and murders were almost entirely unknown — a happy state of things which has never occurred since. The name of Nicholson is now reverenced as that of stones about Nicholson. a popular hero, almost a demigod, and many a village in the valley has some cherished tale to tell of his se- verity or justice or bravery. The grey-beards of one village relate that in Sikh times AjustjudKe. one AUadad Khan, who was guardian of his orphan nephew, seized the child's inheritance for himself, and turned the boy out of the village. Arrived at man's estate, the youth sued his uncle in Nicholson's court, but Alladad Khan was the strongest man in his village, so no one dared for his life give evidence against him. "Whilst the case was pending, one of the villagers, when walking to his fields at dawn of day, was spell-bound at seeing Nicholson's well-known white mare quietly nibbling the grass just outside the village entrance. When he had got over his fright, he ran back and com- municated the news to Alladad Khan and others. In a little while the whole village turned out, and forming a circle round the terror-inspiring mare, gazed open-mouthed at her. At last Alladad ILhan said that the best thing they could do was to drive her on to the lands of some othtT village ; for if they did not, they would certainly be whipped or fined all round. They began doing so, but had not gone very far when they saw Nicholson himself tied to a tree. After the first start of surprise and inclination to run away en masse, some of the bolder spirits advanced with officious hands to release their dread Ilakim ; but no, Nicholson would not permit it, and demanded wrathfully on whose lands he was standing. No one answered, but all pointed silently to Alladad Khan, who came forward and tremblingly said, " No, no, the land is not mine, but ray nephew's." 54 BANNU UNDER BRITISH RULE. A plucky deed. Attempt to assafssinate Nicholson. Nicholson made him swear before all the villagers that he was telling the truth, and then permitted himself to be unbound. Next day the nephew was decreed his in- heritance, and the whole village rejoiced that the wronged boy had come to his own again; but the wicked old uncle, cursing his own cowardly tongue and his stupidity in not suspecting the ruse, went oflf on a pilgrimage to Mecca, as he found home too hot for him. Another story current about Nicholson, but the locale of which is, I believe, Rawal Pindi, relates that a reward of one hundred rupees had been offered for the capture of a noted freebooter, whose whereabouts were well known. Sitting in Cutcherry one day, Nicholson asked if the capture had been effected. "No," was the reply, "not yet." " Double the reward then at once," said Nichol- son. About four hours later on the same day he asked if there had been any result, and received the same answer, with the addition to it that it would require a strong force of police to effect the capture, as the man was such a desperado and in the midst of his kinsmen. " Saddle my horse," said Nicholson quietly. When the horse was brought, he mounted, and rode off alone to the freebooter's village, where, by some coincidence, the first person he met was the man wanted. Nicholson ordered him to surrender, but he refused, and rushed at Nichol- son, who thereupon cut him down. "When the body was brought in, Nicholson had the head cut off and placed in Cutcherry beside himself, and he contemptuously asked every Malik who came to see him if he recognized to whom it had belonged. I shall trouble the reader with one more story, the tale of his attempted assassination, which I shall leave Nicholson himself to recoimt, as he wrote it in 1856 to Edwardes.^ ' The letter appears «t page 452-3, vol. ii. of Kaye's Lives of Indian Officers. I here copy a portion of it. BANNU UNDER BRITISH RULE. 55 " I was standing at the gate of my garden at noon, with Sladen and CadcU and four or five chuprassies, ■when a man with a sword rushed suddenly up, and cuiled out for me. I had on a long fur pelisse of native make, whicli I fancy pre- vented his recognizing me at first. This gave time for the only chuprassie ' who had a sword to get between us, to whom he called out contemptuously to stand aside, saying he had come to kill me, and did not want to hurt a common soldier. The relief sentry for the one in front of my house happening to pass opportunely behind me at this time, I snatched his mus- ket, and, 2>rescnting it at the would-be assassin, told him I would fire if he did not put down his sword and surrender, lie replied that either he or I must die ; so I had no other alternative, and shot him tlirough the heart, the ball passing through a religious book which he had tied on his chest, ap- parently as a charm." It would be easy to fill many pages with popular tales a proof of character. about Nicholson. I have sometimes been amused in Cut- cherry, when, puzzled to decide which party in a case was lying the less, I have allowed the two a few minutes' freedom of tongue. In the midst of a mutual storm of recrimination, one would say to his opponent, " Turn your back to the Sahib, and he will sec it still waled with the whipping Nicholson gave you." And the other would reply, " You need not talR, for your back is all scored also." Notwithstanding his faults of temper, Nicholson was Nicholson's _ _ _ administration the most successful Deputy Commissioner this District j][s"tn^t'"hl^^ has ever had, and his memory will be handed down fresh ''*' *^'"* and green to the generations yet unborn. Whilst attending to border and 'jrirainal administration, Nichol- son did not neglect his other duties ; for he made a Summary Settlement of the Land Revenue in 1854, and, like Taylor, reclaimed u large waste trace named Landiddk by running a canal :• •> it diroc*: from the Kurm. In May, 1856, he went to Kashmir on leave, and ' A chuprassie is a civil officer's orderly or attendant. 56 BANNU UNDER BRITISB RULE. never returned again, ioi next year lie met a soldier's death during the assault on Delhi. SbieT*"""''*^ Our little station church is graced by a memorial tablet, on which the sshort bright career of John Nichol- son, sketched by the loving hand of his friend Edwardes, is thus inscribed : — IN AFFECTIONATE MEMORY OF BKIOAUIER GENEKAL JOHN NICHOLSON, C.B., ONCE DEPUTY COMMISSIONER OF THIS UISTKICT, WHO AT THE GREAT 8IE0E OF DELHI LED THE STORM, FELL MORTALLY WOUNDED IN THE HOUR OF VICTORY, AND DIED 23rd SEPT., 1857, AGED ONLY 34. THE SNOWS OF OHUZNEE ATTEST HIS YOUTHFUL FORTITUDE, THE SONGS OF THE PUNJAB HIS MANLY DEEDS, THE PEACE OF THIS FRONTIER HIS STRONG RULE, THE ENEMIES OF HIS COUNTRY KNOW HOW TERUIBLE HE WAS IN BATTLE, AND WE HIS FRIENDS LOVB TO RECALL HOW GENTLE, GENEROUS, AND TRUE HE WAB. coxe. Deputy Nicholson's successor was Maior Henry Coxe, whose his people*"**^ kindly disposition and patriarchal rule made him greatly beloved by his " children," for Marwats and Bannuchis were in the habit of addressing him as " father." Whether the custom of appealing to the Hakim by such an endearing term arose in Coxe's time or before I know not; but certain it is, the wilder the speaker, the more earnestly will he assure you that you are his father. Grey-beards old enough to be my grandfather have often assured me that I was their mother as well as father. The idea in the mind of the speaker is of course apparent enough. It fell to Coxe's lot to steer the District through the troubled days of 1857, to make a second Summary Settlement of the Land Revenue, and to take a prominent part in an expedition against the Mahsiid Wazirs in 1860. TheMahsads. Inhabiting the hills beyond our border lying between BANNU UNDER BRITISH RULE. 57 the Gabar mountains to the north and the Takht-i^Suli- mdn to the south, the Mahsuds had from time immemorial derived their chief subsistence from plundering their neighbours, and had thriven on it too, for they numbered some thirteen thousand fighting men. Their barren hills commanded the Ghwalari Pass, through which the sturdy Pawindah traders and graziers have, from the time of the Emperor Akbar, been accustomed to- fight their way, backwards and forwards, twice every year. Each autumn sees great Kafilahs of these warrior merchants pour down from their distant homes in the mountains of Khorasdn through this pass, and spread over the Derajat in. their journey to the different marts of the Punjab and Hindu- stan, and e-ach spring sees them return to their homes again in the same way. After annexation, so long as the plundering operations of the Mahsuds were confined to the hills beyond our frontier, they were left by us to make what income they could in any way they liked. But we prohibited the sacking atnd burning of villages within our border, as well as the kidnapping of our subjects, and we endeavoured to enforce our commands by estab- lishing fortified posts near the mouths of the principal passes leading into independent territory. Naturally the needy highland savages looked on such proceedings as an unwarranted interference with their old existing rights, and believing it a legitimate grievance, they were not Mahsads are long in showing us that a few isolated forts could not f^gt^j^gni stop them from entering our territory when they liked. For ten years we acted on the defensive, trying by patience and conciliation to bring the Mahsuds to listen to reason. The consequence was they grew bolder, until, early in the spring of 1860, they had the audacity to cdme out into the plain four thousand strong, intending to sack and burn the town of T4nk, a feat they had actually accomplished in Sikh times some twenty years 58 BANNU UNDER BRITISH RULE. before. News of the impending attack was quickly con- veyed to the nearest outposts, and a small body of the 5th Punjab Cavalry turned out and drove the marauders helter-skelter back into the hills, killing over one hun- dred of them. Discipline had an easy victory, though the odds were twenty to one. This filled the cup of Mahsud offences to overflowing, and an expedition, word dear to the Piffer,^ was detcnuined on. A force of five thousand men of all arms penetrated into the Mahsud hills from the Tank border, and after a month's fighting and marching, — during which the enemy's crops, then almost ripe for the sickle, were destroyed, their chief town Makin burnt, and another town, Kani-Guram, occupied, but spared on payment of fine, — returned to British territory by the Khisor Pass, which debouches into the Bannii valley immediately north of the Gabar mountain. The British losses amounted to four hundred and sixty-five killed and wounded. Those of the enemy were never ascertained, but must have been very severe, as in the two principal fights they left one hundred and sixty-eight dead in our hands. Though their country had been overrun, the Mahsiids would not submit, but continued stubbornly defiant — with occasional intervals of nominal peace and submission — for many years ; and though they have never raided in force since the lessons taught them in 1860, they are still a thorn in the side of the Deputy Commissioner of Derah Ismail Khan, who has more to do with them than the Deputy Commissioner of this District. Expedition Only a fcw months after the Mahsud expedition took atraiiist Kabul i i • ^'^^^ place, another on a smaller scale was undertsiken agamst the Kabul Khel Wazirs, who had given an asylum to the murderers of Captain Mecham of the Artillery. 1 This term means an Officer belonging to the Punjab Frontier Force, its triliteral root, so to speak, being the first letter of each of the thr«e words just named. BANNU UNDER BRITISH RULE. 59 This unfortunate Officer had been set upon and killed in the previous November when travelling from Bannii to Koh^t, at a spot about fourteen miles from Dhuleepgarh on the boundary between the two Districts. As the Kabul Khels are more connected with Kohat than Bannu, I need only here mention that the expedition was crowned with complete success, and Mecham's chief murderer was given up and hanged on the spot where he had killed his victim. Soon after the return of the expeditionary force which Posts buiit along •^ the frontier. had been sent against the Mahsuds, several posts and forts were built on the border facing their hills. Amongst the latter was a large one, near the mouth of the Shakdu Pass, fifteen miles south-west of the Bannu cantonments. It was strongly garrisoned by horse and foot under the command of a British Officer, and efiected the double object of keeping the Mashuds and other hill robbers in check and overawing the Jani Khel Wazirs, our subjects, who were settled around it. On January 1st, 1861, the long strip of Trans-Indus Banna made a 1.1111.1 p 1, -r\iT •^ District by itself. country which had hitherto formed the Derah Ismau Khan District was divided into two ; and the northern part, together with a slice of territory Cis- Indus, was made into a separate District, under the name of Bannu, its sub-divisions being those described in the first chapter. That year all was peace alon^ the border, for the Peaceful •' ^ o ' progress. chastisement inflicted on Mahsuds and Kabul Khels had inspired both independent and subject Wazirs with a wholesome respect for our arms. Raids, in the true sense of the word, ceased ; but camel-lifting, thieving, and occasional cases of kidnapping and murder did not ; for our hill neighbours must live, and even though not driven to steal and rob from hunger, it cannot be ex- pected that they will forget the inherited habits and instincts of hundreds of years for some time to come. 60 BANNU UNDER BRITISH RULE. For the last decade the harassed Deputy Commissioner had found little leisure to devote to developing his District. The building of outposts, raising and disciplining Police levies, looking after a disturbed frontier of enormous extent, which amounted to the keeping in check of over twenty thousand starving hill thieves, and the assessing of the villages within his border almost at haphazard, had been his normal duties. It was different now. The hill tribes had had enough of fighting to keep them quiet for some years to come ; the District was of manageable size and shape, and instead of one hundred and sixty miles of border, only sixty remained. Now, then, was the time for a philanthropic Deputy Commissioner to leave his mark, and after one or two changes, such a man was found in Major TJrmston, who received charge in 1862 and retained it till 1866. During his incumbency mis- sionary enterprise was encouraged and schools sprung up in every large village. True, the young idea had everywhere to be coaxed to learn his alphabet, and his parents to be bullied or bribed to send him to school. But what of that ? The District had thirty-six village schools and 839 scholars,' of whom thirty-nine wore girls, attending them, and was it not education ? Government buildings of all sorts sprung up in every direction ; sub- stantially built Police Stations, Court Houses, Staging Bungalows for the better classes of travellers who could afford to pay for superior accommodation, and Sarais for the poorer. Charitable Dispensaries were also opened, or their means of doing good enhanced, and here, as elsewhere in India, were thoroughly appreciated by the people. The sick came freely from hill and from plain to be treated by our doctors; and whenever a fight occurred amongst our hill neighbours, some of the wounded of both sides would be brought in to have bullets extracted or cuts and bruises dressed ; for all Afghans BANNU UNDER BRITISH RULE 61 have faith in the efficacy of our medicines and the sur gical skill of our doctors. On XJrmston's departure the District had the misfor- ^^?^ ^^ tune to be subjected to repeated changes of Deputy Com- cteck'to'progTCM missioners, owing to which its progress in material prosperity suffered a check. Such changes made the people restless and irritable. They complained with reason that their rulers knew them not, and that as soon as one District Officer had gained a little acquaintance with them he was succeeded by somebody else. The fact is that men who had prospects of getting Districts on the other side of the Indus fought shy of coming this side, believing that, once across this Rubicon, there would be small prospect of their returning for years to come. Bannu, too, had an evil repute as being the most out-of-the-way District in the Punjcib, and a wild, lawless, unhealthy sort of place withal, in which it would be difficult to make a reputation and easy to lose one. Apart from the difficulty of finding a sufficiently senior officer in the Commission who would* accept Bannii with a good grace, Government had another — namely, to find a man with the requisite qualifications, wliich in most cases could only be ascertained by trial. Cis-Indus, a good legal training and a capacity for dtn'^c^c.J^'lmd' methodical desk work are the important essentials for "^""^ " ""' success. With these it does not much matter whether the District Officer be delicate or strong, accustomed to do his cold-weather tours in a carriage or in the saddle, a lover of creature comforts or indifierent to them. Trans- Indus, tact in the management of queer customers, ac- cessibility and firmness, together with ability to undergo fatigue and discomfort, are the all-iraportunt requisites; a good legal training, though an advantage, being of very secondary importance. Of course in both cases a souiiid judgment is required. 62 BANNU UNDER BRITISH RULE. There is a story of a distinguished stranger who, after a ride down the frontier, was asked, on his return to Lahore, if he had mastered the wants of the province. " Yes," said he, " on this side of the Indus you want hard heads, hut on that hard bottom^." This epigram- matical remark has a good deal of truth in it, but is more forcible than elegant. But to return to our theme. " Wanted — a Deputy Commissioner of active habits and sound health." When one did come, many months did not elapse before he was either transferred elsewhere, or hurried back across the Indus by the doctors, with health undermined from climate and overwork.^ ofBce drudgery. They Were evil days those; neither rulers nor ruled had fair play, for neither did nor could know much about the other. The Assistant Commissioner was a mere Cutcherry drudge, for the judicial work was heavy and the District under-officered ; he was also in charge of the Government Treasury, the duties of which office, if performed properly, are onerous. Signs that all was not right were not wanting in 1868. Border offences were numerous, midnight assassinations amongst the vicious Bannuchis increased in frequency, and, though the assassins were generally well known, a sufficiency of proof of their guilt to secure their conviction was sel- dom obtainable. Fear of the consequences to themselves chained the tongues of independent witnesses, while the sweeping lies of the friends of the victims, incriminating all the deceased's enemies at once, defeated the object with which they were made. A British Officer, too, was stabbed when asleep in his bungalow. A drought. jjj^ 1869 there was a partial failure of the spring crop * Between 1866 and 1871 the Deputy Commissioner was changed seven times ; but in each case the chang^e was unavoidable, and the necessity for making it could not have been anticipated by Government at the time each appointment was made. BANNU UNDER BRITISH RULE. 63 throughout Marwat and Thai lands, owing to a long- con- tinued drought ; but though want was general, absolute famine was averted, as the crops in the canal- irrigated tracts were excellent, and those in the alluvial lands of the Indus fairly good. Towards the end of the year the Deputy Commissioner, Hard work, being seriously ill, had to take leave, and I, his Assistant, was put in temporary charge of the District, having just rejoined after an absence of eight months. For the next six months I was left to struggle almost single-handed with a large accumulation of judicial and miscellaneous arrears, and to keep the administrative machine going as best I could ; for although, after two of the six months had elapsed, an uncovenanted assistant was posted to Bannu, his ability to afford relief was small, as he had but lately arrived in India. My first act of authority was the trvinj? and hanginff a fanatical J J J o o o outrage. of a religious fanatic, who had stabbed a Sikh soldier a few days before, when attending an auction of condemned stores outside the fort, the sale being superintended by a British Officer. During his trial the murderer was by turns sullen and defiant ; but when asked, before the passing of sentence, whether he had anything to say, he became animated and said, " In killing a Kafir (infidel) I obeyed the command of God. I meant to have killed a Sahib ; but when I got near the only one I saw, there was a crowd round him, and he seemed, thickly clad, so that I thought my blow might not prove mortal. AVTiilst standing irresolute a voice from above whispered in my ear, ' Kill the Kafir next you.' I turned and saw a Sikh standing with part of his belly exposed, so I plunged my knife into it. Now let me die like a man, give me a sword and a shield, and I'll fight a hundred of your young men." The Sahib who thus so nearly escaped martyrdon^ oweji his deliverance partly to a C4 BANNU UNDER BRITISH RULE. thick great coat he was weaz-ing, and partly to an un- usually thick layer of flesh, which covered his manly person, and which the poor ignorant savage had mis- taken for clothes. The murderer was hung as usual on the Friday fol- lowing sentence, in the presence of multitudes from all quarters who had come in to attend the weekly fair. The scaffold was surrounded by a military as well as a police guard, to prevent a rescue, should one be attempted. When the Civil Surgeon and I aj^jeared, the condemned man upbraided us with having kept him waiting. The signal was then given, and all was soon over. After this incident the days followed each other in one continued grind of office, office, office, from morning to night, and still the pile of arrears diminished not, and the current work of each day was seldom satisfac- torily got through by dark. No rain, no crop. Thus the cold wcathef wore away and the genial spring appeared, but her sun and her showers were un- able to give life and strength to the crops, which had been drooping and withering from a four months' drought ; for Christmas, our " big day " as the natives call it, had failed to bring her usual present of "Christmas rains" to the thirsty land. The weeks passed by and length- ened into months, and still the windows of heaven remained closed. When they did open, it was too late. Although it was clear positive famine would be averted, as in the previous year, it was still more clear that the food grains would rise to hunger prices, and that crime would consequently increase. But it did not occur to any one that the temper of the excitable impulsive savages along the border would, from the mere fact of " hard times," become touchy to recklessness. 65 CHAPTER IV. TFE MUHAMMAD KHEL REBELLION, AND ITS LESSON. We. have seen in the last chapter how several causes — repeated changes of Deputy Commissioners, an insufficient staff of Civil Officers, and lastly two successive j'ears of drought — were operating together to unsettle the native mind, and create a feeling of disaffection amongst our unruly border subjects. The lapse of a decade too — a decade of peace and quiet — since a punitory expedition had penetrated into any part of Waziristan, had wrought its effect on them and us. They had forgotten we could and did punish severely when we willed so to do ; and we that they were still passion-governed bloodthirsty savages, from whom the varnish acquired by a cold- weather contact each year with civilization was again rubbed off during the hot- weather sojourn in their own rough mountains. They said amongst themselves : " Our Sdhibs neither waziri reasoning understand us nor our tongue, and we hardly know them by sight ; for as soon as one comes, he goes away again. They pass the whole day in writing, and if the writing is over before dark, they grant interviews in their houses 6 66 TEE MUHAMMAD KEEL REBELLION, to the Kh4ns, because they are rich, wear white clothing, and sit on chairs ; but us they receive in Cutcherry, or in the verandah, because we are poor, dirty, and smell. They think us as nothing, though we have honour, and possess swords and matchlocks." With such reasoning as this the Wazirs convinced themselves they were being neglected and had a griev- ance, and there were not wanting influential Bannuchi Maliks and others, who, for their own ends, secretly en- couraged them in such a belief. not*gaugedtn"^ Although the existence of this smouldering discontent *""*"■ and its causes were only ascertained some time after one Waziri section had, by a rash, mad, treacherous act, ir- retrievably committed itself, the facts remain that, in the spring of 1870, the ever-present inflammable materials on this frontier wanted but a spark to heat them into combustion, and that none of the British Officials con- nected with the District realized until too late what the state of popular feeling amongst the Wazirs was. Before describing this conflagration, and the way in which it was extinguished, whereby the strong and the weak points in our system of frontier management were brought into prominent relief, it is necessary to give the reader some insight into what that system is. ^estOT Speaking broadly, the Western boundary of British British India. in(jia cxtcuds Trans-Indus along the base of the moun- tains which form the eastern limits of Afghanistan and Bilochistan, from Peshdwar on the North to Karr4chi on the South, a distance of nearly 1000 miles. Between the Peshawar District and the territories of our feudatory the Maharajah of Kashmir, the line runs Cis-Indus in a north-easterly direction in the mountains themselves for about one hundred miles. Trans-Indus, the broad plains and rich valleys, once the outlying provinces of the kingdom of Kabul, are everywhere ours ; whilst beyond, AND ITS LESSON. 67 the barren hills are the poor but proud inheritance of'^'"^**'^""'* of Patbaos and Bil(kb1s. the wild Pathan and Biloch tribes who inhabit them — tribes of distinct nationalities, who have nothioff in com- mon except a lofty contempt for good honest labour, and a keen relish for blood-letting and plundering. Amongst the former each man acts exactly as he likes, and although denying the authority of any individiial mem- ber of his clan over him, yet acknowledges, within certain limits, that of the irihdX jirg a, or council of grey-beards. In short, the independent Pathans are republicans to the core, and in some cases thorough- going communists. There are of course in every tribe leading men, who, though not exactly recognized as chiefs by their fellow- clansmen, possess considerable influence over them, which they may sometimes, if so inclined, exercise for good, but can always for evil, as all Pathans have a strong predisposition to mischief and devilry. The Biloch tribes who occupy the hills beyond the Sindh and Derah Ghdzi Khan border, on the other hand, acknowledge and obey the authority of their chiefs, and though more backward and decidedly more dirty than the Scottish Highlanders in the seventeenth century as described by Macaulay, assimilate generally in character with them. Such, then, were and still are our neighbours along a Punjab system frontier lino of nearly eleven hundred miles in length. Under the various native Governments which preceded our own the frontier villages were left to defend themselves against the hillincn as best they could ; but with the annexation of the Punjab by a civilized nation, the defence of the border and the protection of our subject^ along it .ri^.."j^j^-^g Early in the spring of 1871 Sir Henry Davies, the present Lieutenant Governor of the Punjab, marched throughout the whole length of his North-west Frontier, and, having mastered the various questions which required his attention, proposed and procured the passing of certain regulations " for the peace and government " of the six frontier Districts. The new regulations became law in January, 1872. Under them the Deputy Commissioner is empowered, when he thinks the evidence inadequate or for other good cause, to refer cases of murder or other heinous oflfence to a Pathan or Biloch ^*jirga" for trial according to their own usage ; but this "jirga " can only inflict a sentence of fine on the convicted party. This mode of trial, so suitable for the evil it was devised to meet, has been since adopted as occasion required, with the happiest results, and murders arising from enmity are now of rare occurrence, only twelve or fifteen in the year. Though a heavy money fine of one thousand or twelve hundred rupees is the usual amount of Wood-money imposed for the murder of a full-grown male, it is seldom paid in cash, but made up with cattle and young girls, according to a fixed table of exchange, under which unmarried girls who have attained puberty are priced at two hundred rupees each, and if still children, at half that sum. Thus a poor man is never ruined by the fine, as his friends TIMES OF PEACE AND PLENTY. 89 and relatiqns would assist him if his own family were unable to 'produce a sufficient number of young women and oxen to make up the required amount. A girl's status is not changed from the transfer of possession ; she merely enters a new family, the head of which disposes of her hand in marriage instead of her natural guardian. Again, early in 1873, the passing of a searching Pashto examination in colloquial Pashto was made obligatory on all Civil Officers serving in Districts where that language is spoken. Before the order was issued, only two Civil Officers on the frontier had passed the examination, although in four out of the five Trans- Indus Districts Pashto is the language of the people. Now there are eleven who have passed, and several are preparing for it. The delight of a hill Pathan in being addressed by a Sahib in his mother Pashto is always genuine and irrepressible ; his whole face, which ordinarily wears a fixed touch-me-if-you-dare almost defiant expression, breaks into one broad grin as he wonderingly asks you, " Eh, you talk Pashto, how did you learn it ? " It is just the sort of question a Highlander would ask did a Southerner address him in Gaelic. The gain in personal influence, besides other advantages, which an ability to converse directly with the people gives an Englishman amongst Pathans is so obvious that I need not dilate on it. Again, since his visit in 1871, the Lieutenant Lieutenant o ' ' Governor twice Governor has twice marched through this District, '^*'*^ Banna. namely, in January, 1873, and in November, 1874, and every question connected with its frontier admin- istration, the most important of which were how to place the pass responsibility system on a better and stronger footing, and how to reorganize the frontier militia, has been thoroughly examined and finally settled. 90 TIMES OF PEACE AND PLENTY. In the cold weather of 1872-73 a great camp of exercise, the largest yet attempted in India, was formed between Rawal Pindi and Attock, near Hassan Abdal, a beautiful spot, where are the remains of those royal gardens in which Moore tells us Lalla Eookh rested whilst her minstrel lover Feramorz sang "The Light of the Harem" to her. Border chiefs go The Opportunity for impressing the border tribes exercise. ^th a practical lesson on the power of the Sarkar, by enabling their representatives to see the troops msinoDuvring, was too good to be lost. A gigantic twenty-day picnic was arranged by a paternal Govern- ment, to which the cream of all the Pathan frontier tribes, subject and independent, from the borders of Kashmir down to Derah Ismail Khan, was invited. The march there. Towards the end of January the guests began flocking to Hassan Abdal, where the standing camp of the troops engaged in the manoeuvres was pitched. I was deputed to take charge of the contingent from this District, amounting to between fifty and sixty chiefs, many of whom were accompanied by one or two followers. My menagerie, which could hardly be called a happy family, as Mahsiids, Dawaris, Bhatannis, and Darwesh Khels had a cat-and-dog-like antipathy for each other, started nevertheless in great good humour on January 24th. They had been promised during their absence from the District as much as they could eat ; and twenty days of unlimited gorging was a prospect well calculated to tame the savage breast for a time at least. In this country want of food is pretty well the root of all evil, if women be, for once, left out of the account. For two or three days we journeyed along with mutual satisfaction, until one morning I woke to find my little tent besieged by the hungrier and more forward of my guests. As it was unlikely they TIMES OF PEACE AND PLENTY. 91 intended to eat me — seeing that they had emerged many centuries back from the ' cannibal state — their loud excited talk was not discomposing. I gathered that they had struck for better food than I was dis- posed to give them, for I had to render an account of my stewardship on my return, and though inclined to be liberal with them, I did not wish to be extravagant. The point on which we differed was a serious one, and deserves to be faithfully recorded. I had fixed the daily rations for each guest at two pounds of goat's flesh and wheaten cakes ad libitum, together with a proportionate amount of condiments ; and for each quadruped — I can hardly call them horses, as most of them were lean wretched ponies — at eight pounds of gram, and as much hay as they could eat. The chiefs were not contented with either measure, and said that as they had been promised as much good food as they could eat, and their horses were included in the invitation, they wished for themselves nothing but sheep's flesh or fat, and for their horses nothing but gram. Cakes and grass they could get at home at any time. In vain I explained to them that the Ldt Sahib's (i.e. Lord Sahib, as the Lieutenant Governor is always called) horses, which were twice as big as theirs, were getting the same measure as I allowed them. Their answer was, "The Ldt Sahib feeds his horses all the year round on gram, ours have only twenty days to lay in a year's supply in, as they don't get it at home.'* Under the circimistances I thought I ought to compromise ; so I compromise and gave in, and the fat-tiiled sheep [doomhah) was substi- tuted for the goat, and the allowance of gram per quad- ruped was raised to ten pounds. The supply question being adjusted, every man of my party rose in his own esteem immensely, for it is 92 TIMES OF PEACE AND PLENTY. wonderful how a good meal swells a man ont, and began to urge that his dignity required that he should sit at the Lieutenant Governor's Darbar on a chair — an article of luxury known to many by hearsay only. Seeing how compromise had simply raised their demands, I said, No, no, to every one who put forward his claim, and after that no more favours were asked. On arrival at Hassan Abdal, I made over my charge to a Civil Officer named Muhammad IIa3'at Khan, who had been appointed the Mihmunddr (Official Entertainer) for all the motley collection of guests. This native gentleman bad been rewarded with both a C.S.I, and an Assistant Commisaionership — an honour to which as yet no other native in the Province has attained — for his services in this District during the Muhammad Khel dis- turbances, and was looked upon by the Wazirs as an Camp Kiist-^ and old fricud. They were delighted with the novelty of amust uicalb. _ _ all they saw : had twice the mingled pleasure and pain — for who that has ridden on a pad on elephant-back has not felt dreadfully nervous as the living mountain rose under him ? — of riding through the camp on the Lieutenant Governor's elephants, animals which most of them had never seen before; had their photographs taken ; and — climax of all — were well scrubbed in the river and presented with new clothes the day before the Darbar. This latter little extra expense, though not ordinarily falling within a host's duties, was ab- solutely unavoidable, as none of the guests I took up had brought a change of clothing, and they had to my certain knowledge worn and slept in the strong-smelling garments they then had on night and day for the pre- vious fortnight, and probably for many weeks before that, wazfrf Thev were not nearly so much impressed as I had mpressions and J j r criticisms. expcctcd with the fighting and march past, at which tl TIMES OF PEACE AND PLENTY, ^ sixteen thousand troops were present. Except when they saw the elephant battery of siege guns, at the enormous size of which their wonderment knew no bounds, they never showed any excitement or enthu- siasm, but, on the contrary, made shrewd and some- times cynical remarks on what was passing. "When, on the last day of the fighting, the opposing forces blazed away incessantly for upwards of an hour at each other in the open plain between Hassan Abdal and the Margallah Pass, one of them remarked that had they been Wazirs fighting, they wotdd have an- nihilated each other ten times over, and that if the Sarkdr had given them the powder, instead of wasting it, they might have blown it away to some purpose. The Royal Horse Artillery guns they thought mag- nificent, but said they could never be used against them in their hills. As to the troops themselves, their expression, which they kept on repeating, was, "The Sarkdr's army is like locusts, but the white faces are fewer than the black." During the fighting, hill skirmishing was the point of interest with them, being, I suppose,., the only portion of the proceedings of which they were competent judges. A charge of cavalry, or a battery pouring imaginary shot and shell into another or into some invisible object in the distance, had no attractions. On the whole I think they were greatly impressed with our power and resources and their own comparative weakness, but felt that the troops were too good and precious to be ever used against them. Indeed, it was impossible not to sae that they quite comprehended that it would, to use a slang term, " pay " Government better to put up with an infinity of affronts rather than go to the expense of sending any portion of its fine white troops into their distant hills after them. 94 TIMES OF PEACE AND PLENTY. Hiu men utterly The utter absence amongst the border chiefs of all inconoas about " each other. cuHosity relating to each other was a point which could not fail to strike those who mixed with them at the camp. Here were representatives of twenty or thirty warlike Pathan tribes from distant parts of the frontier, thrown together within the limits of one small camp for a space of twelve days, meeting each other for the first time in their lives, and, as far as I could gather, none of them made any new ac- quaintances whilst they were there, and even when meeting passed each other with the same blank I- don't-know-you sort of stare, which Englishmen are said to assume until the magic of an introduction breaks the ice. Certainly had the "Wazirs been put through an examination on their return to Bannu, I do not think their best man could have named any of the tribes on the Pesh4war or Hazara border. The Darbar was held on February 12th, and we started on our return on the following day, right glad to turn our faces homewards ; but my " lambs," as they were facetiously called at the camp, next morn- ing belied their name. In the distribution of Khilats (dresses of honour) and presents at the Darbar, some of the chiefs had necessarily been more favoured than others, in conse- quence of which those who imagined themselves to have been slighted said disagreeable things of their more fortunate brethren. A quarrel ensued amongst some of the leading men as to their relative indi- vidual and tribal greatness, and so bitter did they become towards each other, that on the third march the two parties would not camp together, and held aloof from each other for the rest of the journey home, as if each thought the other plague-stricken, ^wmi?/'*'*'*'** Poor persecuted "VVazirs ! you fell on evil days whea TIMES OF PEACE AND PLENTY. 95 John Bull appeared on your border, and since that Hassan Abdal Darbar, between the settlement in the valley and the Mahsuda in the hills, who have during the past two summers worsted you in every fight, and seized on many an ancestral acre, there is no escape but to kiss the rod and accept civilization ! It must come to this sooner or later, as the Mahsi'ids are year by year steadily thrusting them westwards into the Bannii valley, and whether it be ten years or twenty . or fifty hence, the day is not far distant when the hills will know the Darwesh Khels, as summer residents, no more, and the Mahsuds will be close and unwelcome neighbours all along the Bannu border. Even as it is, most of the Hathi Khels are now permanent residents in Bannii, and daily assimi- lating in habits and mode of living to the Marwats, and the per-centage in the other clans who have followed their example, though still small, is each year increasing. So much having been said about the Wazirs, I may Feeling of the now venture a few words on the other inhabitants Government. of the District, and state what I think to be their feeling towards Government, their appreciation of its laws and general policy, and their ability and will to imderstand and criticize them. A few of the more thoughtful and intelligent have conception a clear conception of what is meant by the word "Government" " Sarkdr," that is "the Government," which is eternally on their tongues, but to the mass it conveys a vague complex idea of irresistible Force somewhere, before which even their immediate rulers — the incar- nations of power and good faith in their minds — must bow down. The subordination of the Deputy Com- missioner to the Commissioner is intelligible enough to them. But when the latter talks of himself as only 96 TIMES OF PEACE AND PLENTY. a servant of Government, and tells them that he cannot comply with some simple and possibly reason- able wish of theirs, as by doing so he would exceed his authority, and they see him and his subordinate the Deputy Commissioner acting nevertheless in most matters as if their simple word were law, they get beyond thedr depth. When, however, the " Ldt Sahib " of the Punjdb comes round, whose word at all events they think must be law unlimited and uncontrolled, and they find that there is a greater than he, before whom he is as nothing, they get helplessly puzzled, and like Stephen Blackpool in " Hard Times " give it up as " a muddle." A story occurs to me which illustrates what I have just said. On Lord Mayo's death, a subscription was started in the Punjab with the object of raising some suitable provincial memorial to him. The village head men in this District were, as in others, invited to contribute, but were told that their doing so was to be entirely voluntary. In the vCis-Indus subdivision a fairly heCndsome sum was collected. Some time after- wards I happened to ask a village head man, named Shera, belonging to that part of the country, what he had given, and he laughingly said a rupee. "Why did you give it?" I asked. His ready answer was, " Oh, I was told some great Lord Sahib had died somewhere, ~ and that the Sarkdr wished us to subscribe to help his widow to England!" Now this man fairly represented the intelligence of Midnwali, the quietest and most advanced part of the District, and though Lord Mayo's tragic death had been for months the talk of official and educated India, and every endeavour had been made by the Deputy Commissioner to prevent misconception on the part of native contributors, his mind had been unable TIMES OF PEACE AND PLENTY. 97 to comprehend the connexion between himself or his pocket and a great Lord Sahib, who had died in some distant land he had never heard of before. As to popular feeling towards Government, all, from the p^ete^Sl^mie bigoted priest-ridden Bannuchi, or poverty-stricken Mar- '°°''™^- wat, who has never been five miles from his village in his life, to the well-to-do litigious Squireen of Mianwali, familiar with lawyers, Lahore, and the Chief Court, all these believe implicitly in its justice and good faith, and that, provided tie revenue instalments are paid in by the prescribed dates, the Snvkdr desires nothing but their good. Indeed, were the question of independence or a continu- ance of British rule put to a plebiscite to-morrow, there would be an overwhelming number of votes in our favour, 80 fresh is the recollection of the oppression and miseries under which the country groaned up to thirty years ago, and so strong the conviction the people have of their own incapacity for self-government and self-defence. To the Waziri tribes, whose gradual absorption of independence Bannuchi lands was stopped by Edwardes' bloodless con- come of u. quest- of the valley, a prospect of renewed independence would, of course, be welcome. But not so to the other tribes, because our retirement across the Indus would be a signal for the renewal of endless internal strife, and ultimate subjection either to one of their own chiefs or to a stranger. The ordinary peasant is such an uninquisitive being, that even if he possess critical ability sufficient to enable him to judge whether a given law or order is beneficial or not for his class, he does not take the trouble to cudgel his brains to think about it at all, unless it directly afibcts him individually in purse or comfort. In such a case he bestirs himself in his own interest, until convinced that the obnoxious order has really been given, and will not be cancelled, however much he ma}"- agitate against it. Here is an instance in point. For the last vcar the T*^^ customs' 98 TUfES OF PEACE AND PLENTY. Inland Customs Department, which has a preventive line in this District, has been engaged in running a hedge along the left bank of the Indus for the purpose of more effectually checking the smuggling of sugar to the south by Jthat river, and the importation of black salt into the Punjab. Now this prickly barrier is a simple and effective but barbarous device, and besides being a monstrous inva- sion of public rights of way, is a great nuisance to scores of villages; but beyond a few complaints at the first, it has hardly been objected to at all by the people, who now walk unconcernedly a mile where they had formerly to go only a hundred yards. In this case the natives both understfind the reason of the Government order under which the hedge is being put up, and admit its expediency. Even had they not understood it, they would have quietly acquiesced, when satisfied that the fiat had gone forth, and after that would have relapsed into their old indifference about the many strange doings of their rulers, assured in theii own mind that the Sarkdr was acting for the best. Apathy of the This sclfish apathy and mental stagnation, which is not advantagc"'"^ peculiar to the tribes inhabiting this District alone, is a phenomenon which, regarded purely from the stand-point of self-interest, we ought rather to rejoice over than de- plore, as it e:^plains the reason of, and tends to preserve, that tribal isolation along our frontier which prevents great combinations. It was as much owing to this habit of mind, as to the wisdom of their rulers and the plentiful harvest, that in the days of mutiny our Trans-Indus possessions proved the safest and quietest part of the Punjab. Edneation of the I ^m aware it is thought that if the people were educated i»as!:es and its ,i>i it ij-l i? j-l T- effects. their knowledge would be our saieguard, because we nave such an honest faith in our own singleness of purpose that we think the more our acts and their motives are scrutinized, I TIMES OF PEACE AXD P LEX TV. 99 there is the less likelihood of their being misinterpreted. But how many generations will elapse before such an Utopian state is attained ? And is it not true all the world over that, where the distribution of wealth is unequal, the more the masses are educated, the more fractious and discon- tented they become ? The Pashto proverb, " The more knowing the more miserable," is true in every sense. The great life problem for the peasantry in this and most other parts of India will ever be, as it is now, how to exist, let alone live with any degree of comfort, and until that is solved the prospects of education of the masses must be hopeless. It is not easy for any man, even a Scotch- man, to learn to read and think on an empty stomach, and whoever succeeds in doing so naturally asks himself why other stomachs should be full and his empty ; then by an easy transition believes himself wrongedj and determines to appropriate for himself the food of others when and how he can. Hitherto I have spoken of the people — those whose "^^^"fP" livelihood depends on their manual labour. I shall now say a few words about their leaders — those whose position and means exempt them from the necessity of labouring with their hands, and who, from leisure combined with travel or learning, ma}' be considered to have some small degree of culture. Such men, if Banniichis, intrigue and litigate, and occa- sionally take a trip northwards to pay their respects to the Akhoond of Swat, their Pope or spiritual chief If Marwats, they lead a life of ease, and look well after their property. If they belong to Isakhel or Mianv ali, they spend their days in scheming to better themselves, and in trying to ingratiate themselves with their immediate rulers, whilst an occasional lawsuit, fought up to the highest Court of Appeal, lends a pleasurable excitement to their otherwise quiet humdrum lives. All such employ- 100 TIMES OF PEACE AND PLENTY. ments, excepting those of the Marwats, are wit-8harpeners and mind-expounders, and those who pursue them are, as might be expected, much more intelligent and better in- formed than the labouring classes, and being so, lead public opinion, at least what there is of it. Most of this upper or cultured class are village head men, retired Government servants and others, who are in receipt of some allowance, or have otherwise been benefited by the State, and are in consequence well disposed towards Government. Such Their usefnhieM. men, owiug to their position and superior intelligence, are not likely to misinterpret Government measures to their less enlightened countrymen, who have little opportunity of hearing what is going on beyond their village bounds except from them. I do not mean to assert that all this leading class are staunch and true to Government, and fit to act as its interpreters ; far from it. There are some of them who knowingly or from ignorance pervert facts and motives, and thus create distrust ; but they are the excep- tion. Thus soon after this Settlement commenced, there was current and commonly credited a story, which did much mischief at the time, that the new assessments in the Peshdwar and Hazara Districts, then being announced, were excessively heavy, and that the Settlement officials in those two Districts had "eaten the country up." It was traceable to a flighty gossiping head man, who had just then come back from visiting the Akhoond of Swdt, and had on his return retailed as facts all the stories flying about Peshdwar, with large embellish- ments of his own. Betired ooTern- Of all its Supporters the most useful to Government ▼ery useful. are its retired servants, amongst whom I include all who have at any time been employed, whether tempo- rarily, as under Edwardes at Multan, or in the army or the civil administration of the country. They are in a measure behind the sfcenes ; are, besides, either more TIMES OF PEACE AND PLENTY. 101 travelled or better educated than any of the others who hakv0 never been in Government employ, and their opinion has great weight with the people. They alone have a fair amount of general extra local knowledge, and keep up an acquaintance with what is going on in the world outside. They even foUow with interest the ever-changing situation in Kabul/ and appreciate, or profess to, the soundness of the policy which still restrains Government from taking an active part in the internal affairs of that distracted country. * This subject has been written pretty well thread-bare, and the Govern- ment policy IS now generally indorsed, except in so far that the public think material aid in arms and money should not be given to the de facto ruler of Kabul, unless he follow our advice in great matters of State, e.g. the succes- sion. At the risk of being tedious, let me endeavour to bring home the " situation," as it is called, to those whose acquaintance with Indian and Kabul affairs is slight. Suppose Germany to be Kabul, and that it is a wild inhospitable alpine country, in which intercommunication between its valleys is at all times diflScult, and during the winter impossible. People its moun- tains with brave, patriotic, well-armed and fanatical Musalman tribes, all independent and thoroughly barbarous ; and its vaUeys with a population equally fanatical, but more or less civilized, and governed by a king whose nearest relations and nobles are always plotting his overthrow, and in whose country a state of semi or actual civil war is chronic. Now suppose France to be Upper India, and the South-western Provinces of Russia in Europe to be Russian Turkestan : the former rich, populous, well-developed, and with its .railway system rapidly approaching completion; the latter poor, sparsely in- habited, and in all respects backwards. The inhabitants of the former accustomed to our rule, and a vast majority of them (that is, the agricultural and moneyed classes) prefening it to any other form of government known to them ; but the people of the latter wild, turbulent, recently conquered, and burning to throw off foreign yoke. If this picture be true, surely the position of Russia in Turkest^ is weaker than ours in Upper India, and every mile either Power advances into Kabul will make that position still weaker, and rather decrease than increase ita ability to injure its so-called rival. Kabul can never be occupied by either with the consent of its people ; and should either occupy it, that Power will have to hold it by the sword at a ruinous expense, not one-tenth part of which will be extractable from the country itself. Russia being what she is, and we what we are, the chances are that before our Asian interests can positively clash, internal revolutions will compass the death and burial of that misnomer our "rivalry." I would eliminate "trade interests" altogether from the question, as I believe the establishment of a great exchange between Central Asia and India is impossible. Nature forbids it. Look at our " trade " with K&shgar after all that has been done to foster it ! Why, we think it brisk if told that on an average a dozen wretched mules or horses with their loads negociate weekly the passes between us and that country! No ; Nature has erected her own toll-bars between India and the regions beyond, and levies too heavy a transit duty on passing merchandize ta permit of profitable exchange. 102 TIMES OF PEACE AND PLENTY. oi^ohi^r^ As the people have now had a dozen pages to them- selves, we may surely claim half as many to ourselves. " We " are the British Officers, Civil and Military, serving in this District, and our head-quarters are at Edwardes- abad, so re-christened three or four years ago, in memory of the late Sir Herbert Edwardes, a cheap way of doing honour to the departed hero. The former name was Dhuleepshahar, or " the city of Dhuleep," but it had been long out of date, as its owner, the Maharajah Dhuleep Singh, has resided in England I believe since the Punjab was annexed. If you wish to take a census of us in order to solve the problem of what is the largest number of men and women who can live together like a happy family in one station for three hot and as many cold seasons — the term between each change of garrison — without splitting up into cliques, you ought to have done so last Christmas Day at nine o'clock in the evening. At that time you would have foimd the whole station assembled in the garrison mess- house eating its plum-pudding — a brave little gathering of ten ladies and twenty-four gentlemen. A few years ago ladies were a rare sight on the frontier, but as one Com- mandant after another plunged into matrimony reckless of the consequences, the force of example was too strong for his Officers, and they followed suit, imtil all the regi- ments of the Punjab Frontier Force became divided into two classes — "married" and "bachelor." In a station with a "married" garrison there are sometimes as many as sixteen ladies, whose presence — if no squabbles on a question of precedence or the like arise to disturb the general harmony — keeps everybody gay and cheerful Cold weather during our glorious long cold weather months. As the cold weather commences early in October, Christmas Day sees us all as strong and rosy-cheeked as at home, and what with cricket, badminton, polo, occasional big dinn^s amusements. TIMES OF PEACE AND PLENTY. 103 and little dances, and lots of work for all — the ladies at- tending to their babies and cake or pudding making, and the gentlemen to everlasting musketry and such-like duties if military, and to never-ending Cutcherry if civil — the months glide by very pleasantly. Hunting, too, finds a place in our list of amusements, as a station pack of hounds is kept up, and they follow the plucky little fox or the long-legged cowardly jackal much straighter than do most of those who ride to them ; and no wonder, as mud walls and deep broad water- channels with treacherous rat-eaten banks intersect the country in every direction. Under such conditions falling, though frequent, is generally soft, and the consequences are nothing more than a ducking or thick coating of mud on one's clothes. Beyond the station, snipe, duck, geese, deer and pig tempt the sportsmen to make up shooting or pig-sticking parties, and run out for a week or two's trip. Towards the end of March, when Nature, as if blushing at her own spring ume. loveliness, carpets the country with sweet-scented wild flowers, the rising thermometer and an occasional puff of hot or dust-laden air remind us of the fast approaching heat. But a few April showers drive off the enemy, and let us once again enjoy the cheerful blaze of a wood fire for an hour or two at night. , " Fires in April ! What rubbish ! Why the thermo- meter is nearer 80° than 60° then ! " I dare say some will exclaim when reading this. Ah, yes; but in April hail-storms are not infrequent, and then it is cold ; and, perhaps — I only hint it — we like to deceive ourselves, like other people, because a harmless agreeable deception is a real pleasure. And then, after all, with a wood fire in a good deep grate very little heat is thrown out, while the crackle of the wood and the bright- ness of the yellow flickering flames look very jolly, and 104 TIMES OF PEACE AND PLENTY. Hot we&tber. Thp ladies take to flight. Life in the hot weather. induce the cold-blooded ones to rub their hands and say, *' By Jove, it is cold to-night ! " Not until the first week in May do the preparations for the hot weather begin in earnest. Then punkahs are put up, and the gfeat unwieldy thermantidote is dragged forth from its cold-weather hiding corner in the garden, and placed in position in the doorway, with its wide ugly mouth gaping into the dining-room, ready for the evil day, when it shall belch forth damp and coolness. Then, too, the ladies make their preparations for their annual flight, either to the treeless grassless Shekhbudin, whose camel-hump top is distinctly visible some fifty miles south- wards, or to one or other of the green and beautiful re- treats in the Himalayahs, where Governments and heads of departments retire, to vex with endless circulars the enlarged livers of their less fortunate subordinates who are roasting in the plains. The former attracts to its barren top all those fond wives from Edwardesabad and Derail Ismail Khan who love to be near their lords in hot weather as well as cold ; the latter, those who think a periodical separation of four or five months a proof of conjugal afiection. Before the end of May the station, though still bright and green and pretty, has commenced its humdrum hot- weather existence, its ladies having gone, and its first leave men^ having started on their annual three months trip to Cashmere or elsewhere in the Himalayahs. The ' Military men receive tlnoc! months leave every sunimcr when si us i out ol the District the latter journey must bo done. It is goii< rally ilmir in uno iiiirht and morning, and when the thermometer is between 'JO' and 1<'U' tlio journoy is rather a stiff one. TIMES OF PEACE AXD PLENTY. 105 ten or twelve officers who remain in cantonments pull through the next three months as best they can, upheld by the prospect of their own leave coming day by day nearer and nearer. Men cease to live, but exist as breath- ing automata, who perform daily at fixed hours a certain set of movements. This is their daily routine : Rise at 4 A.M. when a cup of tea (winding up No. 1), then parade, musketry or office, whichever the work may be. 7 a.m. a sociable Chhoti hdziri, or small breakfast (winding up No. 2), under a favourite tree in the public gardens, during which the *' cursed heat," were it a sentient being, would commit suicide, so freely is it abused. 8 am. till noon office or orderly room. Noon a substantial breakfast (wind- ing up No. 3), each machine being in its own bungalow, which, with the post-prandial cheroot, carries the day on to 2 P.M. when — oblivion until 5 p.m. (winding up No. 4). It is never precisely known what does happen between these hours, as each machine is shut up all the time in its bedroom with a book or magazine, hence it may be pre- sumed it reads until run down, when it winds itself up by sleeping. At 5'30 p.m. machines assemble at the racket court, and move about in it until sun-down or later, being occasionally wound up with " pegs," that is, with brandies and sodas (winding up No. 5). 7 p.m. a drive or a plunge in the swimming-bath. 8'30 p.m. dinner (winding up No. 6), at which there is little eating and much imbibing. After dinner billiards or whist, unless the night be so gaspingly hot that every machine runs down, in which case the burr-ur-ur indicatory of running down is audible in spluttered grumblings, in which sounds resembling the words "infernal heat" are frequent. 11 p.m. bed, to sleep ■ (winding up No. 7) if the thermometer be under 9()^ ; to toss about and hurl anathemas and boots at the punkah coolies if above that figure. Thus June and July are got through — it can hardly be hotter.^"^^ *"^ 106 TIMES OF PEACE AND PLENTY. called lived through — with the thermometer in the h^- metically sealed bungalow ranging from 90"^ to 96°, save on exceptionally hot days or nights when it rises to 98*^ or 100°. On particularly stifling days, of which there are ten or fourteen every hot weather, not a breath of air stirs, and the pea-soup-like atmosphere is so surcharged with dust that the sun is veiled ; a heavy yellow-red light is diffused as during an eclipse of the sun ; the twittering of the sparrows is hushed ; men drag their limbs about slowly and laboriously, as if the thickness of the atmosphere impeded their motion, and when compelled to break the oppressive silence speak to each other softly, almost in whispers. Happy the man who can sleep fifteen hours out of the twenty-four in such weather ! Return to life. With the Opening of August existence becomes tolerable, for two or three inches of rain, discharged from some wandering thunder-cloud, have by that time cleared the atmosphere and reduced the temperature slightly. Before September is many days old a delicious freshness in the morning air tells of coming coolness. A few weeks go by, and then a long farewell to punkahs and heat : the hot weather is over. By degrees the station re-fills, as bloom- ing wives, fresh from their narrow prison-house of Shekh- budin, or some quiet nook in festive Murree, rejoin their impatient husbands, and sporting bachelors hurry back from the Himalayan shooting grounds. The cold crisp mornings of November soon recall the blood to the bleached checks of those whom duty detained in the valley all the liot weather. 107 CHAPTER VI. LAND REVENUE SYSTEM— TENURES AND SETTLE- MENTS. At a time when our forefathers were painted savages, The state India possessed settled Governments, each of which re- landlord. garded itself as the supreme landlord of all the country within its limits, and, as such, took a share of every crop, greater or less, according to its enlightenment and power to enforce payment. Since then each successive dynasty, whether Hindoo or Muhammadan, has drawn most of its revenue from the soil, and has generally abstained from actively interfering with any agricultural community so long as its demand was punctually satisfied. But this has proceeded from motives of policy, not from any faint conception that possibly others besides itself and the actual cultivators have any interest in the soil. Thus, although native governments did not recognize any proprietary rights in land except their own, the persons composing each little cultivating township have in many parts of India been left to develope their own tenures or soil-relationships according to their own traditions and custom. The Trans-Indus portion of this District, owing to its isolated position and the encircling strength of its hills, as 108 LAND REVENUE SYSTEM— Dnrr&nl rule. Sikh exactions. well as the fighting qualities of its people, has been pecu- liarly fortunate in this respect. For, previous to its incorpo- ration into the Sikh Kingdom, its royal master, whether he sat on the throne of Delhi or of Kabul, bestowed small thought on this out-of-the-way comer of his vast dominions, and, provided the moderate sum demanded as revenue or tribute was forthcoming whenever his tax-gatherer came with an army to collect it, he left the country entirely to itself. Bannii was subject to the Durrdni Kings of Kabul for nearly eighty years (1738 to about 1816), but during that whole period none of them ever succeeded in extorting in any one year more than twenty-five thousand rupees from the Bannuchis, or forty thousand rupees from the Marwats. And even Ahmad Shah, the most powerful of his dynasty, found it to his interest to allow the Isakhel Chief, who acted as his revenue collector in that comparatively quiet part of his dominions, one-half of the collections as a bribe to secure the other half for himself. Soon after the Nawab of Derah Ismail Khan had made himself an independent sovereign, and extended his sway over Isakhel, he cut down the chief of that country's allowance from one-half to a fourth, and, by lending his support to one of the Marwat factions, succeeded in realizing about forty thousand rupees annually from its people; but when he sought to levy tribute from the Bannuchis, he brought a hornet's nest about his ears, and never afterwards made a second attempt. This Nawab was a weakly infant compared to the Sikh Hercules, who soon after swallowed up him and his short-lived kingdom at a gulp. Although, as we saw in Chapter II., Maharajah Runjeet Singh did not formally annex Isakhel until 1836, he had some twelve years previously begun to over- run Marwat, and to make occasional incursions amongst the fortified villages of the Bannuchis. His revenue TENURES AND SETTLEMENTS. 1()0 system was simple, and not unsuited to a country with a scant and uncertain rainfall, but its administration was villainous, and destructive of all vested interests in the soil. In tracts inhabited by a Muhammadan population a few years of Sikh rule were sufficient to effect a complete bouleversement of rights in all holdings in which the pro- prietor was not himself the cultivator of his lands. Theo- retically the State took a fourth of the gross out-turn of each harvest, either in kind or its money equivalent, which was calculated by an appraisement of the standing crop ; and in villages where a head man was, on account of his local influence, employed as the collector, a fourth of this was remitted to him in return for his services. Practically the Kdrddr (salaried government 'collector) or revenue- farmer took whatever share he chose to demand, leaving the residue /to the cultivator, and, besides this, imposed various other taxes, direct and indirect, on both the agri- cultural and non-agricultural classes. In short, the only limit to his demands was his own ingenuity and the ability of the people to pay. From the annexation of Isakhel by Maharajah Runjeet istthei. Singh to the arrival of Edwardes in 1847, a period of nearly twelve years elapsed, during which Muhammad Khan, the head. and representative of the family which had for a century ruled the southern part of the little valley, first under the Durrdnis, and latterly under the Naw4b of Derah, was, with his eight stalwart sons, an exile and a fugitive amongst the Bannuchis. All that time the Sikh JTarrfdrs were enjoying his inheritance, and acting as if they were the sole landlords in the country and the people their tenants-at-will. Fear of rebellion, which twice actually occurred, imposed some restraint on their rapacity, for the people, though fairly under the conqueror's heel, were still spirited and turbulent. Marwat was more fortunate, as until 1843 the Sikhs never drew 110 LAND REVENUE SYSTEM— any revenue from it without first sending an wrmy to enforce payment. In that year a revenue-farmer bold enough to contract for Marwat was found in the person of Futteh Khan Tawanah, who has already been mentioned in a previous chapter. He engaged with the Marwats never to take more than one-sixth the produce in kind and " roti " (bread), which was understood to mean a small extra contribution to defray the expenses of hospi- tality, and in return for such a liberal settlement the Marwat Chiefs consented to let him build a Crown fort at old Lakki. No sooner was the fort erected and garrisoned than in the following year twelve thousand rupees were demanded as " roti" and an attempt made to levy it as a poll-tax. The Marwats grumbled, but paid it. Next year on its re-imposition the "black" faction rose and laid siege to the fort, swearing they would never submit to the in- dignity of a '^patkai" (turban) tax; but on the appearance of succour from Derah Ismail Khan for the beleaguered garrison, they raised the siege and submitted. Early in 1847 the odious poll-tax caused another rebellion, and when Edwardes arrived a few months after, he abolished it, and increased the Government share of produce from one- sixth to one-fourth, which he says " was no loss to the Diwan, and was hailed as a perfect enfranchisement by the people." Bannfi Proper. The Bannuchis fared better than the Marwats, for the Sikhs never attempted to establish themselves amongst them, but used to enter the valley in force every second or third year, and as soon as forty thousand or fifty thousand rupees had been realized, withdraw from it^ On each visitation some of the inhabitants fled to the hills, some remained and submitted, whilst others remained and fought. Results of Sikh The dcstructive efiects of the Sikh connexion with the Trans-Indus portion of this District on all kinds of land tenures were most apparent in Isdkhel, which had for TENURES AND SETTLEMENTS. HI generations before thriven under a complicated tenure of its own, but on which the conqueror's hold had been firmest. In Marwat, where every proprietor was himself the culti- vator of his land, no serious harm was wrought. A good deal oT land, it is true, passed into the hands of mortgagees, but the pre-existing proprietary tenures were nowhere annihilated, or even, excepting in a few villages, rudely shaken. In Bannu Proper the Sikhs found confusion and left chaos. In 1-848-49, with the annexation of the Punjab by our- Rret four years selves, the era of misrule, m which might was right, passed away, and gave place to one of justice and order, in which law was king. But for three or four years work of a more pressing nature, as well as paucity of trained officers, constrained the new government to adopt in practice that method of collecting its land revenue which its predecessor had only known in theory. In Bannii, then, for the first four years of our rule the gross yield of each crop was appraised a few weeks before harvest-time, and one quarter of its value taken in cash as the Government share, except in cases where the revenue had been released in favour of any particular individual or institution, or where lighter rates were imposed on a whole class, as was the case with the Waztrs and Ultima of Bannu Proper, who paid at one- sixth only. In 1852-53 what is termed a ''Summary Settlemoif" ^ir^tMA second StimiURry was carried out by Nicholson. Under it the cultivated settlements, area of each village was roughly measured or guessed at, and a lump sum assessment imposed for a short term of years, which on acceptance was distributed by the villagers in their own way amongst themselves, and whilst each ordinarily paid only his own share, the whole proprietary body was held jointly and severally responsible for the total demand, but in cases where the assessment was re- fused the villaire was leased out to a farmer. This kind of 112 LAND REVENUE SYSTEM— Settlement was meant to be a mere temporary makeshift, and though rude was a great advance on the Sikh practice, because it created a valuable property in land, which had not previously existed. In theory, however, the old system was sup.rior to the new. The Sikhs professed to take a full one-fourth of the produce of each crop, and could do so without impoverishing the landholders, because the demand fluctuated with the yield. But we imposed a fixed annual demand, crop or no crop, and where it amounted to the average annual col- lections of the preceding four years, it simply meant ruin to the cultivators, who sooner or later fell into the toils of the money-lender ; and where it was less, as was generally the case, it involved a sacrifice of revenue. Fixed assess- ments are still the rule throughout the Punjab, river lands alone excepted, and the sum annually lost thereby to Government must be enormous, for at least half the pro- vince has a very scanty and uncertain rainfall, for which full allowance has been everywhere made at settlement. Of course this loss of potential revenue is in the opinion of many compensated for by the special advantages accruing from fixation of demand. There is much to be said on both sides, but this is not the place for a discussion of the question. In 1858-59 there took place a second Summary Settle- ment of the Trans-Indus portion of the District which will remain in force until the assessments upon which I am now engaged shall be sanctioned, announced and distributed. Refmiar Settle- It was not Until 1872 that a " Regular Settlement," as it ment and what ia meant thereby jg technically Called, was commenced in this District. The great distinction between it and its predecessors is this : in them the object was purely fiscal — to make a guess at the annual gross profits of an estate and tax them as heavily as could safely be done, without checking the expansion of cultivation or beggaring the proprietors. But in a Regular I TENURES AND SETTLEMENTS. 113 Settlement the object of first importance is tlie preparation of a record of rights, a judicial and statistical process of a . very laborious nature. It is obvious that, without the data which such a record can alone supply, the assessment of a village must be a very perilous work ; and that, when a whole country is so assessed and the rates fixed are as high as those imposed in a Regular Settlement, a great amount of hardship and injustice must be endured by many villages. In no two estates, and often in no two holdings in the same estate, is the productive capacity of the land, acre for acre, equal. Consequently, when, as in a Summary Settlement, a uni- form rate is imposed on whole groups of villages, inequality of incidence must be the result, even though the demand as a whole may be fair. Delay in the accordance of a Regular Settlement is, therefore, justifiable only when the current Summary Settlement rates are so low that the State is thereby absolutely throwing away a portion of its legitimate revenue. In this District, neither in 1853-54 nor in 1858-59, were light rates generally imposed; hence some village communities have been well-nigh ruined. And, in the interests of the people, it must ever remain a subject for regret that a Regular Settlement was not begun fifteen or twenty years earlier, however vmavoidable may have been the delay. A Settlement OflScer's work is so dry and uninteresting to every one but himself, that I shall describe very briefly the various operations, the sum total of which makes up a Regular Settlement. No sooner had I been gazetted to the appointment, my ^"tie* of a establishment sanctioned, and the higher subordinate offlcer. officials in it nominated, than my difficulties began. I had plenty of experience jf the people, but none of the par- ticular line of work ommitted to my charge ; so I had to put myself to school again and read up my subjects — 114 LAND REVENUE SYSTEM— surveying with the plane-table, working out areas, me- thods for calculating prices and rates, Revenue Circulars and Acts bearing on my duties. And lastly, I studied every Settlement Report I could obtain, and works on land tenures and agriculture, all subjects to which I had never before specially turned my attention. Each stage the work advances, fresh untrodden ground is broken ; so that there would be no real self-depreciation were I two years hence to exclaim (in the words of an Officer who has lately completed an important frontier Settlement, and received as a reward for his labours the " high com- mendations" of Government), "I have finished my work, and find I am only now a sufficient master of it to begin it." Few men care to do more than one Settlement, as that one employs all their energies in a special line for between five and six years, and engrossingly interesting though the occupation may be, toujours pcrdrix becomes nauseous. Should a man do two Settlements during his service, his first will, I think, be probably a better one than his second, as youth, energy, enthusiasm, and the charm of novelty of work are a match any day for mere experience, which often means groove- working and a narrow-minded prejudice in favour of old ideas. In nine cases out of ten, as a man grows older he becomes a safer and steadier machine, but his activity of mind and body and appetite for work diminish ; and the more of such latter (jualifications a Settlement Officer has, the better work will he turn out. But to return to the subject in hand, my difficulties. The establishment hod been sanctioned, and six or eight of the best paid appointments given away, but nearly three hundred men, Surveyors, Writers, Supervisors,' anu others, on salaries ranging from eight to sixty rupees per mensem, had to be found and entertained, to say nothing of TENURES AND SETTLEMENTS. 115 a host of menials and messengers of all sorts. As soon as the news of the new Trans- Indus Settlements — for the adjoining District of Derah Ismail Khan came under Settlement at the same time as Bannu — had circulated in the "Western parts of the Punjab, petitions for employ- ment began pouring in, each supported by a formidable array of certificates and references ; and a hungry army of nondescripts, each professing himself to be a finished surveyor (Amin)^ index- writer ( Khasrahnavis) , or cali- grapher (Khushnavis), flocked, like vultures to a carcase, from all quarters of the Punjab to Bannu and Derah Ismail Khan. The appointments filled, and the motley The four stages. •' Measurements. staff assorted and slightly trained, measurements were begun. As few knew anything about Pashto, various devices, such as rewards and extra pay, had to be resorted to, to encourage its study ; and the quickness with which a sufficient smattering was picked up by the majority was wonderful. By following the Pashto proverb in its spirit, " Take up a clod for a Hindkai, but quietly coax a Pathan," village boundaries were demarcated, and bound- ary and field maps with indices were prepared. The ordinary scale to which the maps were drawn was one hundred and ten yards to the inch ; but in tracts where the sub-division of land was very minute, fifty-five yards to the inch ; and in the indices every conceivable detail about every rood of land, marsh, and water in the District was recorded. Besides this, to prevent the possibility of any unfortunate peasant, owing to absence or ignorance, being kept out of his rights, and also for purposes of com- parison, elaborate genealogical tables, going back some- times nine And ten generations and even farther, to the common ancestor of each group of proprietors, were drawn ap for every village; and below them was traced the de- scent of the ancestral property as it ought to have been by law or custom of inheritance, and as it aotuallv had been 116 LAND REVENUE SYSTEM— Attestation. Revenue Survey. Assessments. in practice ; and where the two materially differed, the reasons for divergence were entered. All this work took about two years to complete, which is not a very long period, considering that there are 204,411 agricnlturists in the District, and that it contains 3786 square miles ; besides which 2915 judicial and revenue suits and appeals were disposed of during the time. When the above operations had been finished, attesta- tion was begun ; that is, all the information collected during the preceding stages was collated, and, item by item, locally tested by at least three officials, each acting independently of the other two ; and where the correct- ness of any entry was disputed, by four and sometimes five, each acting in the same way. Whilst this was going on, a scientific survey with the theodolite and chain, on a fixed scale of four inches to the mile, was being separately carried on by Officers of the Survey Department, by which my measurements were put to a final test. At the same time, I and my native assistants were en- gaged in framing the assessment statements, reports, and — the past history of every village and every inhabitant in it having now been ascertained — in endeavouring to evolve system and simplicity of tenures out of the confusion of the past, a confusion which twenty-five years of our rule had not done very much to reduce to order. Though thousands of decisions in land disputes had been given during that period by the Civil Courts of thie District, the want of data and time to devote to the study of the law of real property, wliich is but ascertained custom and arbi- trary rules enacted by men to meet cases of doubtful cus- tom, had rendered the judgments not infrequently either ambiguous or unsound. Errors in law and procedure were no doubt often corrected on appeal, when appeals were preferred; but errors in fact remained frequently un- detected, for the simple reason that the Courts, were con- TENURES AND SETTLEMENTS. 117 strained to draw their conclusions on questions of fact from meagre, imperfect, and often fallacious entries in the Summary Settlement Records, or* from the evidence of half a dozen ignorant witnesses, who either lied knowingly or from ignprance. Any one acquainted with the history of cases which have been fought up to the highest Court of Appeal will bear me out in saying that when the Court of first instance goes astray, with what is considered a suffi- ciency of legal proof to support its view on even an un- important issue of fact, the higher the appeal is carried, the greater as a rule grows the error. The correct eluci- dation of the facts by the Court which first hears a land case is indeed almost impossible in any but the simplest of disputes, until the elaborate researches of a Regular Settlement have collected sure data of asricultural custom. Attestation and assessment work are still going on as I write ; but I have spoken of them in the past tense as, by the time these pages appear in print, they ought both to be well over. Once completed, and the assessments sanctioned by Government, nothing will remain but to distribute Distribution. them over individual villages and proprietors, — a delicate process,, which will take up about a year, as it requires, amongst other things, a nice appreciation of the productive capacity of the different soils in each village. A Settle- Final Report. ment Report, which is a lengthy document, bristling with statistics and hard facts, conveyed in the briefest of lan- guage compatible with sense and perspicacity, and for the composition of which the author is generally allowed a clear three months, crowns the edifice. Any forecast of the probable fiscal results of the opera- Results. tions now in progress would be premature, but it is certain that there will be some increase of revenue in two of the three Trans-Indus Subdivisions, as well as in the Cis- Indus Subdivision of Mianwali, because the existing soil- 118 LAND REVENUE SYSTEM— The torm of BetUement. Rights and obiigutions. Tenant rights. rates in them, taken a.s a whole, not being unduly high, but simply requiring equalization, Government has a right to participate in the profits accruing from extension of culti- vation and rise in prices since 1858-59, the year from which the last Summary Settlement began to run. The exception is Marwat, wliich is already over-Assessed. Hence the profits arising from the two causes indicated above will be more than swallowed up in the reduction which will have to be made in the rates. It is to be hoped that the Settlement now in progress, whatever be its result, will be sanctioned for a term of thirty years, the longest possible according to the present policy of Government, as a single experience in a lifetime of the expense and worry in which it necessarily involves the agricultural classes is suflBcient for poor men, whose highest earthly aspirations are embodied in the prayer, " Give us this day our daily bread." Doubtless a revision of Settlement will be less harassing and more quickly accomplished than a first Regular Settle- ment, as this is. But whether it take three years or six, it must be costly, inquisitorial, and vexatious for the peasantry, and once more fan into flame the old animosities which are now burning so fiercely in their breasts. The know- ledge that it is now or never, and the cheapness of litiga- tion, partly account for the bla2e of land suits that a Settlement everywhere kindles. But there is another cause. The people have for the first time in their lives to face the question, " Do you do such and such a thing be- cause you must or because you choose?" to learn, in short, what is meant bj- a right or obligation, the distinction between which and a privilege enjoyed, or service rendered of grace and terminable at any moment, was, and is, to many incomprehensible. An example of the usual style of answer I used to receive from Bannuchi landlords and tenants when endeavouring TENURES AND SETTLEMENTS. 119 tie that ve;s:ed question what tenants had or had not ancy rights, will illustrate the difficulty. f (to tenant who, as his father and grandfather before has cultivated the same plot all his life). " Can your 3rd eject you ? " lant. " If I pay him his share of produce, and do e, he can never wish to." ndhrd. " Yes, that is true." /. " Supposing you do both, he might still get angry urn you out without good cause." mnt "How could he wish to turn me out if I did ng to make him angry ? " ndhrd. " No, how could I ? " f. " Suppose he fell in love with your wife, and you >d to give her up to him. Out of spite he might rour land to another ; then what would you do ? " lant. " Such a thing would not happen." dhrd. " Oh, how coulc I do so. Sahib, as I have wives of my own ? " er a few more such questions and answers, I would ip in despair, as neither landlord nor tenant could ve the hypothesis of a capricious unreasonable eject- and order the latter's status to be recorded as I ht proper from other considerations. Some of the i's answers would simmer in the landlord's mind for IS, until he discovered that the word ''maurusi" occupancy rights) had been entered after the ten- Qame, when he would ponder over this term for a onths more, and then possibly sue for the erasure of noxious word from the record, the question of irrigation rights, it was the same Hazy concep. Men who, as their forefathers had done before^*""' had watered their lands from a certain channel for tions, would calmly assert that they did so with the of certain others, whom they called the proprietors 120 LAND REVENUE SYSTEM— The Ixw of lituitation. Reduction of Uw stamps. of the channel, and could not understand that it was pos- sible permission would be refused. In Marwat the same inability to conceive a contingency, which had never pre- viously occurred in practice, induced a whole clan (the Michan Khel Sarhangs) to obstinately declare that the group of villages they had occupied for eight generations was held by them as mortgagees. And when it wis pointed out to them that by such an admission they rendered them- selves liable to ejectment on redemption of mortgage, they replied, " We and our forefathers have lived here for over two hundred years, and the Musa Kh^ls (the mortgagors) have never interfered with us, how will they do so now ? " The tenacity with which men cling to their real or sup- posed rights, and the wonderful patience with which they waited nearly twenty-five years for the long-promised " Kdnun'ibandobast " (Regular Settlement), which was always held up to them as a coming panacea for every grievance, is a curious phase of native character, which this Settlement has brought prominently to my notice. The law of limitation, a bar the justice of which few natives can understand, as they take no account of time themselves, has boon a (lev>i ex timchlim to me. But for it litigation would have exceeded all bounds, and even with it the tales of pre-annexation, blood, oppression, and fraud arising from the land disputes I have had to listen to in Court, have been legion. When Settlement operations began, Government reduced the institution stamp in suits to an uniform and almost nominal duty of eight annas (one shilling), in order that the cost of litigation should not deter any man from suing for what he thought was his right. This politic remission has no doubt caused manv a claim to be preferred w^hich would otherwise have been brooded over in silence and never been heard of at all ; but it has also demonstrated to the people at large, more clearly than one liun.lrcd TENURES AXD HETTLEMESTH. 121 assurances, that the object of Goremment in making this Settlement has been as much to secure to t}u:m their rightg as to itself a proper share of produce. As an enhance- ^*"'^f2^*** ment of assessment is generally a concomitant of a Settle- ^^^^i ment, there is always a wide-spread conviction, whenever a new Settlement is anywhere begun, that it is the sole aim Government has in view in undertaking the work. Consequently, every act of liberality, however small, which weakens the impression that everything done for the people springs from a selfish policy, is beneficial to a Government, whose security depends as much on moral as on physical force. Certainly, two years ago both Marwats and Banniichis were morally convinced that the solicitude I w^s showing to know all about their incomes could have only one reason. Two smart answers I received, the one naive and simple, and the other naive and vicious — characteristic of the two races — will illustrate this. During measurements, a parcha^ or rough abstract of the coeaptitie dwd*. entries in the field index, is given each proprietor, in order that he may be able at once to ask for an. explanation regarding any entry he thinks erroneous, and after attes- tation an attested copy of the same is given him, for which a fefe of eight annas (one shilling) is levied. I one day asked an old Marwat if he had received his parcha. " Yes,'' said he. " And what did you do with it ? " " Oh, I put it into my grain-safe, to preserve it." *' Did no one tell you its use ? " " Yes, they told me I should have to pay eight annas for it ; and that was why they insisted I should take it, though I did not want it," said he quite innocently, amidst the titters of the better-instructed villagers and the frowns and warning nods of my own myrmidons. His answer was so unconsciously near the truth — seeing that I expect 122 LAND REVENUE SYSTEM— The chain shortened. to realize nearly thirty thousand rupees from •** parcha " fees — that I had to tell myself that the document would, when attested, be a valuable security, and that, as it was fair those who were to be benefited from the Settlement should bear a portion of its cost, the charge of one shilling for a title-deed to a holding was justifiable. The Bannuchi's case was diflferent. I asked him how his cultivated area had so greatly increased according to my measurements, compared with those of 1858-59. "God knows," said he in a sulky tone, " unless it be that the Sarkar's chain has grown smaller since then." I hinted to him that he had probably brought some new land under the plough since then ; but I did not add, which was just as likely, that he or his father might have acted like the unjust steward, and said to the surveyor in 1858-59, "My fields contain ten acres, you say ; but as no map has been made," take your pen and write down five quickly ; here are five rupees for you." The dodges of the villagers to throw dust in one's eyes are often very amusing. Here are two instances from opposite ends of the District, eighty miles apart. Some of the Waziri clans resisted measurements as long as they could, and at last, when they accepted the inevit- able, they attempted to impose on me by transparent little innocent lies, such as assuring me that their lands were 80 poor that they only bore crops once in twelve years, although the truth was they bore a crop every year or second year at least. thlTb^rSrTo""™ ^° another occasion the Hdthi Khel Maliks came up in f?om^rt^ge * hody, and asked me to reinstate a pattrdri who had been ''*** dismissed a year before. "Why," said I, "the Deputy Commissioner turned him out some time ago, because you complained of his inter- fering with the privacy of your women, and generally that he was a bad man." Attempted dodges. TENURES AND SETTLEMENTS. 123 "No, no," said they; "he is a quiet Hindoo: pooh!" pointing contemptuqualy to the wretched pdtwdri standing oeside them, with hands clasped, and the uncomfortable look on his face that a schoolboy has before he is whipped, "do you think our women would look at such as he, or such as he dare to look at them ? The truth is, he told the Deputy Commissioner of some cultivated lands of ours which we had contrived to keep off the rent-roll; and as we look on our lands as we do on our women, that the less the Sarkar or strangers know about them the better, we complained to the Deputy Commissioner about the patwdri. But now you know everything, why, what is the use of further concealment?" After such a straightforward explanation, the poor pat- tcdri was reinstated, and the deputation went off highly satisfied with their own honesty, and laughing at the way they thought they had hoodwinked the Deputy Commis- sioner ^the previous year. Let us now jump to Harnoll, a pastoral village Cis-Indus. When the cattle of this village were being: enumerated, ^ ^\ ""^^^eh o o ' way snail we with a view to allotting it sufficiency of grazing land, and " demarcating off the rest as Government waste, the graziers were pitch-forked on to a dilemma. They feared that if they understated the number, they would get less land ; and if they overstated it, their tirni (poll-tax on cattle) would be increased. In their extremity, they sought the advice of the most knowing men of their neighbour- hood, and at last boldly went to the native Deputy Col- lector at Mainwali, stated their difficulty, and wound up by touchingly asking him, "Now, which way shall we lie ? " The advice they got was to tell the truth, a simple solution of the question they had not thought of them- selves. Of all the curious proprietary systems thoroughly brought to light and investigated in this Settlement, the Maine on collec- tive property in land. 124 LAND REVENUE SYSTEM— Vesh tenure of the Marwats is the most remarkable, as it exhibits in a state of complete preservation that original collective form of property which has lately been dis- covered to have been the common germ out of which individual rights in land must have everywhere sprung. Sir Henry Maine, in his admirable little work entitled ''Village Communities in the East and West," devotes the greater part of Lecture III. to an examination of this ancient usage, wliicli he shows once universally obtained amongst all Teutonic races, and still survives in Russian villages. At page 7G of his book he writes : " It is most desirable that one great branch of native Indian usage should be thorouglily examined before it decays, inasmuch as it is through it that we are able to connect Indian customaVy law with what appears to have once been the customary law of the Western World. I speak of the Indian customs of agricul- tural tenure and of collective property in land." In the succeeding pages he draws a picture of what this collective form of property used to be in certain parts of Europe ; but both he, and other writers on this subject quoted by him, seem — like skilful anatomists, who, with the help of an odd bone or two, boldly reconstruct extinct animals — to have built up their model of a primi- tive Teutonic cultivating commune from various agricul- tural customs, which had been observed by them to be still existent in Germany and Great Britain, but which are at niost meagre relics of the past. Here, in Marwat, no patchwork of disjecta membra is required, the model is before us animate and almost vigorous in its old age. The T'sh tenure Uudcr such circumstanccs I shall make no apology for in MaJ wat. .... describi^, at considerable length, this time-honoured tenure as it obtains in ^farwat.^ ' The account here friven is condensed from a report I made on the sahject, which was published in tlic Supplement of the Punjdb Oovemment OattlU oi November 27, 1873. TENURES ND SETTLEMENTS. 125 When, nearly three centuries ago, the Marwats seized the plain to which, they have given their name, they imported into it their ancient usage of KJmla Yesh, or periodical redistribution of tribal lands by lot, according to the number of " Khulas " or mouths in the tribe. As might have been expected, in the course of two and a half centuries of semi- subjection to Moghal, Durrani, Barakzai and Sikh, those periodical re-allotments of lands have been long discontinued in many sections of tbe tribe, and it is a matter of surprise to find so much vitality in the custom that, after what Maine would call " the destructive influences " of a quarter of a century of our rule, it still flourishes among some of their communities. Until the commencement of the present Settlement operations, no systematic inquiries had been made re- garding this custom. It is true that Marwat has twice undergone Summary Settlement, but then no maps were prepared, and the very nature of the tenure rendered the distribution of the assessment a very easy matter amongst the shareholders of a " Vesh " community ; for every revenue payer knew the number of "Khulas" he was returned as possessing at the last " Vesh," and paid his fraction of revenue at an equal rate on each. In the same way, when, during currency of the Settlement, a new " Khula Vesh" took place, the calculation was as easily made ; but if a simple new " Vesh" or re-allotment on the basis of the previous enumeration, was made, the dis- tribution of the revenue remained unchanged. Soon after beginning measurements in the hot weather of 1872, I had to encounter and solve the problem of hovv to make my surveys and records of rights in such villages, with- out, by any direct action of my own, extinguishing a custom endeared to the people by many generations of observance, and which, notwithstanding the general objec- tions to any tenure which does not secure permanenc} of 126 LAND REVENUE SYSTEM— occupancy to each landholder, has, nevertheless, many special recommendations not to be found under any other system. After ascertaining in what villages redistributions of lands or exchanges (" badlim ") had been carried out since annexation, I held meetings with the head men and grey-beards of such villages, and from first to last dis- cussed the question with them in all its bearings pretty well threadbare. A new difficulty disclosed itself at a very early stage ; namely, that, owing to the inflexibility of our revenue system, long series of bad years, and in some cases over-assessment, a considerable proportion of land in several of the villages had been mortgaged, and that at a new repartition mortgagees would be sufierers. Besides the communities in which the custom was known to survive, my inquiries extended to others, in which it seemed prima facie to have become extinct through desuetude. For them the investigation was purposely of a very summary nature, as I was apprehen- sive that by making it at all searching I would rouse parties who would agitate for re-distribution of lands, though none such had occurred since annexation. This apprehension was not without cause ; for almost every village in the Central and Eastern part of the Mar w at which has been settled over four or five generations bears internal evidence of having maintained, until within two or three generations back, the " Vesh " custom either in its integrity or over a part of its area. The traces of this custom which are now to be found in such villages are apparent in the territorial divisions of their lands which now exist, and in the minute and exact knowledge which the proprietors of land possess as to the number of "dadas" or shares they have inherited from their forefathers. Thus in a case I decided in 1873, in which a portion of the Achu Khels, a non-vesh tribe, were th*^ plaintiffs, each plaintiff stated the number of " dados " he was entitled to TENURES AND SETTLEMENTS. 127 with sucli accuracy that, -wheri they were tested by a comparison with the genealogical tree of the tribe, sub- sequently prepared, the numbers were found to be pretty nearly correct. Again, the survey maps of this Settlement afford ocular proof of how general was the " Vesh " tenure a few generations back, and of the wonderful perfection to which the system was brought. Thus, in one of the largest Sikandar Khel blocks, in which the '^Vesh'^ custom has been judicially declared to have ceased, we find one of the strips (that is, the share of a " Khula") in it to be one mile one furlong ten perches long, by only one yard two feet six inches in width. The soil in the southern and eastern parts of Marwat is sandy, and stones are un- procurable ; consequently no permanent boundary marks can exist between the different strips. Before each plough- ing the width of every strip has to be marked off de novo, and longitudinal lines have to be run up and down, inside each block, to show the boundaries of each group of strips, and prevent shareholders getting out of the straight line, I have given in an Appendix, in a condensed form, particulars of the custom in five communities, from which it will be seen that, so long as the *'Vesh" custom obtains, a sale of any land is impossible, for it is all the property of the tribe collectively, and without the tribal sanction no shareholder can permanently alienate a single lot. Though sales are invalid without the general consent, mortgages are not. Regarding the rights of a mortgagee at a new " Vcsh" it seems generally admitted that he is entitled to some sort of compensation in money or land, should the number of the mortgaged strips or " KJiulas " have diminished by extinction through death, provided that the original mortgagor or his descendants be alive. Where he has died without issue, of course the mortgagee's rights become extinguished. In short, the general prin- ciple is that mortgagee takes the place of mortgagor, and 128 LAND REVENUE SYSTEM— at a new " Khula Vesh " maintains his position or loses it according as members in mortgagor's family, whose shares were mortgaged, be surviving or not. It can only be within the last generation or two that the necessity for mortgaging land has arisen. The rules relating thereto must be comparatively new; and can hardly yet have received the stamp of legality through long observance. The complication" which have arisen from the mortgaging of land have, mor- than any other <;au8e, tended to bring the " Vesh " custom to an end. Runjeet Singh com- menced his incursions in 1823, conquered the country in 1836, and we annexed it in 1849. The former used to squeeze all the revenue he could out of it, making some allowance for the vicissitudes of seasons, and we have imposed a tolerably fair but inflexible assessment, which does not accommodate itself to such vicissitudes, and which, in the often- recurring years of drought, drains Marwat pretty dry ; so between us much land has been mortgaged, and consequently the " Vesh " custom is mori- bupd, and by the expiry of term of Settlement now in progress will probably be a thing of the past. A PM»de«cribed. Making allowance for peculiarities, which must have arisen in many communities soon after they had attained the dignity of an independent existence, the following will serve as a description of the " Vesh" tenure as it existed in south-eastern Marwat until within a period of one hundred years ago, and as it exists in several villages up to the present day. Let us suppose that a group of families, feeling themselves sufficiently strong and nu- merous to sever their connexion from the rest of their tribe, have obtained their share of inheritance from the common tribal lands. A representative council of elders assembles, selects a site for the new township, determines what portion of the arable area shall at once be set apart for tillage, and parcels it out into blocks called " icands," ao- TENURES AND SETTLE^^ENTS. 129 cording to the different qualities of soil it contains. Each of these blocks is designated by some name descriptive of its soil or position, by which it is known in all future times. The boundaries are generally some well-defined physical features, such as depressions or ravines ; but the primary object of the division, which is that all the land in each block shall be of the same quality and have the same natural advantages, is not sacrificed in the endeavour to secure easily-recognizable limits. The next proceeding is the census, or enumeration of " KJmlas " or mouths, which completed, single households are grouped under sub-secti> and rotation of crops are imposed or requir. d, as oft-recurring droughts secure the former, and long experience, which has taught the people to sow gram and wheat in alternate years, secures the latter. Excepting the land reserved as a site for the township, and the portion of the culturable area which has been distributed in the above way, all the rest remains included in the common pasture. The procedure sketched above is repeated every few years, and at each repartition, as the community increases in numbers, more and more land is taken from the common mark and in- cluded in the allotted arable mark. As occasion arises, the representative council of elders interprets custom or frames new rules, on the fiction that they are based on custom, and only explanatory of it, to meet difficulties as they spring up, arising from mortgage disputes, claims to trees, or of absentees desirous of re-admission, and the like. A reference to the last chapters of the Book of Nimabers will show that a tenure somewhat similar to, if not iden- tical with, the " Vesh" system of Marwat has the sanction of Holy Writ, and that Moses, by command of the Lord, some four thousand years ago, divided the lands of Canaan amongst the Children of Israel very much in the same way as " Vesh " communities of Marwat divide their village lands amongst themselves. TENURES AND SETTLEMEXTS. 131 Let lis now compare tlie primitive system sketched Grad^j umaf above with that now obtaining in some of the com- 1*"-™^^' •? muDities in which it still, though in an impaired state, survives, and see how it has borne the wear and tear of time, the friction of Moghal and Sikh rule, and the civilizing and destructive-of-equality influences of our rule. For the purposes of Ulastration, I select from the communities noted in the appendices, the Mamu Khel and Sikandar Khel tribes, as being good exemplars of the changes which have crept in and imdermined the primitive law of perfect and ever-shifting equalitv, and as exhibiting the stages of transition from the original col- lective form of property to that of permanent severalty. We find that the Mamu Kiels, up to sixty- three vears ago, were united as one commune, having periodical dis- tributions of land together, but that they then split up into three sections, each of which permanently discon- nected itself from the other two ; that, owing to the weight of mortgages, the " Vesh** custom fell into de- suetude many years ago in the Pahar Khel section ; and that, in the other two, the individual right to permanent property in land has asserted itself by the innovation of fixed shares, which have become hereditary in certain families, and are independent of the numbers of their households. Now take the case of the Sikandar Khels, and we see that, besides the causes just mentioned, there is another and very powerful cause, namely, the predomi- nance of one section (the Mina Khels), owing to the superior influence of its chiefs, over the others. By this means the Mina Khels were enabled to seize and retain a large plot of land, called "Jibari," for them- selves, whilst continuing the custom in its integrity in all other plots, and have now been able to shape public opinion into aflBrming that only hitherto-undivided plots are subject to " Vesh" and that for their partition the 132 T^AND REVENUE SYSTEM— rule sliould be, not a " Khula Vesh," but simply a " Vesh," according to census returns made sixteen years cS^opZti^g *&°- "^^^ *^^" ^^ seems that the causes operating to to^xtinguL^h ^^^^^ ^j^^ ., jr^^^ „ ^jygtom to an end are chiefly— (1). The mortgaging of lands, necessitated by an in- elastic assessment, in a country subject to drought, and depending entirely on the rainfall for its crops. (2). Growth of a feeling of individual rights in land, fostered by our land laws and the unintentional tendency of the administrators of those laws to sympathize with such feeling. (3). Predominance of one family, or group of families, in a community, causing them to disregard custom, and assert the principle of " might is right." To the three causes just enumerated must be added another, which must give the custom its death-blow. I refer to the obstacle of expense which this Settlement creates; for were repartition in any village to be carried out during the term of Settlement, the revision of a portion of its record of rights would be necessary and very costly. Under these circumstances I think it may be assumed that the preservation of the custom for a generation or two more, even were it advisable, would be impossible, and that this Settlement will finally extinguish it. I am aware that any land tenure which is not one of per- manent severalty is generally condemned, and that there are strong objections to the one I am writing about. These are, that under it little capital can be laid out in the permanent improvement of the productive qualities of the soil, no encouragement is given to special thrift and industry, and that, consequently, every one remains at a dead level, and the community, so long as it labours under the trammels of " Vesh," cannot be a progressive one. There is also another objection I had almost over- looked, namely, that the rules regarding trees in " Vesh" TENURES AND SETTLEMENTS. 133 villages are subversive of any attempts at arboriculture. Certainly Marwat is very bare of trees, but it is the fault of the soil and the rats, not of the people ; and I oin safely assert that " Vesh " villages contain as many trees as " non-Vesh" villages. Though the rules about trees encourage their periodical destruction, the force of public opinion makes the rules almost a dead letter. As Marwat is for the most part a plain of undulat- ing sandy downs, and as the water-level generally lies at too great a depth to permit of sinking wells for ir- rigational purposes, any outlay of capital on the land would in most " Vesh" communities, except Mulazai, be a useless waste of money. Thus, two out of three of the general objections to the " Vesh " tenure, when applied to Marwat, are, I think, partly removed. The third, namely, that under it no encouragement is held out to extra thrift and labour, cannot be denied. But though the material prosperity of the community may not under the system be increased, still I think this objection, for people like the Marwats, is (and must continue to be for generations to come) more than com- pensated for by the check the custom exercises on a community's moral decade;ice. Through this custom the habit of self-government, which under our rule is else- where falling to pieces, is maintained. The members of a community are taught obedience to their own laws and customs; reverence to their elders; to hold together and act in union; the speediest method of increasing their numbers to the maximum their land will support, because the moment a child is born its birthright is secured to it, thus the larger a man's family is the larger is his share in land. Poverty is kept from every door, for all are equal, and the evils attendant on the unequal distribution of wealth are non-existent. I am persuaded that the Marwats, who are pre-eminent for honesty, simplicity. 134 LAND REVENUE SYSTEM— powers of self-management, aversion to litigation, and ready obedience to authority, owe these good qualities in a great measure to their moral superiority over their neighbours, acquired by a long adherence to their old collective system of property, the influence of which, though the custom is now extinct in most parts of the coimtry, has not yet had time to become lost. of^tm"a|roften Many of us Englishmen out here, in our pride and disparted. iguorance, habitually decry Indian systems of agriculture, laugh at the sharp pointed stick the peasant terms ii plough, call his use of it scratching the surface of the soil, and in our lordly self-sufficiency pity him as a poor spiritless slave to the antiquated ways of his forefathers- Such self-constituted critics and judges, puffed up with a little theoretical knowledge, supplemented perhaps by some hastily-drawn conclusions, arrived at from having witnessed the wondrous results of high farming at home, forget how different are the conditions of life and labour in this country and in England. Here, the land is owned by a peasantry who live from hand to mouth, are often sickly — for few escape at least one long bout of fever each autumn, — have to work half the year under a fierce and deadly sun, and to pay to Government from a fourth to a tenth of their produce. Tl ere, the landlord or farmer lives luxuriouslj'' in a glorious climate, and has leisure, capital, or the means of raising it, and education, which endble him to cultivate his land according to the best known method of tillage. In England, with all its advantages, successful farming depends on capital, which is always procurable on reasonable terras, but in this country it never is. Out here, when the State even has supplied Our mwiei farms the mcans, and with lavish hand started model farms, ^ ' either failure has resulted, or profits have been so small, that were the farm assessed at full rates, the Settlement would break down. Tea, coffee, and indigo planting con- TENURES AND SETTLEMENTS. 135 cems have, no doubt, often succeeded, thanks to capital ; but let us not forget that many a fortune has been sunk in them as well. The peasantry of this District are probably as deficient as any jn the Punjab in agricultural knowledge and energy ; indeed Pathans are proverbially worse cultivators than Sikhs, Awans, Jats, or Hajputs. Three years' study has opened my eyes considerably, and has dispelled many prejudices. Instead of being the lazy ignorant beings I once thought them, the majority of the agricul- turists of the District have proved, on better acquaintance, to be a shrewd, hard-working, and intelligent class, who understand thoroughly how to make use of their slender means in extracting full measure from their soil. When I state — and, remember, I am writing of Pathans, t^^^^^j^ perhaps the worst cultivators as a race in Upper India — •*■****»■ that they appreciate the value of fallows, rotation of crops, selection of seed, deep ploughing and manuring, and can tell to a nicety which of their known cereals or pulses are best suited for each soil, I shall hardly be believed, but it is a fact nevertheless. In Bannu Proper fallows are seldom resorted to, because the Kurm is ever renovating the soil with fertilizing silt, and manure is everywhere used to supplement it. So highly is house and farm manure valued, that disputes concerning the right to a share of that of dependents — one of the last manorial dues which remain to the descendants of the original founders of each village-^are a fruitful source of long and bitter litigation. Even with such powerful auxiliaries as water silt and manure, the soil would soon be impover- ished and exhausted, but for the system of rotation which «»»»«»». is practised, whereby two crops, which withdraw similar constituents from the soil, are seldom grown in succession. The number of crops is so various— wheat, barley, peas, tobacco, and clover in spring or early summer, and rice; 135 LAND REVENUE SYSTEM- sugar-cane, turmeric, cotton, and raaize in autumn or winter — that the husbandman has a wide field to select from ; and every year he always raises two, and sometimes three, crops on every rood of land he possesses. In the imirri- gated parts of the district gram is rotated with wheat in light soils, and bujra with wheat in stifif soils ; or fallowing is practised, intentionally or involuntarily, for rain is seldom abundant in two successive years. In at least one village, occupied by Thalokar Jats, and not Pathans, the truth has, however, dawned that the rearing of cattle is not incompatible with the growing of corn. In it many hundred head of buffaloes are fed, to a great extent on Kiici, a kind of grass, and other green crops are grown for them on the best lands of the village, which, in the following year, produce first-class wheat crops. seiecUonorsced. Throughout the District the best seed is always reserved for sowing, and in some parts, where excess of humidity or overworking of the soil causes the production of a poor grain, wheat- seed is annually imported from the Thai, where the finest grain is grown. Deep ploughing. A.8 to deep ploughing, it is a fact that in this country the soil is rather scratched than ploughed ; but the reason is, that the means for piercing deeper than from four to six inches do not exist. The oxen are small, and for at least five months in the year in poor condition, and have not the strength to force the plough, light though it be, through the soil at a greater depth. I have never yet spoken to a peasant on this subject, but he has lamented his inability to turn over the soil to a greater depth ; and, pointing to his sorry yoke of oxen, asked what more he could do. That they are lean and hungry looking is no fault of his, but of the heavens, for drought and heat in summer, and frost and rain in winter, are invincible enemies to size and condition, with whom it is vain for poor men to contend. In Bannii Proper, where the soil TENURES AXD SETTLEMENTS. 137 is in many villages a stiff tenacious clay, the plough is not used at all, but a large heart-shaped spade, worked by two men, one on either side, with which the soil Is turned over to a depth of nine or ten inches, and each clod is subsequently broken up. Of the many shortcomings charged against native agri- ^J^^oj^ ^ culturists, disregard of economy in the use of canal- water, ^"f^- and consequently over-irrigation, is one of the truest ; but the charge is often unfairly pressed, for judgment is passed ez parte, and the accused's defence never heard. Such a charge is only tenable in the case of canal-water, when obtainable ad libitum. No one has ever dreamt of preferring it in the case of wells, where every gallon is raised at some cost and much labour. From this it follows that economy in the use of water is understood, and that if irrigation from Government canals be excessive, it proves that the system under which water is supplied is defective. But to return to Bannuchis, whose canals belong to them. They certainly do appear to water-log their soil unneces- sarily and injuriously ; but this wasteful expenditure is in many villages more apparent than real. As the supply of manure is limited, and a double crop must be raised each year, some substitute for manure must be found. That substitiite is the organic and inorganic matter with which the waters of the Kurm are always charged, and which takes a long time to settle. Now in farming, as in other pursuits, it is every one for himself; hence every Bannuchi floods his fields to the depth of several inches on every opportunity, and lets the water run off whither it may, as soon as the mud held in suspension in it has subsided. In-this way the lands of low-lying villages are surcharged with water, much of which, robbed of its virtue, finds its way back into the Kurm. This is waste, as such water might, with proper management, be conducted within the thirsty Marwat border. The want of economy and svstem 138 LAND REVENUE SYSTEM. in canal management is everywhere apparent to the eye ; but the hopelessness of a remedy — unless old rights be swept away — is only known to the Settlement Officer. To liken small things to great. At annexation, Bannu Proper resembled Ancient Greece, or Modem Germany before 1866, being split up into petty independent states, called Tappahs, each of which sought its own individual gain at its neighbour's expense. What we found we stereotyped. Thus, what used in pre-annexation times to be taken by force, or borne from weakness, have grown into legal rights and servitudes, which cannot now be set aside, however desirable it may be to do so. A plea for Jq thcso remarks all that I wish to urge in behalf of Indian agri- o Indian agriculturists at large is that, considering the dis- advantages under which they labour, poverty, climate, heavy taxation, and ignorance, their systems of tillage deserve our admiration rather than condemnation ; and that, until we can practically demonstrate the possibility of forcing the soil to yield a larger return, at the same cost and labour as is expended on it by the people we would teach, we have no right to sit in judgment over them. Let us not forget, too, that in many parts of Europe which have not yet been transformed into smiling gardens by the magic touch of capital, cultivation is infinitely ruder and more backward than it is in the Punj4b. cuituruits. PART II. CUSTOMS AND FOLKLORE; Being ajt Account of the Cijstoms and Superstitions of the People of BanniJ, togethee with a Collection of PASHTO PROVERBS. 141 CHAPTER I. SOCIAL LIFE, CrSTOMS, BELIEFS AXD SUFEESTITIOyS OF THE PEASA^'TRY. The simplest way of affording the reader a glimpse of the inner social life of Pathans will be to conduct him into a well-ordered Bannuchi peasant's household, and invite him to be present at a birth, and afterwards to follow the infant in its progress through life. Assad Khan was fairly well off, possessing five acres of first- class canal-irrigated land, assessed at five rupees an acre, a feir cows and sheep, and two wives. Plough oxen he had none, as he cultivated all his land by spade. A third of it he tilled himself, the rest was leased out to tenants, who paid him half their produce as rent, and a fifth of their house-refuse as ground rent, as the sites on which their houses stood belonged to Assad Khan. His own house, in which his father and grand- father had lived and died before him, stood in the centre of his village, and, inclusive of courtyard, occupied exactly one hundred square yards of ground. It was a family mansion in every sense of the word, for Assad Khan, his wives, child, and cattle all lived in it. It consisted of one room, mud built and flat roofed, 27 feet long by 12 deep. The roof was only 10 142 SOCIAL LIFE, CUSTOMS, BELIEFS AND feet from the ground, but what of that ? Was it not the easier to ascend in the hot weather, and did it not make the house wanner and snugger in the cold, especially as it had neither windows nor smoke hole, nor any other sort of hole to serve as a ventilator, and only one doorway, just wide enough for a lean ox to squeeze through ? The furniture consisted of several cots, a cradle, a few earthenware cooking utensils, an iron girdle for the baking of cakes, a mud-plastered grain safe, in which gala clothes, bangles, and other small but valuable articles were kept, a chum, and a hand spinning-wheel. In the yard was a shed for the cattle in the hot weather, a grain safe similar to the one indoors, but of huge dimensions, looking like a gigantic cardinal's hat, plastered over with a mixture of mud, chaff, and cowdung, and a raised mud platform for the women to pray on. A tiny rivulet, a branch from the canal, flowed through the village, and supplied all the water that was required for house- hold purposes. This water could hardly be called pure, as it was of a soft brown colour, and had run, in its open channel, through many villages and several miles of cultivated lands ; but it was near at hand, that was the great thing, and when it did cause sickness, the good people, happy in their ignorance, ascribed the evil to the influence of one of the many malicious jinns who are ever wandering to and fro about Bannu. With such a comfortable home Assad Khan ought to have been a happy man, but he was not. His heart yearned for a son, and would not be comforted. His senior wife was a Marwat named Fatima, bought five years before for two hundred rupees, and she had as yet only borne him a daughter, whom, in the bitterness of his heart, he looked on as " a black calamity " in his house. Gulijan, his younger and more petted wife, was a Bannuchi, of his own clan, and had been married to him three years ; but, alas ! alas ! seemed likely to prove childless. Both Assad Khan and Gulij4n longed for a man-child to be bom to them, but from different motives; she, that her "reproach among men" might betaken away, and that she might secure the affec- SUPERSTITIONS OF THE PEASANTRY. I43 tions of her lord and master, who already talked of adding a third wife to his estahUshment ; and, besides all this, that she might be able to return the taunts of her rival Fatima with interest ; and he, that, on his death, his cousin, whom he hated, might not succeed to his possessions. Gulijan had long given up in despair the remedies prescribed by the learned Bannuchi doctors, and had visited every one of the holy shrines of the neighbourhood, and, whilst driving pegs into the ground at the head of the grave of a buried saint, and tying pieces of rag to the tree which grew over it, had uttered and re-uttered her heart's wishes, but all in vain. Nay, more, her husband had cast many a smooth pebble on the grave himself, as he besought the departed saint to hear his prayer. Strangely enough, Gulijan had not thought of procuring an amulet from one of the village Moolahs, but her husband was miserly, and grudged his fee, so perhaps that accounts for the omission. One day she went to the house of the Moolah of her quarter, taking a fat sheep with her as a present ; and the good man prayed, and having written some cabalistic figures, in which one of the ninety-nine attributes of God could be read by the initiated backwards and forwards, crossways and every way, breathed on it and gave it to her, directing her to wear it round her neck. She did so in perfect faith that her prayers would now be answered, and a month or two afterwards found that they were so. When the anxiously longed for time drew nigh, an old woman, who was the village nurse — for those who could afford to pay for her services — was called in. Poor Gulijan was in a great flutter ; for though suffering much, the thought was uppermost in her mind that it must prove a boy, because the good Moolah had said it, and given her a blessed amulet, and she longed to see the face of her son. Her husband was waiting about, anxious and hopeful, now running to the mosque to pray, now ruilning home and trying to get a peep at his wife from the doorway, and wondering why the glad tidings were so long in coming. Fatima even, filled with womanly concern for the 144 SOCIAL LIFE, CUSTOMS, BELIEFS AXD suflferer, forgot all her jealousy in the excitement of the moment, and bustled about making herself generally useful. All this time Gulijan was being dosed, according to custom, with ght and molasses. At last a boy was bom ; and, whilst the proud father rushed out to fire off a matchlock he had borrowed for the occa- sion, in order to inform his neighbours of the happy event, the nurse, without washing the child, wrapped it in swaddling clothes from top to toe, put some glii into its mouth, and handed it over to Fatima to look after, while she tended to the wants of the mother. On hearing the gun, the neighbours came trooping in to offer their congratulations, and that evening the women of the village assembled at th« house, and danced and sang to the music of the drum, beaten by a dum,^ in the court-yard. None of their male relations, nor even Assad Khan himself, was present at their rejoicings, as such would not have been proper ; but a few Hindoos and low-caste men, village servants, were, as Bannuchi husbands can safely trust their wives and daughters with such £13 they. They are useful no doubt, and some of them are rich ; but a Hindoo or Jat cobbler or carpenter is a poor spiritless fellow. What harm can he do should he see their wives' faces, and even if he has the will, what dare he do to the belongings of the noble Pathan ? At least, so think Pathan husbands and fathers. On the seventh day after the birth, Assad Khan gave a feast to his relations and neighbours, and whenever any of his or his wife's female relations came, bringing presents of lollipops and clothes for the new arrival, and offered their congratula- tions, you may be sure he gave them something in return, for it is the custom to do so. TThen the mother and son had been made comfortable, the Moolah was summoned, and he breathed into the infant's right ear, and whispered into it "God is great." He then retired, after receiving a small fee, and grumbled tp himself at its being only two rupees. ' Vide page 172. SUPERSTITIONS OF THE PEASANTRY. 145 For forty days after the birth of a child a woman neither prays nor fasts nor handles the Koran, and all the world knows that at such a period she is peculiarly susceptible to the influence of jinns, and that infants are so too; in- deed, there is one class of jinn whose special delight it is to devour the livers of young children. Assad Khan knew all this, so he had the amulet, called " the Guardian," sus- pended from a post at the head of the bed, where mother and babe lay, and placed a Koran and knife — for he had no sword — on the quilt beside them, and througti their benign aid all bad spirits, who came poking their noses about, were kept at a respectful distance. Gulijdn nursed her boy herself, and gave him daily a dose of ghi, for the good of his health and to assist digestion. Sometimes, too, a milch goat was called in to act as wet nurse. Antimony was applied every day to his head and round his eyes, in ordej-.-lip encourage the growth of strong black hair. When asb^ t^^ weeks old, Assad Khan thought he had better naiYlte his hild. The Moolah suggested one of the at- tributes of God or the Prophet,^ such as " the exalted one," "the blessed," or even "the servant of God;" but after some wavering the parents preferred a word expressive of some manly virtue, and fixed upon that of Sh^rdil, that is, "the lion- hearted." There was no ceremony. All that happened was that the father, when talking to others about his boy, spoke of him as "my son Sh^rdil," but at home his parents still called him " pet," " sweet darling," " sonny mine," and many other endearing terms. From the hour of his birth, Gulijan used several times daily to manipulate her son's head and face, in order to make them ^ In so proposing, the Moolah only acted in accordance with the Shara' in- junctions. The use of any of the class of names, from which the parents made their selection, is unauthorized, but in practice such names are often given. For a girl the preference is generally given to the name of one of the Prophet's wivfes, and he had only nine ; or a purely fancy word, e.g. a flower, is chosen. In both cases the field for selection is small, but for women it is particularly so. 10 146 SOCIAL LIFE, CUSTOMS, BELIEFS AND round and sbapely. She always, too, laid him to sleep on his back in her own bed, or in a swinging cradle beside it, after stretching and tying his limbs together to keep them straight. She was most particular about the forehead, for the broader and flatter it is, the finer and more manly does the face appear. The nose, too, was not forgotten, but was daily pinched and pulled, in order to point and elongate it. Fatima even pro- posed that her step-son's head should be kept in a mould,^ as she had heard was the practice amongst the Jats in the Indus villages ; but Gulijan would not hear of it, as she said it was not the custom of her people to do so. As the cartilage of the head hardened into bone, she gradually discontinued her manipulations, but not until she had moulded her son's head into comeliness, and his nose promised to be as long and finely chiselled as her own. Sherdil — I shall call him by his own name now, though his parents did not — was not weaned until he was over two years old, by which time he had leamt to toddle about, and make mud pies in the channel which supplied the village with water. When three years old, he was circumcised by the village barber, for Assad Khan thought the sooner it was done the better, although he knew many parents postpone it until the child is eight or ten years old. No ceremony accompanied the operation; the barber simply came, cut, and went. In the cold weather Sherdil generally wore a little quilted coat, but in the hot he went naked, wearing nothing even on his head, though it was close shaven, with the exception of a fringe of hair all round it. By the time he was seven, Sh^rdQ's father declared the boy ^ Some BanniJchls and Marwats do, in fact, (» SOCIAL Liri:, cusroAfH, nuLiKFn ash \h not ri^lil to do mo, uihI I liopo llio pructico will soon couho uh it Minucks of Sliiu-iHui. "]lcHi(lo8 tlio (lays 1 Imvo (^Id you of, thoni is ono siiint's day I hud almost omittod. I inciun tlio clovontli of ciicli rnontli which is hold holy to coinniomorato tho death of Shckh Abdul K4dir Jaildni, tho chief of all our saints, whoso foot is on the neck of all others. It is observed every month because, though wo know tho date, wo do not know tho month in which ho died." " You mean the day on which wo remember ' tho fine youth ' (loi dzamdn)," said Shordil, interrupting him. "Yes," replied the Moolah ; "the saint is called so, because it is disrespectful to cull u gr(>ut jxirson by his harae. Alms urc distributed on this dny. Wishes uttered und vows made on it are more likely to bo fulfilled or kept than on any other, and the Moolahs are not forgotten on it either.". " Peace be with you ! " said Sherdil, greatly imprc8se^iwb to mnkc tlu- uci|uuinlaiicc of his father-in-hiw's family, and that (luriiifj his stay his betrothed is hidden oway somewhere. Notwithstanding Bueli denial, I believe the necouiit here jjiven is correct. The bullying the young muu hoe to undergo during Lis three duy^i' stay is admitted by all. SUPERSTITIONS OF THE PEAS A NTR T. 155 was in his eighteentli year. When he had made up his mind, he sent a dum and some women over to ask Begama's parents to name a day for the marriage, which they readily did. The preparations then commenced in earnest. A purse containing fifty rupees was sent to the bride elect's parents, with which to procure a part of her outfit, and Assad Khan and his wives busied themselves in getting ready the marriage trousseau, which consisted of a suit of silk doming and a complete set of silver bangles, together with ornaments for the forehead, nose, ears, neck, arms^ ankles, and toes. When everything was prepared, a great quantity of food of all sorts was .also cooked and sent to Begama's house, together with her clothes and bangles. Next day our old friend the Moolah appeared, and dressed Sh^rdil in new white clothes. Happy youth! He had passed the last three days in a tremble of excitement, now grinning from ear to ear and showing two rows of beautiful white teeth, now "sighing like a furnace," and now taking sly peeps at himself in his pocket looking-glass, and applying finishing touches of antimony to his eyes, or oiling his locks and in- cipient beard with strong-smelling ghi} When dressed, he looked a bridegroom every inch of him. Gravely and reverSntly he turned to his old preceptor, and, making a low obeisance, touched his feet. Then, beginning with his father, he went round the whole circle of those who were near and dear to him, and, bowing to each in turn, touched their feet The village was now in a great bustle. Everybody was dressed in his and hi)|r best, and chattering and talking to- gether ; whilst two rfwm«, one beating a drum, and the other blowing at a reed instrument regardless of time or melody, with the sole object of producing as much noise as possible, made every heart light and happy. * Dandy young Pethani do all this, and carry about with them a wooden oomb in th«ir hair, and in their pocket a box containing antimony and a imall looking«glaM. 156 SOCIAL LIFE, CUSTOMS, BELIEFS AND At last the procession was formed. It was a grand a&ir. Sh^rdil sat in the middle, on an old mare, looking bright and pleased, just as a bridegroom ought. The departure had been so timed that the bridal party reached its destination about sun- set. On arrival some dancing and singing followed, after which, when it was quite dark, the ceremonies began. Begama's cousin, a girl about her own age, acted as her proxy. Her sheet was tied to that of Sherdil, and to Sherdil was handed an empty earthenware pitcher. The pair then walked to the water-course which supplied the village with water, escorted by the unmarried of both sexes. Sherdil set down the pitcher beside the stream, and dipping his little finger into the water, let the drops from it run off into the pitcher. This he repeated three times. Next he went through the same procedure with a sword. Thrice he dipped it in the water, and thrice the drops ran off it into the pitcher. His companion then stooped down and ladled the pitcher fuU with her hands. When quite full, Sherdil lifted it up, and, stepping back with it seven paces, put it down on to the ground again. The knot fastening the two sheets together was then untied, and the proxy withdrew. Next several dums, belonging to the bride's village, advanced, holding a piece of string, with which they tried to measure Sherdil ; but some of his friends raised him upon their shoulders, and, after a scuffle, the dum-s retired discomfited. Whilst this ceremony, which is called Pdndra, was going on, the women belonging to the marriage procession, together with those of the bride's village, were assembling in front of her house. The parties did not inteiui'x, but faced each other, like hostile forces. First of all Sherdil's friends sang his praises — what a fine youth he was, so brave, so handsome, and altogether far too good for his bride. This nettled that young woman's defenders, and they poured forth a torrent of song and shrill noises, to prove that eiie was — " Smooth-skinned and dark, with bare throat made to bite, Too w:in for blushing, and too warm for white." SUPERSTITIONS OF THE PEASANTRY. 157 Sli^rdil's partisans soon ceased compliments, and fell back on abuse. Begama's did the same. The wordy war was hotly- waged for nearly an hour, and, just as both sides were getting faint and hoarse, Begama's mother came out, and giving each Amazon some sugar-plums, said it was a drawn battle — would they be pleased to go ? They went, and by two in the morning the excited little village was hushed in slumber; and the still- ness remained unbroken for four hours, save when a foolish night-blind cock began to crow, or the village curs barked, or the night watchmen called out to each other, " Awake, ho ! " With daylight every one was astir again, and a great least was given by the bride's family, from the eatables that Assad Khan had sent two days before. Breakfast over, the majority of the guests departed ; a select and privileged iew alone remaining. Sherdil and a few of his nearest relations then entered the house, in which Begama's mother exhibited to them a bed, cooking utensils, a spinning wheel, and sundry othier articles requisite for a young wife when beginning housekeeping. "See, I bought these with the money you supplied," said she. " My daughter is ready, do you wish to take her now ?" " Yes," answered Assad Khan. On that the mother stepped back, and, taking her daughter by the arm, led her forward. Begama was carefully veiled and dressed in the clothes Sherdil had sent her. She neither cried nor laughed ; indeed, her self-possession was so admirable that I am now convinced Sherdil and she had already made each other's acquaintance. Sherdil advanced, and took her by the hand, and led. her CTutside, where a pony snare was standing for her. As soon as she was seated, Sherrlil's most intiitLate friends, who had remained, crowded round him, each thrusting forwards his right hand with some money in it. He took the proffered rupees from threes or four of them only. When a couple of oxen had been loaded with Begama's out- fit and house furniture, the procession was formed and returned 168 SOCIAL LIFE, CUSTOMS, BELIEFS AND to Sh^rdil's village. On arrival, a fat sheep was presented to the bride before she alighted. After sunset the old Moolah was called in to marry the young couple. Begama stood behind a screen, whilst her vakkly or spokeswoman, stood in front. Besides the bride, vakil, the Moolah, Sh^rdil, and his parents, there were four or five other persons present to witness the marriage. First of all the Moolah had the vakil's au thority to speak and to declare the amount of dower attested, after which the vakil said three times, " I have given in lawful marriage the person of Begama, daughter of Abdullah Khan, with one hundred rupees dower, to Sh^rdil, son of Assad Khan." And Sh^rdil on each occsision answered, "I have accepted." After that, the Moolah raised his hands, keeping the palms towards his face, and prayed God to bless the marriage. All those present did the same. Some sweetmeats were then distributed, and the company left. The Moolah received two rupees and a turban as his fee. Three days after the marriage Begama's mother came, and, according to custom, took her back to her old home. She re- mained there several days, and then returned to her husband's house for good. Before she had been married a fortnight, she was quite at home in her new family, though it is true she grumbled a little at first, when she found there was no prospect of her husband building a new house for her for a year to come — and no wonder too. "What newly-married wife would not complain did she find that two mothers-in-law, a father-in-law, and an unmarried sister-in-law, were all to sleep, dress, and eat in the same room as she and her husband cccupief' P How- ever, Begama was a sensible girl, and contented herself with Sh<5rdil's promise that as soon as his sister was married, and his father had won his lawsuit with his cousin, he would arrange about a separate home for her. She proved a great comfort to the whole family, fetching all the water for house- hold consumption, preparing all the food, and, what is more, SUPERSTITIONS OF THE PEASANTRY. 159 making with her own hands all the dung-fuel cakes wherewith to cook the daily meals. She was indeed a model wife, and Sh^rdil used to stand and gaze with pride and admiration at her, as, with nimble fingers, she would sit and comb and dress his mother's hair. Fatima and she were great friends, and one day Fatima re- lated to her the particulars in which the Marwat betrothal and marriage customs differed from those of the Bannuchis. She said, " When I was young and pretty, like you, my dear, I fell in love with ray cousin, but he was poor ; so my father gave me to your Sh^rdil's father, and he went all the way to Lakki to fetch me, and married me according to Marwat custom. Between the betrothal and the marriage he never came and visited me, as he knew my companions in the village would make fun of him. The day before he came to fetch me home, I was takers outside the village with some of my com- {Kinions, and we were placed in a thatched shed by ourselves. There we ate our meals, and sent some sweets to Assad Khan, and he made me a present in return. About sunset a party of girls came out of the village laughing and singing ; and when they got to my resting place, they attacked us, but all in good humour. Their object was to carry off a plait of my hair,* ours to prevent * the rape of the lock/ They were two to one, and at last succeeded. I then began to cry and to beat my breast, and my companions did the same. After a time we rose and went home. On the following evening the bridal procession arrived, and the women of the party went into my mother's house. Both sides sang and danced and abused each other. Then my sistfir, as my representative, took an ass's blanket-pad, 1 and manoeuvred to throw it over the head and shoulders of one of the near relations of my future husband. After some scuffling she contrived to do so, and it was accepted as a sign that^ I would b6 stronger than my husband and rule him, and so I do. Next morning I was made over to Assad Khan, just as you were to Sjjierdil, and conducted to his home. After the marriage, at 160 SOCIAL LIFE, CUSTOMS, BELIEFS AND which I spoke for myself/ was over, I was placed in a dark corner, screened off from the rest of the house, and remained there for three days, during which I was only visited by my husband. On the fourth day my husband's sister came, and, taking me by the hand, raised me and welcomed me, and said, ' Now, Fatima, you are my sister and one of us.' I then gave her the rupee my mother had provided for the purpose, and entered on my duties as one of the family. My mother came the same day and took me home for three days." "And in which country are married women the better off?" said Begama. "Well," said Fatima, ''in my country they have to work harder, to fetch water every other day from a distance of from one to nine Kos,^ and to grind the com in a hand-mill ; but here a stream runs through or close to every village, and water- mills do all the corn-grinding. Then, again, in my country our food is bujra, with occasionally wheat, and either water or milk; but you Bannuchis eat maize and wheat, and get plenty of gM, and sometimes meat as well. No, no! Bannu is the place for a wonaan to be comfortable in, but Marwat is the place for fine husbands." Some months after this conversation, Sherdil, who had of late been in the habit of spending his evenings with the Moolah, instead of at the Chouk, asked his aged friend and preceptor whether it was true that Futteh Khan, the village head man, had an evil eye. The Moolah was silent for a little, and then replied, weighing every word as he spoke : "People say so, but I do not know. Only those *rho possess an evil eye know their powers of a certainty ; others may suspect them, but cannot be sure. Besides, as a man grows older or becomes a better Musalman, his eyes lose their evil influence, and certain it is Futteh Khan is getting old and is a good ' In Marwat girls generally give themselves away. ' One Ko$ is about equal to one mile and a half. SUPERSTITIONS OF THE PEASANTRY. 161 night watcher. The possessor of this strange power is often wretched, because, on whatever thing his eyes may rest, be it man, or beast, or inanimate object, misfortune sooner or later will befall it. When a man falls suddenly ill, and the cause is unknown, it is either a jinn who has aflfected hira or an evil eye. We say, * The sick from disease recover, but from eyes never,' ^ also 'Eyes ruin houses.'^ A woman after childbirth, a person when out after dark, or one whose body is naked, are peculiarly susceptible to such influences. In all cases the cure and prophylactic are holy amulets. Some old women. have a practice of waving three red chillies in succession several times round the affected person's head, ^ud each time sajTng, * Here- with I draw off the eye, be it man's or woman's or spirit's.' Then each pod is put into the fire. But I do not believe in the eflBcacy of the remedy. One method of discovering who the author of a calamity may be, is to drop molten lead into oil, when the lead assumes the shape of the mischief-maker; but the learned have no faith in it." " Now tell me about jinns," said Sherdil. The Moolah said, " Jinns are spirits and invisible. Some are good and some bad, and their numbers are very great. Some of the bad ones are always wandering to and fro seeking to do mischief, but amulets keep them off. They are of both sexes, and marry amongst themselves. When under the influence of a good jinn, a man possesses the gift of tongues. Once when a jinn entered into your mother, your father sent for several dumSy and they beat drums round her until the spirit cried out in agony with a loud voice, and told who she was. I was then sent for, and exorcised the spirit. All good Moolahs acquire the ninety-nine names of God in Arabic, which are an irresistible spell against evil spirits and devils. In learning the Almighty's titles, I spent forty days in the wilderness in solitude commun- ing with God. Every day I repeated His titles one hundred ' " Da ranz ranziir ra^Aeg.i la stingo raius&r na ra^A^.i." * "Mazar k6runa wiranawi." 11 162 SOCIAL LIFE, CUSTOMS, BELIEFS AND times to myself. It was thus I acquired the spell wherewith I exorcise. A family of jinns, known as 'the Khatak house- hold/ used to live in Dilasa Khan's village; but when a strange sickness fell on the children of the neighbourhood, so that they withered and died one by one, the mothers clamoured to the Khan that * the Khatak household ' was eating the livers of their little ones ; and that great chief took counsel with the Moolahs of Bannu, and, with their assistance, drove out the jinns. Only two of that house now remain, the sisters Sardara and Kamkai. They wander about, and sometimes take posses- sion of one woman, sometimes of another. They never remain long with any one, for unless those possessed of them treat them with deference, and humour them, they take offence, and go off elsewhere. Sard4ra is now said to dwell in Shah Jah&n Shah Shekh of Tappah Sadat's mother." Under the Moolah's kindly tuition Sherdil's knowledge daily increased. He learnt about eclipses and earthquakes, about thunder and lightning, and what caused the wind to blow and the rain to fall. He was such a good husband, he had no secrets from his wife, and told her all he knew. This is what he told her. Some men, who profess to understand astronomy, affirm that an eclipse of the moon is but the earth's shadow being cast on it, whilst an eclipse of the sun is the moon's shadow being thrown upon the eartli. Both are hypotheses incapable of proof and absurd in themselves, for how can man solve the secrets of the heavens without having scaled them and returned? No one but the Prophet has been up there, and when he came back, he told a very different story. The true explanation is this : Man's sins are collected by angels on earth, and kept stored for a whole year,^ before being carried up for record ; for God is long- suffering, and desires to give every sinner opportunity to repent. Even when the time of grace has expired, God gives erring ' The more general belief is that thej are taken np for record nightly, is soon as a man sleeps. SUPERSTITIONS OF THE PEASANTRY. 163 man one more chance ; and as His angels bear the burden upwards, He causes it to be spread out, like a great cloud, in front of the sun or moon. On seeing it, man is filled with penitence, and humbles himself until the veil of cloud is re- moved. Whilst the darkness continues, every pregnant woman, whether Hindoo or Muhammadan, keeps perfectly still, and does no work, so that her unborn child may not bear any untoward mark on its person, for whatever a woman in such a state then does will be impressed on her child. An earthquake is caused by the cow, on whose horn the world is poised, changing the burden from one horn to another. When God made the earth, he placed it on a cow's horn, and the cow on the back of a fish, and the fish on a stone, and the stone on well, God knows what. That has not been revealed to man. Some think that when the earth trembles, it is owing to the cow, which supports it, shaking herself, and not shifting the earth from one horn to the other. Whilst the quaking goes on, the Marwats rush out of their houses, and call to each other, " Come to Mecca ! Come to Mecca!" But as soon as the motion ceases, their desire to go on a pilgrimage subsides also. The scientific say that disturbances in the elements arise from natural causes. A circumambient river surrounds this world, and when the heat of the sun is very intense it causes its waters to boil. The noise of their boiling is thunder. When a suffi- ciency of steam has been generated, it forms as vapour clouds over the earth.; and when two of those clouds are driven to- gether by the wind, sparks are emitted, as from the friction of two flints rubbed together. The sparks we see are called lightning. Moolahs say this explanation is, so far as rain is concerned, erroneous, and that the true one is as follows : — The Archangel Mikail (Michael) is stationed at the river, and when he receives God's order to supply rain to any country, he calls out to the river " Boil " in such a loud Voice that it boils and throws off a great quantity of vapour, which is conveyed by 164 SOCIAL LIFE, CUSTOMS, BELIEFS AND augela to the required spot. When the rain falls, a separate angel is in charge of each drop, and when, through carelessness or other cause, any drops run together, lightning is produced. When rain, is general, it is caused by the angels stationed along the banks of the river ladling water out into sieves, whence drops are formed. AVhen the wind blows, it is the breath from the nostrils of the angel larafil, who will blow the last trump at the resurrection. All this, and much more, did Sherdil impart to his wife — a medley of Shara' and upper class popular belief. Begama's time was now drawing near, and one hot morning in June she presented her husband with a son, but, whether it was the heat or the flies or wicked jinns, the child never thrived. His death was a sad blow to his parents, and added many a white hair to Assad Khan's beard, though the old man strove hard to cheat himself into the bebef he was still young, by frequent resort to the dyeing brush.' Begama besought her husband to pay Shah Jah&n Sh4h's mother a visit, as some of the neighbours had persuaded her the child had died from the jinn Sardara's malevolence, Sherdil consented, and, taking a goat and a rupee with him as propitiatory ofie rings, went to the woman's house. After saluting her, he said : " Say, mother, did Sard4ra eat my child's liver ? I have brought a present for yon." " Sard&ra lives there," said the crone, pointing to a hut she had specially erected for her familiar to rest in, when tired of her company. "Put the goat in there, she may be hungry." Sherdil did so, and then repeated his question. The crone nodded her head several times, then shook it at her visitor, and gave a screech, mumbling to herself, " She is coming, coming ! Ah, she is in me ! " * The majority of grey-haired and bearded BanniSchis dye their hair either black or red. Those who can show a good white beard, often leave it white. Marwats do not u-sually dye their hair. In the other parts of the District all but the poorest dye. It is sometimes difficiilt to recognize a maa, as one day he appears before you with a magnificent grey beard, a week later, perhaps, the colour will be black, and a week later still red. SUPHRSTITIOXS of the peasantry. 165 Sherdil understood her to mean that the spirit had taken pos- session of her, and became rather nervous. Thinking the rupee might pacify her, he slipped it into her hand, which grasped it convulsively, but evidently without the crone's being conscious of the act — at least Sherdil thought so, and propoitionatcly admired her disinterestedness. "Ask, and I will answer," said Sardara, speakinp: from ihe woman's mouth. The question was repeated a third time. "No, I did not harm your child. It wxis my sister Eainhai who killed it. Let your wife wear this round her waist, and your next child will live," said Sardara, handing Sherdil n i^ece of string. He thanked her, and, as he rose to go, Sardara whispered to him, "Let her come every month to me, and don't forget the rupee." ^ Sherdil started for home with the precious string in his hand, but, strange to say, on the way his mare got colic. He dis- mounted and led the suffering animal to the nearest grave- yard, and walked her up and down amongst the tombs- for half an hour, by the end of which time the mare was quite well again. Assad Khan's land case was now being heard in one of the Settlement Courts, and the old man was always very busy and mysterious, for, though naturally inclined to honesty, he had sued for double the amount of land he thought himself entitled to ; because he had heard that the Sarkar's judges never decreed a suitor his full claim, having learnt by experience that if a native is owed one rupee he claims two. Now " one ' The account of this visit is a fact. A man who had no great faith in the old witch's powers of evil, was forced by his wife, after the death of his first child, to visit the woman, when the conversation here related took place. ^ This is a remedy commonly practised, and is often successful, not owing to the genius loci, but from the mere fact of exercise being sometimes beneficial in colic. Another cure is to flash about great wisps of burning straw under the horse's belly ; ia which case the action is, I suppose, similar to that obtained by hot fomen- tations. 166 SOCIAL LIFE, CUSTOMS, BELIEFS AND lie breeds many," so witnesses had to be canvassed, bribed, and instructed. It was a weary expensive business, and as, day after day, Assad Khan came home heart-sick from the Cutcherry, and still the case dragged on, his appetite began to fail him and his face to look pinched and wan. One day he returned from his usual resort in a high state of excitement, which found vent during supper, when he abused the Sdhih-log roundly, calling them "tyrants" and "infidels," and harder names too. " Why, what have they done now ? " said Sherdil. " What have they done now ? " cried his father ; " why, half a dozen or more Faringis this morning rode through my lands, screaming and whooping like a pack of lunatics, and they and their twenty or thirty dogs^ killed a fox in the sugar-cane field. They have ruined me, those Kdfirs." " Father," said Sherdil quietly, " you are ill, you know not •what you say. The Moolah says the Sdhih-log are 'children of the Book,' as we are, and that the great distinction between ttieir religion and ours is that they deify the Prophet Jesus and make Him their intercessor before God, instead of our own Prophet of God, whom they disown. As to the sugar-cane, the sum total of our loss is not one rupee. Remember what you used to tell me of the unbelieving Sikhs, or even the believing Durrdnis, and thank God, who took pity on us and sent the just Sdhib-log to rule over us." Such a firm respectful remonstrance from his son astonished Assad Khan. He felt in his heart he had spoken hastily and wrongfully, and passed the rest of the evening at home in moody and sulky silence, instead of going to the Chouk as usual to smoke and gossip. On the following day he returned from the Court-house early, and appeared low and despondent. Sherdil asked what ailed him, and whether he thought the case woidd be decided in his favour. ^ Assad Khan alludes to the BannO pack of fo^ hounds and those who rode to them, SUPERSTITIONS OF THE PEASANTRY, 167 "God knows on which knee the camel may rest," said the old man wearily, quoting a familiar proverb. The next day, when Assad Khan came home, he told Sherdil that his suit had been dismissed, and that, as God was evidently hostile to him, he might as well die, having nothing worth living for left. First his grandchild had died, then he had spent over one hundred rupees in this lawsuit and lost it after all. Sherdil consoled him as well as he could, and then went over to his friend the Moolah, to get a little comfort himself. When the Moolah heard what had happened, he sighed and said: " God's will be done. I fear thy father, boy, is not long for this world." " If his time be up he will die, if not he won't," replied Sherdil. Then, after a pause, he added, " I am sure my father need not fear death, he has been good to me, and to my mother, and step-mother." "Ah! " said the Moolah, "that will be seen on his death-bed." " How so ? " asked Sherdil. " You know," said the Moolah, " that the recording angels Kardm-ul-Katihin are present to every man. One sits on the right shoulder, noting down good deeds, and the other on the left, taking note of evil deeds. Every night, as the man sleeps, they fly up to heaven, and record on his leaf in the tree of life called Tobi his acts of the day. Some say they only fill in the record once a year, as I told you when talking of eclipses ; but it makes little difierence whether it is done daily or only once in the year, for the account is kept, and cannot be evaded. Each person has a leaf to himself. When the end approaches, the leaf drbps off the tree, and the recording angels carry it to 'Izrail, the angel of death, who forthwith despatches them and a third angel back to earth, to show the dying man his life's account. On reading it, according as the balance is struck for or against him, he dies happily or in torments. As soon as death occurs, the vital principle is carried up to heaven, but the 168 ^CIAL LIFE, CUSTOMS, BELIEFS AND immortal soul remains with the corpse until the judgment day, and that same night in the tomb lias to answer the questions put to it by the angels Nakir and Munkir." When SherdU went home, he found his father asleep, and his mother sitting by his bed moaning and crying. She held up her hand to her son, and whispered, " Hush, my child, the jinns have been with him, but he struggled hard and conquered them, I think. He talked wildly about his case and your dead child. He sleeps now." Sh^rdil gently removed her, and, having sent for the Moolah, sat down to watch beside the sick bed. Assad Khan dozed fitfully on imtil morning, sometimes lying quiet, and sometimes muttering to himself; but the only words his son could catch were "lie" and " kill you." The sick man passed the next day in the same way, but towards evening he suddenly started up and looked vacantly round him. " Don't you know me, father, it is your son," said Sh^rdil, throwing his arms round his neck and crying. "Yes, yes, I see you, my own boy; come nearer, nearer still," said his father faintly. Sh^rdil put his face close to that of his father. "Listen," whispered the dying man, "my cousin has won — ^he had thirteen witnesses to my nine — he is your enemy. Remember, revenge, revenge ! " Those were the last words he spoke. He breathed on for some hours more, but was evidently sinking fast. Towards morning he opened his eyes, and a quiet happy smile stole over his face, then he gave a great sigh, and all was over. " Thank God ! " said Sherdil, " his end was peaceful. He is accepted." An hour after all was bustle. The Moolahs came in numbers, and sitting together outside repeated the first chapter of the Koran, and besought God to accept the dead man and pardon bis sins. Inside, the washer-of-the-dead, a Koresh, was per- forming his oflBces. After wrapping the corpse in a shroud, he laid it out for burial. Whilst this was going on, some of the SUPERSTITIONS OF THE PEASANTRY. 169 villagers had gone to the cemetery and dug the grave. Several of Assad Khan's relations brought pieces of cotton and silk, and, going in one by one, laid them on the corpse. These, as well as all the clothes of the dead man, became the perquisite of the Koresh. By noon all preparations had been completed, and the corpse was placed on a bier, and a sheet thrown over it. Friends and relations crowded round, each anxious to be one of the bearers ; for to walk under a bier to the grave is a meritorious action (Sawdh). The bed, which served as a bier, was then raised, and a crowd of Moolahs and other mourners — all men — walked with it to the place of burial. On arrival it was set down beside the open grave. The Moolahs then ranged themselves behind, and the others stood a few paces farther back, all facing towards Mecca. The prayers for the dead, which are very short, were then said by the whole of the assemblage. On their conclusion Sh^rdil advanced, and deposited some money and sweetmeats at the feet of the principal Moolah. His relations did the same. The Moolahs then prayed God to accept the offering; after which a low caste man stepped forward, collected the money and sweets, and distributed thefe amongst the poor and the Moolahs who were present, thereby hoping to bear away the sins of the deceased. The corpse was then lowered, and put on its right side, with its face towards Mecca. A few inches in front of its eyes was placed a tablet of stone, inscribed with the creed, for when Nakir and Munkir appear, fright often causes memory to fail. Sufficient space was left to enable the dead man to sit up during his examination. Stones were then laid cross ways over the cavity which held the corpse, ani the earth was filled in. When all was over, the party returned, and that evening SherdU bestowed alms liberally, and gave his relations, the Moolahs, and the poor of the village, a good meal, at his own house, after which he went to the grave, and sat beside it watching all night. On the following Friday, and on the fi\ e 170 SOCIAL LIFE, PUSTOMS, ETC, OF THE PEASANTRY. succeeding Fridays, as well up to the fortieth day, Sh^rdil entertained all who came to his house, whether Moolahs or others. During those forty days his relations, both male and female, paid him and his family yisits of condolence. With the expiry of the term of mourning, the household fell back into its old ways, and the daily routine of agricultural life was resumed. Here we may leave Sh^rdil, having seen him bom, educated, betrothed, and wedded ; and let us hope he may succeed in his case better than his poor father, for, being well to do, he is nmbitious of being made Malik, that is, head man of his section of the village, and has given me a petition praying for the appointment vice Futteh Khan deceased. 171 CHAPTEK II. POPULAR STORIES, BALLADS A^D RIDDLES. Pathans enjoy a good story immensely, and the broader the joke and the more rollicking the fun in it, the more intense is their delight in listening to it. In ordinary conversation every Pathan throws his whole aool into what he says — now speaking slow, now fast, now delivering a word with great emphasis, face reflecting mind, and arms acting in unison with both. Being a wild impulsive child of nature, he has, on most occasions, as little command over his features and his voice as a dog, when pleased, has to stop his tail from wagging. In the one case face, hands, and voice, and in the other the dog's tail, involuntarily represent the impres- sion which is passing through the mind. This is, of course, only true of the rude untutored Pathan ; for contact with those stronger or more refined than himself soon teaches him what maybe called "manners"; in other words, outward restraint over his emotions. To the ignorant such abandon might almost seem acting, but as it is artless and involuntary, it is the reverse. A good story- teller, however, must always be an actor : if he were not, his words would fall flat; and as Pathans have generally plenty 172 POPULAR STORIES, BALLADS AND RIDDLES. of spare time on their hands, and, in some respects, lively imaginations, every village contains two or three wits, who have studied the story-telling art, and are nightly at the Chouk the centre of an admiring throng of idlers, who listen open-mouthed, ready at the will of the narrator to explode with laughter or weep with sorrow. Formerly, in this District, as is still the case elsewhere in Afghanistan, the best story-tellers were professionals called dumn, a low caste class who, rahdb or sarinda ^ in hand, either roamed about the country from village to village, sure wherever they went of a welcome, a supper, and a handful of coppers, or a wallet full of flour, or took service with a chief. In the latter case, the "dum" combined in his person the offices of court minstrel, jester, and historiographer, and was consequently a very important personage amongst a chief's retainers. His it was to chronicle in verse the doughty deeds of his master, to preserve the memory of those of the clan who fell in battle, and to be the repository of the tribal genealogical tree. His calling, though not exactly an honourable, was a lucrative one ; but, alas for the good old times ! the changes in modes of life and thought introduced with our rule, and incidental to a reign of law and order, have deprived him of his occupation, and, except when a fond son pays handsomely for a poem in honour of his deceased father's virtues, the tuneful voice of the poet- minstrel is now seldom heard. Although, however, ballad poetry is dying out, story-telling flourishes, and a circle of eager listeners is found for every sort of tale, from the Akhoond's dreamy moral narratives, and the wandering dum's elaborate anecdotes, gorgeous with princes and princesses, fairies and demons, down to the roaring fun of the village wit, who strings half a dozen old jokes and stories together with a weak thread of connexion, and therewith binds and draws his impressionable audience through all the mazes of his story. ' The rabub is a kind of guitar, and the snrinda a kind of fiddle. POPULAR STORIES, BALLADS AND RIDDLES. 173 Out of the large number of tales I have collected, I have condensed and translated fifty of the shortest and apparently most original of those which find the highest favour with the poorest and most ignorant of the peasantry, and are, therefore, more entitled to be called " popular tales " than the longer, more ambitious, and more refined narratives, which, through their very length and elaboration, are wanting in flavour and piquancy. The specimens given in this chapter may be divided into three classes, namely, humorous tales containing a moral, laughter- creating tales and jests, and, thirdly, fables, of which latter only a few are inserted, as the world is already over- stocked with them. At the end of the chapter are a few Marwat ballads and riddles. CLASS I.-HUMOROUS AND, MORAL. The Miseklt Akhoond. An Akhoond was in the habit of preaching the duty of charity to his congregation — that he who bestowed alms in God's name would receive tenfold in return. His sermons took effect on nis wife, who one day sent a large ^late of sweets to the mosque, which delighted the heart of her husband, until, on examining it, he felt sure that his wife must have been the donor, as he recognized the plate as one of his own. He immediately rose to prayers, and continued them for such a length of time that his hearers one by one left. When the last had gone, and he found he would not have to divide the sweets with any one, he took the dish home to his tvife, and pointed out that his precepts were for the multitude, and not for her ; but as she insisted on continuing the giving of alms, he replied, in order to frighten her, " I'll die if you do it again." Next day his wife did the same, and that evening her hus- 174 POPULAR STORIES, BALLADS AND RIDDLES. band pretended to be taken ill, and feigned death. His wife, suspecting his trick, gave out that her husband had, when dying, enjoined her to leave his corpse two nights unburied in the graveyard. After having the body washed and placed on a bier, she had it conveyed there, and sat down at a little distance to watch what should happen. During the night, four thieves came to the spot, three belonging to one party, and a fourth by himself. The three vowed a tenth of their booty to the holy man's corpse should they be successful ; and the fourth did the same, but added he would smash in the reverend corpse's head should he return empty-handed. After a time they all returned, the three with great plunder, and the fourth in bad humour, with none. So he' took up a stone and threw it at the supposed corpse. "•* You will kill me," yeUed the unfortunate Akhoond startix ^ up from his bier. On seeing this strange sight, away ra^ the thieves, thinking he was a spirit, leaving all their booty behind. When gone, the wife stepped up, and said to her husband, "See what God has given for one dish of sweety." " No, 'tis by being a corpse I gained it," said her husband. " Will you promise never to give away again ? " "No," replied the wife. " Then leave me to die," said her husband. Whereupon she gathered up the plunder and went home. Next morning she went with a crowd to the graveyard, and invoked her husband to come back to life, but he remained as one dead, so she ordered the people to bury him, and called out that she would divide all her husband's property that evening amongst the poor, as it had pleased God to deprive her of him. " No, not a pice," screamed the sham dead man, starting up and bursting his shroud. " Wah ! Wah ! God is great ! " said the simple people ; " he has raised the dead to life." Then they went home, believing the miracle. POPULAR STORIES, BALLADS AND RIDDLES. 175 Tms Peophet Proved. A clever fellow claimed to be. a prophet, and many silly people believed in him ; whereupon the King of that country summoned him to his presence, and, in order to expose the falseness of his pretensions, said to him in full Darbar : "If you can tell me what my thoughts are, I shall acknowledge you as a prophet." " Sire," was the ready answer, " you are thinking I shall not be able to read your thoughts and be thus proved a liar." The reply was so ingenious and true that the King was silenced, and the false prophet was rewarded instead of beaten, and acquired fresh fame. The Silent Princess. A certain king promised to give his daughter to any one who could induce her to speak, but the penalty of failure was death. Many made the attempt, but none succeeded. At last a young prince from a neighbouring country came, determined to try his luck, and when introduced to the Court, where the silent Princess was sitting, pretended to take no notice of her ; but turning to the attendants and others who were hanging about, called out in a loud voice, *' Listen, for I am going to tell you a story, and ask you a question. Once upon a time, a* carpenter, tailor, goldsmith, and fakeer were travelling together, and whereyer they halted at night, used to keep watch in turn. On one occasion, the carpenter, in order to keep himself awake, whiled away the time of his watch by fashioning a log of wood like a woman ; the tailor, when it came to his turn, made clothes for it ; and the gold- smith likewise employed his watch in beautifying it with bangles. The fakeer's turn was last of all, and he, seeing the lovely inanimate figure before him, prayed God to bestow life upon it, and God did so. When that occurred, the dawn was breaking, and the fakeer's companions awoke simultaneously, 176 POPULAR STORIES, BALLADS AND RIDDLES. and began to quarrel for possession of the beautiful woman they had jointly created. Now, say which of them had best claim?" " The carpenter, for he made the figure," said one. The tailor and goldsmith were named by others, and a hot dispute ensued, but one voice shouted out, " Tne fakeer, because through his prayer the lifeless block was animated." " Right, the fakeer," exclaimed the Princess, who had been greatly interested with the story, and was put off her guard by the indifference which her wooer, so unlike former aspirants to her hand, had shown towards her. Thus the young Prince won a wife and saved his head. Chakitt Rewaeded. A poor man heard his priest Say that God rewarded the chari- table tenfold ; and, after many days of saving, he accumulated one rupee and. gave it to a beggar. Days and weeks went by, but no ten rupees came. So the old man began to sicken from over-fretting. First fever, then diarrhoea, then dysentery attacked him. At last, when lying in a field at the pdint of death, in a paroxysm of pain, he seized a tuft of grass with his hands ; the tuft came away from the roots, and disclosed ten rupees con- cealed there. Greedily the old man gathered them up, and, going home, soon got well. But, though the reward had come at last and the priest's words had been proved true, never again did he bestow a pice in charity. The King and the Hill-Thieves. A thievish tribe infested a hilly country, plundering all caravans which passed through it. Hearing of their misdeeds, the King summoned the head men of the tribe to his presence, and, after explaining to them in a fatherly way the wickedness of robbing merchants, admonished them to lead honest lives in future, and made them swear on the Koran that they would POPULAR STORIES, BALLADS- AND RIDDLES. 177 plunder no more. But, on their return to their hills, they forgot their oaths. So the wise King sent for them again, and this time made them sign an engagement to lead good lives ; after which he dismissed them with honour to their own country, giving each a present. Yet again this thievish tribe began infesting the passes and vexing the King's subjects. Then the King was perplexed, and he called his Yizier, and said to him, " How is it that neither oaths, nor engagements, nor rewards, restrain this people ? " The old minister smiled, and said, *' Let my lord send once again to the thieves, and, placing some earth from their own hills beneath their feet, ask of them this question." And the King did so. Then the thieves answered : *' Oaths and engagements bind fools ; presents are given by the weak to the strong. So long as we live in our hills, we must plunder to live as our fore- fathers did before us." And the King was wroth, and said, " Out of your own mouths I condemn you ; you are not men, but beasts." So he sent his army against them, and made war on them until he h^d scattered and destroyed them. A Misee's Peoof. A clever thief one day robbed a blind miser of his hoard, and determined to spend a tenth of it in charity. So he gave an entertainment to the poor of the town. The miser appeared amongst the guests ; but when he attempted to eat, his food stuck in his throat. Assured by this sign that the host was the thief, he went and complained to the King; and, sure enough, when the house of his entertainer was searched, the remainder of the stolen hoard was found there. The Skilful PHTSicLMf. Once upon a time the King of Hindustan's only son fell ill, 12 178 POPULAR STORIES, BALLADS AND RIDDLES. but his disease defied all treatment. At last his father sent a message to the King of Khordssdn, imploring him to despatch his own physician to prescribe for the sick youth. As the two sovereigns were friends, the physician was ordered to go, but excused himself by saying, " Hindustan is very far from here; should I go, and my lord fall sick, he might die before I could return to save him. My person is not known, let me send Ghulam Ali, my pupil, in my name." The King consented, and Ghulam Ali was sent. On arrival, he was puzzled to account for his patient's pro- longed illness, as his disease was a simple one, and the medicines were proper. After reflection, he determined to ask for a pri- vate interview with the Queen mother. The King accorded it, and the physician was taken to the female apartments, and on the Queen taking her seat behind a curtain, he asked her who was the father of her son. After long protestations, she said it was a certain Cashmirl slave. With a light heart the questioner withdrew, and, after learning that Cashmiris lived on rice, ordered the ypung Prince to be fed on a rice diet. In a few weeks his recovery was complete, and the skill of the Khorassdni physician became famous in Hindustan. "What not to Tbust. Lukm^n Hakim, on his death-bed, warned his son never to tell a secret to his wife, nor to be friends with a Sepoy, nor plant a thorny tree in his court-yard. The advice seemed so unreasonable that the youth determined to test it, and forth- with made friends with a Sepoy, planted a "ber" tree in his court-yard, and, killing a goat, threw its carcase into a dry well, then told his wife in secret that he had murdered such a one. The wife at once told her neighbour's wife about the murder as a great secret. In course of time the tree grew up, the Sepoy became a police officer, and the story of the inurder POPULAR STORIES, BALLADS AND RIDDLES. 179 came to the King's ears. The police officer was sent to arrest the murderer, and found him seated on his couch underneath the '* bSr" tree. When rising to go with his captor, his turban got caught in the thorns of the tree.; but the police officer, in his zeal, forgetful of his old friendship, dragged his prisoner, bare-headed, to the King, without allowing him time to dis- entangle his turban. When charged with the murder, the accused told the King of his father's three bits of advice, and how all the three had at last come true. The goat's skeleton, being found in the well, proved the man's innocence, and the King dismissed him, telling him that youth should accept the fruit . of the experience of age in a trusting child-like spirit. AVAKICE VERSUS E-ELIGION. One day old Maharajah Runjeet Singh, the Lion of the Punjab, received in Darbdr a deputation of Hindoos and Mu- hammadans, and presented each with magnificent " Khilats." Amongst the presents to the former was a silver cow, and to the latter a silver pig. A year after, the two deputations again visited him, and he asked the. Hindoos what they had done with their cow. They hung down their heads, and admitted they had melted it down and divided its silver amongst themselves. "And what have you done with your pig?" said the monarch to the Muhammadans. " Oh ! " said they ; "we threw the unclean beast into a drain as soon as we got to our homes." When the Maharajah found that this was true, he fined the greedy Hindoos all round, but rewarded the Muhammadans. The Test of Fbdenbship. A Hindoo and Pathan were such great friends that the latter deposited one hundred rupees with the former, and after a time 180 POPULAR STORIES, BALLADS AND RIDDLES. withdrew the money. The Hindoo's heart smote him for having let the money slip through his hands without even charging interest for keeping it. So he hit on a scheme to recover it ; and proposed to his friend that the first who should doubt the other's word should forfeit one hundred rupees. " Agreed," said the wily Pathan simply. Some days after, the Hindoo told his friend that once, when his donkey had a sore back, his father had rubbed some clay on it, and that a seed in the clay took root there and grew, until it became a great tree, so that the ass, wherever he went, enjoyed cool shade. "Verily, God's ways are wonderful!" said his friend, wagging his head and turning his eyes piously heavenwards. After a little thought the Pathan said, " Your father and mine were great friends, even as we are, and mine lent yours one hundred rupees, but he never repaid it. I require the money now." The poor Hindoo thus lost, instead of gained, one hundred rupees. Fehaxe Ingeatittde. A certain wise Kiug was in the habit of destroying every daughter born to him, as experience had taught him that, if permitted to grow up, they would bring trouble on his house. One day his youngest son, whose name was Shera, was at play with some other boys, when they began twitting him about his father's cruelty. " See," cried the most forward of his playmates, pointing to an executioner who was passing with, the Prince's infant sister, then but twenty-four hours old, in his arms, " what your wicked father is doing ! " The little Prince, touched with pity at the sight, ran into the palace, and, climbing upon his papa's knee, besought him to spare his sister's life. His father sternly rebuked him, whereon the little fellow called his parent bad names, and behaved in a very unfilial way. POPULAR STORIES, BALLADS AND RIDDLES. 181 " "Well," said the King, " I spare her life, but you will live to repent it." After that he put the boy and girl in charge of an old nurse, and, giving her a bag of money, turned all three out of his kingdom. The faithful nurse went to a neighbouring state, and built herself a hut in the jungle, in which she tended her young charges with a mother's care for some years, and then died. By that time the young Prince Shera had become a skilful hunter ; but as he spent many hours daily in the chase, his sister, whose name was Moti, used to feel weary during his absence. So one day she said to him, " Brother, your horse and the beasts of the forest are your companions, but I have none." Shera replied that he would bring her something to love, and forthwith went out, and returned a few hours after leading, a beautiful white fawn, which he gave to her. One day the timid little creature, whilst wandering in the forest, was seen by the King of that country's son, and followed by him to the hut. In its fright the fawn ran in and hid its head in its mistress's bosom. Looking up, Moti's eyes met those of the King's son, and they fell deeply in love with each other that instant. After an hour or two of sweet converse, the lovers parted, promising to meet again, and many stolen interviews they had after that, I can assure you. Now Moti was afraid her brother would kill her should he discover her love adventure, and the naughty thing prepared a little plot, wherewith to secure her lover to herself and get rid of her brother. What she did was this : She one day shut and barred the door of the hut on her brother whilst he was at dinner inside, and then, taking his gun with her, mounted his horse, and rode o£f to her lover, who was waiting for her in the forest close by. The pair were married next day, and — alas ! what will not young women do for love? — in the delights of wedded life, Moti 182 POPULAR STOBIES, BALLADS AXD RIDDLES. forgot tliat she had left her faithful brother to starve to death in the little room in which they had spent so many happy days together. Luckily for Shera, poor fellow ! a merchant chanced to pass that way a tew days after, and, going in, rescued him from death. Now, during the long hours of his imprisonment, Shera had thought over his father's words and his sister's ingratitude, and had determined to kill her, should he live to escape and tind her. TThen released, he dressed himself like a fakeer, and went to the city in wliich the King of that country lived. Hearing that the King's son had a horse, which was very ill and refused all food, he asiked to be allowed to see it, as he was skilled in the treatment of equine diseases. When he was taken to the royal stables, he recognized the horse as his own, and the animal, on hearing his master's voice again, neighed joyfully, and soon got quite well, for he had only lost his appetite from sorrow at separation from Shera. The fakeer's fame as n horse doctor was at once established, and the King's son, thinking ho might know something about gnns as well, showed him his own, and said, " No gunsmith in the city can detect anything wrong with the lock, yet it won't act." Now, odd though it may seem, the gun, like the horse, was onlj- repining for its old master, and the moment the pretended fakeer took it in his hands, the lock worked perfect!}*. As he was examining it, a slight noise above him made Shera raise his head and look up, when he caught sight of his sister straining her eyes to see him through a lattice ; for the fame of the fakeer had penetrated even to the women's apartments, and female curiosity had prompted his sister to have a peep at him. No sooner did he see her, than he put the gun to his shoulder, and shot her dead. And when the King heard his stor}-, he admitted he had but done his duty. So this was the end of poor Moti. POPULAR STORIES, BALLADS AXD RIDDLES. 183 A Good Liab. Once upon a time there lived two brothers, and the name of the one was Rishtiinai or Truthful. As they were very poor, Rishtunai one day said to his brother, " Take me to market and sell me as a slave, and you wUl be able to live comfortably from the proceeds." And his brother did so. When selling Rishtunai, the purchaser, who was a trader, asked if he had any faults. " Yea," said his brother, " one ; he lies once every year." •" Oh ! if that is all, he is a tf uthful youth," replied the trader, "and cheap at three hundred rupees." A few months after, the trader went on business with a cara- van to a distant city, and on his return was met, two stages from his home, by E-ishtunai, who had been despatched to welcome him by his wife. After the first salutations were over, the trader asked anxiously, " Is all well at home ? " " Yes," said Rishtiinai, " except that your dog is dead." "And how did that occur?" asked the other carelessly, for he was thinking of his wife and child, and glad they were well. " Why," said Rishtunai, " your mule had died, and your dog over-gorged himself on its flesh." " Ah ! " said the other, getting interested, " and what killed my mule ? "Your mother had died," said the slave, "and the mule's back got galled in carrying stones for her grave, and died in consequence." " Great God ! " said his questioner, half beside himself with grief, " and how did my mother die ? " "Why," said Rishtunai simply, "your child was carried off by croup, and your mother died from grief." " God's will be done ! " said the trader, throwing himself on the ground in his sorrow, and crying bitterly, whilst Rishtunai went home to his mistress, and told her her husband was dead. 184 POPULAR STORIES, BALLADS AND RIDDLES. Next day, when the trader drew near his house, sounds of wailinj^ from within smote upon his ears, and he entered his door filled with the sad certainty all had happened as Rishtunai had stated, for during his eleven months' sojourn in the family Rishtunai had never once told a falsehood. As the merchant stood upon his threshold, his wife, with his child in her arms, and his old mother ran forward and embraced him, their tears of woe being changed in an instant into tears of joy. Explanations ensued, ai;d when the trader was about to beat his slave, Rishtunai reminded him of the one failing he hsid, which had been declared at time of purchase ; so his master restrained his arm, and gave him his liberty, saying, " Thau such a liar as thou art, one who lies daily is better ! " The Lucky Hide. One day an old man's ox strayed into a neighbour's field, the owner of which slit its tongue, so the poor beast died. The old man's son went and skinned it, and as evening closed in before he reached his village, he climbed into a tree, pulling up his hide after him, determined to pass the night there. Soon after some thieves, returning from a successful excursion, stopped under the tree to divide their spoil. " May God send a thunderbolt on him who keeps back any part ! " said their leader, as he produced some bangles. Startled by the grutf voice, the boy in his fright let go bis hold of the hide, and it caused a mighty crackling noise aff it brushed through the dry leaves in its descent ; for the time was winter. " God has punished us for cheating each other," cried the thieves as they ran away, for not one of them had deposited all his loot in the common heap. When mornin£^ dawned, the boy came down from his perch, and, collecting all the abandoned plunder, took it quietly to his home. POPULAR STORIES, BALLADS AND RIDDLES. 185 Next day he gave out in his village that he had exchanged his ox-skin for one hundred rupees worth of bangles in a neighbouring bazaar ; so the simple people killed all their cattle and took them to the bazaar for sale, and were greatly enraged when offered only a few coppers apiece for them. "When they returned home, they seized the boy, and tied him to a stake near the river, intending to drown him during the night. In this extremity the boy kept crying aloud, "I won't, I won't," when, a hill man passed by and asked him what it was he would not do, and why he was there. '*' The King wants to force rae to marry his daughter, but I won't ; so he has tied me here to make me consent," sobbed the boy. " I'll be very happy to stand in your shoes," said the hill man. So they changed places. A few hours after, the villagers came and drowned the luck- less hill man in the river. Next morning they were astonished to see the boy they thought they had drowned walking towards the village, driving three sheep before him. " Why, where have you come from ? " said they. "From the river; and precious cold I am," said he, wringing the water from his clothes ; for he had taken care to wet himself all over. " But did we not throw you into the deepest part?" said they. " Well, I don't know about the depth ; but where you threw me in are great flocks of sheep, so I chased three, and here they are, and I am going off for more after breakfast," said he. On that all the yillagers who* heard him ran off to the river, and, jumping in, were drowned. The Pook Wood-sellek. A sharper one day asked a poor wood-seller in open market. " How much for ox (and) load ? " " Four annas," said he. 186 POPULAR STORIES, BALLADS AND RIDDLES. On that the sharper paid his four annas, and walked off with both ox and load, and when the wood-seller cried out he had been cheated, the people sided with the sharper. The wood-seller next day put on other clothing, and dis- guised himself, so that he should not be recognized, and when the sharper asked him the same question, said, "A hand full (liandful) of coppers." The man Agreed, and filling his hand with pice presented it to the wood-seller, who seized it and took out a knife, intending to cut his hand off. A quarrel ensued, and the two were taken before the Kazi, who decided that, according to the terms of the bargain, the j)urchaser had lost his hand. They then compromised matters, and the sharper returned the ox he had tricked the wood-seller out of the previous day. There is Xotuing Impos.sible. Long long ago, some village maidens were playing together, when King Solomon, seated on his throne, floated past them in mid-air, on his way to bathe in the river. Looking up, a little Batti)'dra girl exclaimed with a sigh, " How I should like to be one of King Solomon's wives when I grow up! " Her play-fellows were angry at her presumption, and laughed at her, tossing their heads in disdain, and saying, " Had one of us uttered such a wish, it would have been proper enough ; but thou ! thou art a poor, low caste Machi, how absurd ! " It so happened that whilst King Solomon was bathing that day, his sacred ring, on which his kingdom depended, slipped off his finger into the water, and was lost. Now God had sent the ring to King David from heaven, and David had given it to his son, and through its potency everything that lived and moved on earth and in the water and in the air obeyed him ; but when it was lost, King Solomon's enemies made head ajjainst him and drove him from his throne, after which he POPULAR STORIES, BALLADS AND RIDDLES. 187 became a friendless and unknown wanderer in the regions lie had lately ruled over with such wisdom and justice. One day he chanced to stop at the village in which the Battiydra lived, and took service with him. After a time, the old father, thinking what a good servant he had got, and that his little daughter was grown upland wanted a husband, said to Solomon, — whom he supposed to be a waif of as poor parentage as himself, — "My man, you see my only child there ; if you serve me until I die, you may have her to wife and succeed to all I have." " Agreed," said Solomon. So they were married. On the day of the marriage the Battiyara's good woman bought a fine fish in the bazaar for the feast, and whilst cleaning it she found a ring in its belly, which she gave to her daughter as a present. When the happy couple had gone to rest that night, Solomon was surprised to feel a ring, like the one he had lost, on his bride's third finger. " Where did you get the ring from, my love? " said he^ *' Never mind now ; I'll tell you all about it in the morning," said she. So Solomon restrained his curiosity until day-break. When his wife had told him how her mother had found it, Solomon asked her to let hira try it on. "There you are, my dear," said she, putting it on to his little finger. Solomon at once blew on it and wished his throne to appear, and it came in an instant. Once re-possessed of his sacred ring. King Solomon was not long in recovering his crown and destroying his enemies ; and, you may be sure, not the least favoured of his wives was the Battiyara's little daughter, whose wish, you see, was fulfilled after all. The Way to Win a Lawsuit. Two men had a dispute, and agreed to refer it for Shariat, or decision according to Muhammadan law, before the Kaz^i* On 188 POPULAR STORIES, BALLADS AND RIDDLES. the way the defendant met a neighbour, and said to him, " Tell jny wife that I have won." "How can you know before the case is heard?" asked his friend with surprise. "Why, I'll deny^ everything the plaintiff says," said the other simply. Host and Guest. A poorly-dressed traveller once stopped for a night at a hospitable chief's house, andl wias fed with dry bread and water. Some months after, he returned, dressed very handsomely, and the. chief, supposing him some great personage, placed ghi and savoury puluo before him. But the guest, before eating, rose up, and taking off his fine robe, steeped it in the ghi pot. After supper was over, the chief asked his guest why he had done so ; " for," said he, " I have entertained strangers from many countries, but I never saw a custom such as yours." The guest replied, "You did not entertain me, but my clothes ; therefore I steeped my coat in gki. I am that poor traveller to whom you gave dry bread and water." The Tables Tttkned. A poor traveller was supping in a peasant's cottage, and the good man of the house had placed bread and a bowl, of gki before him ; but his careful wife remonstrated, and said to her husband, " The guest is unworthy of so much honouring ; give him milk." So the ghi was removed and milk substituted. The traveller then rose, and without eating or drinking anything, left the house, taking both the bread and the milk with him. ' As the plaintiff was the party who as8erteak, I made a sign in dumb 204 POPULAR STORIES, BALLADS AXD RIDDLES. show. ' A jinn (spirit) has struck him,' said they. So they sent for the village barber, who put a poultice on my cheek, and went awav. Then we all went to bed ajjain, and in the morning: I appeared quite well." The second said, " I, too, had been betrothed, and went with an old friend to make ray father-in-law's acquaintance. Being very young, my friend had instructed me to do whatever he told me. At supper-time my mentor said I was like a lahndar, and hardly ate anything at all. So I went supperless. When bed-time came, he said I was so hardy that I always slept out of doors, summer and winter, without any bedding. "When he said this, I saw my betrothed give a little shuddering look of disappointment towards me. After that we both ascended to the roof to sleep. My friend had two warm quilts for himself, but I had nothing. Now, as it was the cold weather, and I had had nothing to eat, I soon felt very hungry and cold; so I woke up my friend, and told him luy wants. lie said he could not spare me a quilt, but thought I might get something to eat. lie then tied his turban round my waist, and let me down through the smoke-opening in the roof into the room below, where the family was asleep. After groping about a little, I found some cakes, which I ate ; and then, putting a brass vessel containing milk under my arm, whispered to my friend to pull me up. I was half through the hole, when the confounded milk vessel fell with a crash, which woke the family. The old father blew up the fire, putting some twigs on, and, in the glow, saw my legs dangling down from the hole in the roof. ' *Tis a spirit,' they all screamed ; and, rushing out, sent for the Moolah to exorcise it. He came, and, seeing the situation, told the members of the family to stand outside" the doorway, and, as that was the only means of escape for the spirit, they were to belabour the first thing that passed them. As the man began muttering his charms, down I came with a run, and away bolted the Moolah, thinking the Devil was after him. When he ran out, he got a tremendous thrashing, as the POPULAR STORIES, BALLADS ASD RIDDLES. 205 watchers at the door thought it was the spirit, who had as- sumed the shape of the Moolah, in order the better to deceive them." The third said, " I, too, had been betrothed ; but when I went to pay my respects, was badly received, and told to go home again. As the night was dark and stormy, I went to the mosque, intending to sleep there. There was a group of travellers in it, just sitting down to the meal the villagers had brought them. I joined the circle, but was driven away for bad manners, in having done so without invitation. I was ravenous, and went out to beg myself a meal. I tried at the house my father-in-law elect first, when my betrothed opened the door and put a cake into my hand, thinking me an ordinary beggar. I ran off at once, for fear of being detected, and in the dark fell into a tanner's vat, in which were some hides. The tanner, awoke with the noise, rushed out, and fancying it was a dog, began to beat me soundly, but desisted when he recognized a human- voice, and seized me as a thief. The noise brought my father-in-law to the spot, and I was exposed." When they had all done, the old man said, " I made a slip about the word. 'Twas not for the best lady's man I meant the greeting, but the greatest, ahem I muff — and you each deserve one-third of my salutation." A Cowabd's Plea. A coward, bravely mounted and well armed, was met by a robber in a lonely road, and delivered up his purse to him when challenged. One of his acquaintances, hearing of the incident, asked him why he had not attacked the robber. " How could I ? " was the answer. " The bridle was in one hand, and my spear in the other ; you would not have had me fight him with my mouth, like a dog, would you ? " 206 POPULAR STORIES, BALLADS AND RIDDLES. The Weaver and Death. A weaver went to cut firewood, and, climbing up a tree, commenced hacking away at a dead branch with his axe. A holy Sayad, passing beneath, observed that he was sitting on the lower part of the brancli he was cutting, and called out to him that he would full and hurt himself. The weaver told him to mind his own business, and continued his work, when crack wont the branch, and crash went the weaver to the ground. Ptubbing his back woefully, he said to himself, " The old man was a, prophet after all, for he foretold the future ; perhaps he will tell me more." Jumping up, be ran after the Sayad, and, when he had overtaken him, he made him a low obeisance, and said, " holy man ! thou saidst truly I should fall and hurt myself. Now tell me when I shall die." The Sayad saw what a simpleton he had to deal with, and said enigmatically, " When your wind goes." The weaver thanked him, and went home. The same evening, soon after supper, a savoury eructation involuntarily passed from his moutli, and all of a sudden he remembered tlic holy man's prophecy. So he sadly called his wife and children to him, and told them to prepare his shroud and grave, as he had just lost wind, and a Sayad had foretold his death when such an event should happen. His body was wrapped in ten yards of fine white cloth, and taken to the grave, and there left. Now, when the village Moolah was repeating the "jandza " (funeral service) over his grave, he observed that it was not a corpse, but a living man he was bending over. So, when he went home, he told his brother of the weaver's strange conduct, and prepared a little trick, whereby to better himself and cure the poor fool. When night fell, and the weaver was puzzling his head as to 'why death should be so much like life, he was staitled to see POPULAR STORIES, BALLADS ANt) RIDDLES. 207 two ghost-like figures in white approach him, and stand one on each side of his grave. From fear he lay perfectly still. Presently he heard one say to the other, ** This is not a corpse, but a living man." Then the two stooped down and unwound the shroud, and said to the weaver, "We are the angels Nakir and Munkir, sent to examine you ; but, as you g,re not dead, you must forfeit your shroud." Saying which, they departed ; and when the weaver had recovered from his fright, he got u^ and walked home, con- vinced that he must have mistaken the Sayad's meaning. Cash Payment. A money-lender found a weaver, who owed him some money, setting a thorn hedge round his field, and pressed him for pay- ment of his debt. '^-Wait six months, and you shall -have doable what I owe vou," said the weaver. " Sheep will leave their wool in this hedge ; and with their Wool I'll "weave a carpet, and from its proceeds buy a flock of sheep, and become rich in no time," His creditor laughed outright at the absurdity of the calcula- tion. " Ah ! you laugh because it is as good as cash in your pocket," said the simple debtor, as he renewed his bond for double the amount really due. A Foolish Lotee. An old woman had a foolish son, whom she dearly loved. One day she said to him, " My son, you must have a sweetheart, like other young men of your age." " Yes, mother ; but how am I to get one ? " said the son. **0, you' must push and tumble the girl about a little, and then she will .like you," said the old mother, for she had once been young herself, and knew all about it. 208 POPULAR STORIES, BALLADS AND RIDDLES. The boy thought the arrangement very simple, and, going to the well, waited there until the village maidens began to come out for water. The first to arrive was a pretty-looking girl, so he thought she would do as well as any other for a sweetheart. When she was stooping over the well's mouth, he came up behind her and pushed her in. Splash ! guggle ! guggle ! and there was an end of her. Delighted with his love-making, he ran home and told his mother of his success ; but she, instead of praising him, a^ he expected, boxed his ears soundly, and called him an idiot. Now the old woman knew she would have to pay the blood money if her son were discovered, and that he would boast of his love-making all over the village. So she killed a goat and threw it into the well. Next day the girl's parents sought everywhere for their daughter, and the fool, when asked if he had seen her, said, "Yes, of course, she is in the well." He then told his story gleefully, and took the girl's parents to the well. Half the village accompanied them to it, and the fool was sent down to look. Groping about in the water, his hands lighted on the carcase of the goat. "Say, has your daughter got horns and a hairy skin ? " he called out. " Yes," said the father, to humour him. " Then let down a rope, and you shall have her," said the fool. They did so ; and when the goat's body was brought up, the girl's parents and all the village were convinced the boy had lied, and pitied him greatly. [The tale goes on to relate various other misdeeds of the fool, and the devices his mother adopted to divert suspicion from him.] The Leaened Ass. One day a weaver overheard a Moolah say to one of his pupils, " I could teach an ass to read more easily than you." POPULAR STORIES, BALLADS AND RIDDLES. 209 Next day he brought his ass to the learned man's school, and said, " Make a scholar of him, for I have no son." " I don't teach asses," was the answer. " "What a lie ! " answered the weaver. " I heard you tell a boy yesterday you could make a scholar of an ass more easily than of him." ' Seeing the sort of customer he had to deal with, the Moolah consented to take the ass as a pupil ; and, by placing corn between the leaves of an old book, he soon succeeded in making the animal keep his head down, and turn over the pages. When the ass had become a proficient at his lesson, his teacher sent for the weaver, who came in all haste. " Does he know his letters yet ? " was eagerly asked. " Know his letters ! " replied the master ; " I should think he does ; why he is half through the Gtilistdn ! " He then put the old book before his strange pupil, and told the weaver to retire to a little distance ; " for," said he, " if you remain too near, you may disturb your ass at his studies." The delighted weaver then saw his ass turn over leaf after leaf of the book, and open and shut his mouth at a great rate, as if reading to himself, and went home quite satisfied. Next day the Moolah sold the ass. A month or two afterwards its late owner called at the school, and asked if the ass had finished its education yet. "Yes," said tke Moolah, "he is an Akhoond now; and, what is more, is Kazl of this very city." Now the Moolah named the Kazi, because he had an old grudge against him. On hearing this, the weaver was very pleased, and paid down the balance of the stipulated schooling fees. Next day he dressed himself in his best, and taking a grain bag in his hand, went off to the Cutcherry, where the Kazi was administering justice. Holding up the bag, he waved 'it abput before the astonished judge, and called to him as he would to his ass. Thinking the man was crazy, yet dreading a scene before so 14 210 POPULAR STORIES, BALLADS AXD RIDDLES. many spectators, the Kazi called the weaver aside, and asked him what he wanted. The weaver said, " Don't you know me ? I am your master,^' and told him his story. " "Well, well," said the Kazi, to humour him, and get rid of him ; " I was your ass, no doubt; but now you see my condition is so altered, that we must not allow people to suspect it." So saying, he gave the weaver a well-filled purse, and sent him away, promising to keep the secret, proud and happy. No SE:!fSE Xo Weaith. Once upon a time there lived two brothers. The name of . the one was Mahmud, and of the other Ghazi. Mahmiid was rich, married, and henpecked ; but Ghazi was poor and foolish. One day Ghazi was in great straits for money. So he went to his brother, and asked for assistance. Mahmud said he was afraid his wife would scold him if he gave him money before her, but that he would bury a bag containing one hundred rupees uirder a certain tree, and his brother could go next day and dig it up. That same evening Mahmud slipped out of his house while his wife was gossiping at a neighbour's, and deposited the bag of rupees, as he had promised. Next day Ghazi started for the tree, but on the road he happened to say to himself, " I wonder how a blind man finds his way about." And, as there was no one near to tell him, he shut his eyes, and walked on and on until he lost himself. On the following morning he went back to his brother, and repeated his request. Mahmud asked him if he had searched under the tree, as he had been told, and Ghazi said, No, he had forgotten to. " Well, go and do so," said Mahmud. Off went Ghazi, but, whilst he ran, the thought unluckily occurred to him, " IIow does a thief run when chased ? " And, as there was no one near to answer fur him, away he went as POPULAR STORIES, BALI^ADS A^D RIDDLES. 2H hard as his legs would carry him, until he stopped at his own door. "Well," said he to himself, "'there is nothing for it but to dun my brother once more." So back he went to him. This time Mahmiid's patience and temper were exhausted, and he said, " Oh brother ! to whom M'abud (God) gives not. Mahmiid gives not," and turned him away. Tjie SwAti ANT) Famine and CnoLERA. Once upon a time Swat was afflicted with a great famine, and its young men and its old went forth into the surrounding countries to save themselves from death. Amongst others, a youth named Najib Khan, bent his footsteps towards Hin- dustan, having heard of its wealth ; but as he advanced, he found that both Famine and Cholera were desolating the cities of the plains, and that a great fear had fallen upon the land. One night, when tired and hungry, he saw three or four miles in front of him the lights of a large city, and, rejoicing at the sight, quickened his pace, and walked along heedlessly. Suddenly he found himself struggling in a quagmire, and the more he endeavoured to extricate himself, the deeper did he sink. A peasant happened to pass near the spot, and the Swati called out to him in Pashto, imploring him to assist him out. The peasant had a brave lieart, and was not frightened at the strange tongue he heard, but advanced to the edge of the quagmire, and, after satisfjdng himself that the speaker was a man, and not a spirit, stretched out a hand to him. The Swati grasped it, and gave such a tug that he pulled his deliverer into the mud beside himself; and there the two passed a tedious night. Early next mornings as some villagers were trudging along to their fields, their ears were saluted with a "For God's sake, come and release us, whoever you are," in Pashto ; and ihe 213 POPULAR STORIES, BALLADS AND RIDDLES. Hindustani also called out imploringly in his own language, but was so weakened from his night's imprisoiiment that he could not articulate freely. This jargon frightened the villagers, and, abandoning their ploughs, they ran back to the city, rushed breathless into the King's darbdr, crying out that Cholera and Famine were approaching the city, but had fallen out together oh the way, and were squabbling about four miles off. The King, greatly alarmed, ordered his army out, and put himself at their head ; but the troops, however brave against a human enemy, trembled to face spirits, and one by one the soldiers sneaked off, and hid themselves in the trees and hedges by the road-side. Thus the King was left to advance alone, and when he had approached sufficiently near the quagmire to discern the two strange objects moving about in it, he invoked God's name, and, levelling his matchlock, fired at one of them. A yell, a groan, the subsidence of one of the objects in the mud, and a splutter of strange sounds, was the result. The King's first impulse was to flee ; but knowing that the eyes of his people were on him, he, pale as death, cautiously advanced, and said to the remaining object, " In God's name, who art thou? " In broken Hindustani the Swati told him what had befallen him, and that his companion in misfortune had been killed. The King plucked up heart, and getting some of his bravest generals to the front, had the unlucky Swati pulled out, and returned to his city in triumph, when the news soon went forth that the King had killed Cholera, but brought Famine into the city. When the poor Swati entered the city, he was half dead from hunger. So he begged an old man to give him a meal; but eyeing him warily, the old fellow replied, " Knock at the fifth door from this, and say, when your knock is answered, ' I am your lover.' " He did so, and was at once admitted by a young woman; but before he could make his wants known came another rat- POPULAR STORIES, BALLADS AND RIDDLES. 213 tap at the door. On hearing it the pretty house -wife, fearing it was her husband, made her strange guest get into the grain- safe. On opening the door, her true lover entered, and she at once commenced cooking for him some dainty sweetmeats, but again came rat-tap at the door, and the poor woman this time surely recognized the hard knuckles of her old husband, and hastily told her lover to lay himself on top of the safe, which he did. The old husband, on entering, after scolding his wife for keeping him waiting at the door so long, sniffed about, and asked what the savoury smell was. So she replied she was preparing some sweetmeats against his return. Seeing the black-looking object over the grain-safe, he asked what it was. Said she, "A skin of flour I brought from my mother's." When the lollipops were ready, the wife gave her husband some, and slipped into the mouth of the safe half a plate full for the famishing Swati. Putting them all into his mouth at once, he half choked himself, and began to cough. The superincumbent lover, hearing the half-suppressed coughing going on beneath him, put his hand down to feel what it was, and in doing so his finger slid into the hungry Swdti's mouth. The Swati closed his teeth on it, and the lover involuntarily gave a yell of pain. On seeing it was not a snake, but a man in the safe, he abused the Swati roundly. and the Swati him. In his consternation, the old husband rushed out of the house, screaming that Famine and Hunger were there fighting like man and wife ; but his wife, after pacifjang her lover and his supposed rival, turned them out of the house quietly, and ran after her husband. When she had found him, she scolded him for being so silly, saying, " Don't you know it is Friday eve, when the spirits of our parents visit us ? They happened to quarrel as they used to do when in the flesh ; that is all the noise you heard." Satisfied with the explanation, and glad his wife had savel 214 POPULAR STORIES, BALLADS AJfP RIDDLES. him from making a fool of Liraself before his neighbours, he kissed her heartily and returned home. A Waening to Impoktunate Lovebs. It is a true saying that a case in court makes a modest woman bold, and tries human nature sorely ; especially if the" woman be good-looking, and the judge sportive. Thus it befell a poor d3'er's pretty wife, named Fatima, that in a lawsuit of her husband's, the city Kutwdl (Chief Con- stable), the Kazi, the Vizier, and the King himself, all became personally acquainted with her, and, smitten with her charms, each urged his suit privately, unknown to his rivals, promising to use his influence in her favour if she would but grant him a meeting. Fatima, distracted with so many importunate lovers, and caring not a button about any of them, and, moreover, being a skittish young woman, who enjoj'ed a good joke, determined to play them off on each other, and appointed a meeting with all four on a certain night at her own home. As arranged, the ICuficdl was the first to come ; and, being admitted, found his lovely Fatima busy over the fire, cooking something savoury in a pot. " Ha ! ha ! " said the impatient lover, " what an appetizing smell ! But drop j'our ladle now, my dear, and come to my arms." " Patience, patience," said Fatima, playfully spilling a little of the boiling treacle from the ladle on his knees; "the night is lorfg, and supper nearly ready." Whilst the poor Kutwdl was rubbing his scalded knees woe- fully, and thinking that his best silk pahjdmahs would be .spoiled by the stain, tap-a-tap-tap sounded at the outer door. " Mj' husband ! " exclaimed Fatima. " The Holy Prophet! " cried the Kutwdl, wringing his hands ^ "Oh! what shall I do?" POPULAR STORIES, BALLADS AND RIDDLES. 215 " Here, throw my mother's sheet over you, and sit down in that dark corner, and grind some wheat in the hand-mill," said the ready Fatima. As the upper mill-stone began to fly round, Fatima opened the door, and let in the Kazi, dressed, oiled, and scented like a bridegroom. " See, I have prepared some sweets for you," said she inno- cently. " Oh, confound the sweets," said he ; " you are my sweets ; but who is the old woman in the corner ? " " My aunt," said she, " she is deaf and half blind, so never mind her." Burr-ur-ur went the hand-mill, quicker than ever. Just at that moment tap-tap sounded at the door. " My husband ! " exclaimed she. "My justice as a judge will be impugned," cried thp Kazi, " if I am discovered. Oh dear ! Oh dear ! " " Kneel down, stupid, in that corner, and I'll throw a skin over you, and put the lamp on your back, and you will' never be seen," said she, bustling about. No soonier said than done, when in walked the courtly Vizier. " How nicely the light is arranged for a love meeting," he said insinuatingly, rubbing his fat old hands together. At that moment a quick double knock sounded at the door. " Gpd and the Prophet ! Should this come to the King's ears, ray character will be lost," said he nervously. " No fear," said she, " it is only my husband, he will be gone in a moment. Kneel down beside the cow, in the dark end of the house, and pretend to crop hay like she does." The Vizier had barely done so when the King walked in, disguised like a sepoy. " Now my fair Fatima," said he gallantly, putting his arm round her waist, ^' here I am' at last; but there is little time to spare." " Patience, patience, your majesty; you squeeze too tight," said Fatima, breathless from the royal hug. ' Just tben the 21G POrVLAU STORIES, BALLADS AND HIDDLES. rally morning cock proclaimed the dawn, and the Moolah's call to pia^ors sounded from a neighbouring mosque. Tlie King started at the sound, but, composing himself again, said, '■ Quick, you little baggage, love me quick ; why did you appoint such an hour as this ? " " Sire," said she, " ask her in the corner," pointing to where the Kuticdl was grinding away at the wheat. Whilst his niajesty, who was rather short-sighted, was poking about in the corner, Fatima quietly slipped out of tlie house, and locked her lovers in ; then tripped off to summon her neighbours. When the King saw the pretended old woman, he screamed in her ear, " Who are you?" But the old creature said never a word. Getting into a rage at her silence, he pulled her sheet violently, when up she jumped, and the Kutwdl stood revealed. "You profligate! " said his sovereign with severity, recovering his presence of mind when he saw who the trembling culprit was ; " explain yourself! " The poor Kitlndl, speechless from fright, pointed to the stand from which tlie exi)iring lamp cast its feeble light around. The King apinoached it, when the Kazi, throwing down the lamp, stood forth, a portly puffing figure. "And is it thou, my chief magistrate? how is this, sir?" said the King crushingly. The Kazi, the small of whose back was aching from the constrained position he had been in for the last two hours, pointed to the part of the house where Fatima's cow was stalled. As tlu^ ^'^iiio turned his e3^es in that direction, he was astonished to see an object — as of an over-fed calf — slowly rise up from the litter, and advance towards him. As it came nearer, he recognized the well-known outline of his favourite minister, and, drawing himself up, asked him majestically, " And is this thy boasted austerity, Oh Vizier ? " POPULAR STORIES, BALLADS AND RIDDLES. 217 The Vizier, who took in the whole situation at a glance, answered with mock humility, and suggested that, as it was broad daylight, they had better get home as quickly and quietly as possible. But when they tried the door, they found that they were shut in. And 80 it came to pass that they were all four exposed, and pretty little Fatima got justice done her, without sacrificing her honour to obtain it. CLASS III.— FABLES. The Blrd and the Peasant. An old rustic and his family were resting under a tree, when a large game bird came and settled in it. The rustic, on seeing this, told his wife to clean the cooking pot, and his son to fetch sticks for a fire, and himself prepared his bow, wherewith to shoot the bird. Such extensive arrangements Toused the bird to his own danger, and he felt with so many enemies all working together for his destruction, he could not escape. In his fright he addressed the old man in a deprecating voice. " Hunter, would you rather kill me and fill your belly once with my flesh, or have the means to fill it every day ? " The old man put down his bow, and answered as any sensible father would. On which the bird said, " Well, dig under this tree, and you will find some buried treasure." Father, mothet, and son all did so, and found a jar of ashrafis. Overjoyed at this good fortune, they returned home, and told their adventure to every one. One of the old man's neighbours soon after started off with his wife and children to try his luck in the same way. Seeing the bird in the tree, he told his wife to get the cooking pot 218 POP UZAR STORIES, BALLADS AND RIDDLES. ready, but the old woman said, " Nay, shoot your game first." And his boys, when told to collect firewood, replied in the same strain, " Father, kill the bird first." On seeing such a want of union amongst his enemies, the bird gathered heart and flew off. The Jackal and the Judgment Dat. Some villagers caught a jackal, and were disputing among themselves whether to kill him with a knife or let the dogs tear him to pieces. The jackal said to them, " If you kill me, the judgment day will come." On which all in great fear agreed to let him go. On getting to a little distance, the jackal shook himself and sat down, and the villagers called out to him to speak the truth now that he was free, and no evil consequence could fall on him from doing so. The jackal laughed, and said, " I spoke truly, for had you killed me, it would have been my 'judgment day.' " He then trotted off. The Camel and the Goat. A camel and goat were feeding off a small rare bush, of which both were very fond, and the goat, seeing that there would be soon nothing left for him, as the camel ate so fast, looked up and said, "Friend, tell me all about your father's death." The foolish camel described the sad event in great detail, and when he had finished, discovered the object of the question, and, in order to secure the last mouthful of his favourite food to himself, said to the goat, "Now tell me how yojir father died." "Of old age," said tl\e goat, as he nibbled at the last leaves of the bush. POPULAR STORIES, BALLADS AND RIDDLES. 219 The Hedgehog's Reasoning. Some one gave King Solomon a jar containing the water of life. So the wise monarch, undetermined whether to drink it or not, summoned the beasts of the field and. the birds of the air to a council. When all were assembled, it was found that the hedgehog was absent, and the horse was sent to fetch him, but returned without him. So the hawk was sent, but he also returned, and said he had failed to persuade the hedgehog to come. On that the dog was sent, and the hedgehog came readily with him. The King was wroth, and asked the hedgehog why he had slighted the invitation when conveyed by such honourable messengers as the horse and hawk, and came at the call of an unclean dog. The hedgehog replied, " Oh King ! the horse is a faithless animal, for he serves an enemy as willingly as he does a friend ; and the hawk is the same, for he obeys whoever feeds him. Bat the dog is faithful, for he never leaves his master, though he beat him and turn him out of doors ; therefore I came with the dog." The King was struck with the logic of this reply, and asked thef hedgehog his opinion about drinking the water of life. " Sire," was the answer, " don't ; for if you do, you will be- come everlastingly old and miserable, a plague to yourself and your descendants." On that the King upset the jar, following the advice of the humble hedgehog in preference to that of the others. The Alligator and Jackal. An alligator and jackal were great friends, much to the distress of Mrs. Alligator, who found herself slighted by her infatuated husband. Revolving a remedy in her mind, she feigned illness, and for a long time refused to tell her anxious 220 TOPULAR STORIES, BALLADS AND RIDDLES. husband what was the matter. At last one day she told him that the remedy wasTieyond his reach, so she must die. " But say at least what it is," said Mr. Alligator. "Ah, wein it is a jackal's heart," replied his sick wife. The alligator told his wife to cheer up, and went off to his friend the jackal, and invited him to go a walk with him across the river. " But I can't swim," said the jackal. "Never mind, I'll carry you across on my snout," said his friend. So they started. When they got into the middle of the river, the jackal trembled from fear, and asked the alligator if there was no danger ; on which the alligator replied that he was going to kill him, in order to give his heart to his wife. The jackal laughed, and said, " Oh you fool ! I left my heart behind me on the bank. Take me back if you want it." The simple alligator did so ; and when the jackal touched the dry land, he ran off to the jungle, and never again made friends with an alligator. TuE Paktridge and the Jackal. A partridge and a jackal were great friends. When walking together one day, the jackal said to his friend, " Do something to make me laugh." The bird said "All right!" And soon after, seeing four peasants walking along the road in single file, she lighted on the liead of the foremost, on which his nearest companion aimed a blow at her with his stick, but she nimbly hopped on to his own head, so the blow descended on the turban of No. 1. At the same moment No. 2 felt his cranium tapped pretty sharply by No. 3, and immediately afterwards No. 3 felt his struck in the same way, for the sly little partridge hopped from one head to the other just as the death- dealing stick was descending, and, finally leaving the peasants fighting POPULAR STORIES, BALLADS AND RIDDLES. 221 together, flew off to her friend, who enjoyed the joke im- mensely. A little while later the jackal felt hungry, and siiid to the partridge, " Now give me a dinner." " Very good," said she, good-naturedly ; and, seeing a little boy carrying on his head a bowl of milk and some cakes to his father, who was a-field, she hopped along just out of his reach in front of him. The boy set down his load, and tried to catch the tantalizing little bird, while the jackal quietly lapped up the milk, and carried off the cakes to munch quietly away from the road. The partridge, having played with the boy long enough for her purpose, flew back to her friend. "Bravo !•" cried the jackal, " now make me cry." " All right," said the partridge, " I will, with a vengeance," for her dignity was offended at her being treated more like a servant than a friend. A little further on they heard dogs barking, so the partridge flew on, and, fluttering over their heads, led them in full cry towards the place where she had left her friend. The jackal, having just dined, felt sleepy, and anything but inclined to run, but life is dear to all, and away he went, inwardly cursing his own folly, and vowing vengeance on his little tormentor. After a long run, when nearly exhausted, a friendly hole saved him from the teeth of his pursuers. The Two Snakes. Two snakes lived in a forest. The one had one head and one hundred tails, the other had one hundred heads and one tail. The forest caught fire, and the former escaped easily, for all the tails assisted ; but the latter was burnt to death, for each head insisted in escaping in an opposite direction. The Wolf and the Jackal. A wolf and a jackal used to hunt together, but the jackal 222 POPULAR STORIES, BALLADS AND RIDDLES. would prudently remain squatted at a little distance whilst his friend was actually tackling his quarry. One day the wolf came upon a kid, a little way outside a village, and when about to kill it, the little animal said, " If you let me sing you a song before I die, you will eat me with the greater gusto." *' Sing away," said the wolf magnanimously. Whereon the kid began to bleat plaintively, and the village dogs were roused, so away bolted the wolf. "When telling his friend what had occurred, the jackal taunted him : " Were either your father or grandfather fond of music, that you should begin to like it ? " Next day this worthy pair ran down an ass. "Ah!"" said the victim to the wolf, " let me at least teach you something before I die. Jump on my back, and learn to ride ; when 3'ou have learqt, you can kill me." The wolf did so, and the ass set oflf towards the village at full gallop, with the wolf in a great fright holding on as best he could ; but when, all of a sudden, the sticks of the villagers began raining on his back, lie discovered his folly only in time to save his skin. Again the jackal, wroth 'at losing a supper, sneered at him for not following the good old ways of his ancestors. Next day an aged camel was run down. " Read but the amulet written on my breast, by which your game shall always be secured to you, and I'll die content," whined the old creature.' The wolf advanced between his fore legs, and began peering upwards, wlieu the camel threw himself forward on him and crushed him to death. Cock vebstjs Fox. A dog and a cock were great friends. One day the dog pro- posed to liis friend that they should go out hunting together, and the cock said, " All right ; but you must be sure to be POPULAR STORIES, BALLADS AND RIDDLES. 223 home by nightfall, as you know I get blind as soon as the sun sets." " Agreed," said the dog. So off they started,- and hunted all day, but got nothing. The shades of evening fell before they reached home, and Chanticleer, as usual, lost his eyesight. His friend essayed in vain to carry him ; but at last gave up in despair, and told him to mount on to a tree, "When he had seen the cock safely settled on a branch, the dog said he would run over to a village, which was near, and try and procure some supper. During his absence Chanticleer went to sleep, and yi^hen he waked he crowed loudly, after the Ijianner of cocks, supposing it must be near dawn. A sly little fox heard the call, and, running to the foot of the tree, looked up and said, " Come down, oh Akhoond ! and we'll pray." For he hoped, by flattering master Chanticleer, to have a dainty meal. " Wait a bit for the rest of the congregation," said the cock, inwardly longing for his friend the dog to come and gobble up the fox. After a time, when the true dawn appeared, the cock, from the force of habit, gave a prolonged shrill crow. " Come down quick," said Reynard, getting impatient, " or you will be late for morning prayers." " I'll come in a moment," said Chanticleer, " when I have cleared my throat," crowing as loud as he could, to attract the dog, whom he saw at a distance approaching them leisurely. A minute more and Reynard saw the dog too, so he began to move off. " Don't go yet," cried Chanticleer, " here is another member of the congregation coming." "Ah I " said Reynard, " very good ; I'll just go and perform my ablutions first." And away he ran, and the dog in full cry after him.- 224 POPULAR STORIES, BALLADS AND RIDDLES. MARWAT BALLADS. 1. — The Coxquivst of ^Iarwat by the Xawab of Mankera. About fifty-seven years ago, Abezur Khan, grandfather of ArzuUah Khan, the present chief of the Isakhels, over- powered his rival, Nawaz Khan, grandfather of Khan Mir Khan, the present chief of the Begu Khels ; whereupon the latter, with a remnant of his party, after first unsuccessfully invoking aid from Khan Sarwar Khan, Nawab of Tank, went to the Mankera Xawab, who despatched an army to his assist- ance, under Miinak Rai, his Hindoo Chancellor. A pitched battle was fought, at a place called Lagharwah, in which Abezar Khan was defeated with great slaghter. The Nawab then seized Marwat f(jr himself. A "didti " named Jarasi, the local poet-laureate of the time, celebrated the sad event in a ballad, which i> still sung all over Marwat. His grandson, 3Iuharamad Nur, chanted it before rac and a large assemblage of greybeards on a cold night early in February, 1874. We all sat in a circle round a great log fire. The audience were at first grave and silent ; but soon carried away by the wild, sweet, though rather monotonous strain, began to nod their heads in time, as it rose and fell on their ears ; and, when the singer repeated the names, and told of the brave deeds of those who had fallen in the fight, as each name was uttered, some old men would heave a deep sigh, exclaiming aloud, "Ah! that was so-and-so's father, what a man he was ! " It was a very real and aiFecting enterta "iment, which brought back old times vividly to the minds of the Marwats, bridging the gulf of years in a minute, and afibrded me a glimpse into the country as it was two gen^ations ago. It may be said of Jarasi — The last of all the bards was he, Who sung of Marwat chivalry. POPULAR STORIES, BALLADS AND RIDDLES. 225 For with him ended the days of chivalry, and the class of min- f strel poets to which he belonged. Many fears crowded round my heart. What a moment of grief it was ! The Dreplaris had held council together. They would not leave Nawaz alone. They drove hiin forth from spite. Where were the companions of Nawaz? They assembled to- gether. [Here follows a list of his chief partisans.] When they had mounted and started, they joined Nawaz Midad Khel with themselves. From this place they marched and hastened to Khan Sarwar. Xhey said, " Khan ! to-day adversity has beset us ; Stretch forth thy hand over us, befriend us ! " The Khan said, " Ye erring men ! I make not war. Here in my castle I fear the strength of united Marwdt." When the Khan dismissed them, they mounted — Fine youths they were — and went to Derah. Manki said, " Go, Nawaz, and bow down before the Nawab." God and the pure Prophet were his escort on the way. Afterwards Hafiz Ahmad gave him a great array. ***** He dragged the guns and zainburaks ^ from Mankera. When he came to Bluch,^ the zamburalcs were discharged. Here a council of all the Marwats was held. At Pezu is their rcndczL'ous, there they collect from all quarters. When the enemy came to Tang, the Marwats heard of it. United Marwats marched against them in battle array, And pitched their black tents at Khan Safi. 1 The zamhurak is a smuU kind of cannon carried by a camel. '^ Pani^a, a village near the fout of IShekhbiulin, ou its Derail Ismail Khan side. 15 226 POPULAR STORIES, BALLADS AND RIDDLES. "When the enemy came to Lagharw4h, the roar of their zambu- raks was heard. Next forenoon the armies spread out in line. Manki said, " Nawaz, look on ; I will join battle first." Fine are the warriors of Isdkhel ; when do they separate from each other ? They mounted on to the guns, shoulder to shoulder — Whether it was Bir or Gulbaz, each was raging with a flashing blade. At their hearths they had sworn, " When shall we go back ? — Never ! " This time the Marwat horsemen did nothing in the field. They left the foot, and carried themselves ofi" in all directions. They (the enemy) slaughtered the Marwats, and hid the living in the dead. Many Marwats they slew — even to Skandara the sweeper ! « « « • « [Here follow lists of the slain and praises of their beauty and prowess] Up in Darzai they made Soudala's house a bare plain. Soudala weeps. Both his eyes they made blind. Oh Gul Rang, son of Baz Gul ! thou hast sufiered terrible things. The flowers of Spring are withered up : strange deeds are wrought. * ' • • * • See ! He (Manak Rai) has let loose harrying parties every- where. He plunders — he is a tyrant — he does not even ask, " Who art thou ? " Though the others were plundered, they made a fight first. Fools were the Tdjozais, they neither went nor hid : They were looted without fault. Their boat was ill fated. Manki said, " Marwat have I plundered entirely. I will demand one rupee more than twenty thousand ; Nor will a grain be lessened ; nay, I shall take more." POPULAR STORIES, BALLADS AND RIDDLES 227 2. — The Maewats' RiJD ixto IsAKHtL. This ballad, of whicli a fragment only remains, was composed about one hundred and twenty* years ago, to celebrate a suc- cessful foray of the Marwats into Tama (Isakh^l) against the Nidzis, whose chief settlements at the mouth of the Kurm they burnt : " The Marwats and Niazis are at war," A boy called out beside me. ♦ * * ♦ * . " On the west of the Tanga fine dust has risen," A Marwat shouts — a long deep halloo. The Marwats had strength — they heeded not the drum. Before early afternoon prayers they had prepared their army ; Before late afternoon prayers fires blazed in Tama. ♦ ♦ ♦ * ♦ "The Marwat swords^ are flashing, come forth from your shelter. B^gii, son of Hdthi Khan, is upon you." Isakki brought home a white beard and a red sword ; In the field he swooped like a falcon. Amongst the Dilkhozais was Atal, a brave warrior : He brought back a spear broken in the (enemy's) breast. Kalandar, son of Mamiit, is the star of the morning ; With one thrust he made such havoc with his spear That the Adamzais were sacrifices to it. ♦ * ♦ ♦ . •» The fire of the Niazis blazed like burning faggots j The Marwats rushed into it like blind men. «»♦**, For a man self-praise is unlawful. But the clothes of Shekhi, my brother,^ were reddened with blood. Who was looking ? ^ The women of the Is&kh61s are the speakers. They are supposed to be trying to rouse their men to fight. * The poet is the speaker. 228 POPULAR STORIES, BALLADS AJW RIDDLES. 3. — Sikhs Defeated by DilAsa Khan. As was mentioned in Part I. Chapter II., Dilasa Khan Bannuchi, some years before Edwardes first came to Bannu, repulsed with considerable loss a large Sikh force, which was besieging his village fort, and thus gained for himself undying ^ fame. I give here some lines from the ballad celebrating his victory, which is still popular amongst Bannuchis and Marwats, to show the deep-rooted fanaticism of the people. In the opening verses, the Sikhs are represented as boasting of their conquest of the valley; and first threatening Dilasa Khan with quick destruction should he not submit, and then, finding him obstinate, making tempting promises to him. The " Ghdzi Dilasa " taunts them as " Kafirs," and replies : " Countries are of no use to me : If I am martyred, God will give me paradise. All the world is fleeting, as we are bom from earth." The Sikh force came and pitched against Dilasa. Day and night, oh friends ! they foixght without ceasing. 'Twas a great earthquake. Boys and girls were kept awake. Thanks be to God that Dilasa came out with honour. He fought with the infidels, he became a ghdzi. All the people praise him ; from sins he has been cleansed. The Houris of Paradise have made him their own — 'tis a truth from the Book. He put the Sikhs to flight. Where will they flee religionless ? RIDDLES. A common amusement amongst Pathans is the asking and answering of riddles. I give below literal translations of several, as specimens of this style of composition : 1. I h^ve counted the spots on the King's face — they are eight; If a man omits one, he breaks his faith. Behold the five spots, which he has marked on his forehea'd ; POPULAR STORIES, BALLADS AND RIDDLES. 229 Both the blind and the seeing must observe them. Behold, too, his three other spots on the point of his chin ; The poor are debarred from their sight, but the rich see them. Answer. The King is the Prophet, who is often spoken of as Shdh-i-Arab. The five spots on the forehead typify the five times of prayer, which all Muhammadans must observe, and those on' the chin zakdt (tithes), hqj (pilgrimage to Mecca), and khairdt (alms). 2. From above came a red eye, A full eye steeped in blood : If I eat it, I become an infidel ; If I don't, I fall sick. Answer. The " red eye " is the new moon of Bamzan, the Muhammadan Lent ; the moon's disc being often spoken of as " stirga," " an eye," and as it is first visible in the ruddy glow of sunset, it often appears " steeped in blood." When a man breaks the fast, by the strict observance of which millions in Asia are annually brought to death's door, and thousands to death itself, he is said " to eat the Ramzan." 3. It has neither mouth, nor teeth, nor head, nor bowels ; Yet it eats its food steadily. It has neither village, nor home, nor hands, nor feet ; Yet it wanders everywhere, It has neither country, nor means, nor ofl&ce, nor pen ; Yet 'tis ready for fight always. By day and night is there wr.iling about it. It has no breath ; yet to all will it appear. Answer. Death. 4. It issues from an orifice and enters one ; Eyes neither see it nor hand catches it ; Sometimes it becomes a rose of the garden ; Sometimes it falls like a thunder-bolt. A nswer. A word. 230 POPULAR STORIES, BALLADS AND RIDDLES. />. 'Tis not on earth, nor yet in heaven ; 'Tis not man, nor animal ; On a soft place is its home ; Every one wonders at it. Armoer. A boat. 6. "Without wings or bones it flutters like a bird, Fair maids rejoice at it. Its song causes gladness. It spins round like a dancer. Ignorant man knows it not. Answer. A spinning-wheel. 7. Like a staff in look, it seems a flag. On its loin is its pouch. 'Tis ready for battle. Annwer. Kjwdr stalk ripe for the sickle. 8. Its head is in man ; its middle in the ox ; its end in the ground. Ansicer. A wheat stalk. U. 'Tis rubbed on stone ; its food is on the forehead ; its home is in wood. A)wrer. A razor. 10. From the living a corpse is born : Living it leaves its corpse, and its corpse is broken in two. Ansiccr. An egg — then a chicken. 231 CHAPTER III. PASHTO PROVERBS TRANSLATED INTO ENGLISH. We all of us know what a proverb is and ought to contain, but few of us could, without much thought, define our concep- tion of it. A definition is difiicult at all times ; but in this particular case it is specially so, as many sayings hover on the border-land between proverbs, aphorisms or moral precepts, and fables, so doubtful is the boundary-line between them. The subjoined collection of sentences — :which I venture to call proverbs — are almost all supposed popular truisms, so epigrammatically expressed as to have become household words amongst the people. This is the shortest, but, at the same time, widest and truest definition of the term " proverb," which has occurred to me. Until the thought of a community on some social subject, which has been felicitously called " the wisdom of many," has been condensed and dressed by the " wit of one," or of the few, into a bright brief sentence, the seedling has not been planted ; and, until that seedling has taken firm root, and grown up into a great tree, familiar to all within a wide radius of its birthplace, it cannot become a proverb. To attain such honourable distinction, then, a saying, no matter how much of ** shortness, sense, and salt " it may contain, re- 232 PASHTO PROVERBS TRANSLATED INTO. ENOLTSff. quires the sanction of popularity ; and,, to secure such general acceptation, it ought to be conveyed in simple language, yet with a certain amount of sparkle and jingle about jt so that, like a popular tune, it may tickle the ear of the multitude, and obtain an abiding place in their hearts. With this end in view, rhyme, rhythm, alliteration, metaphor, and hyperbole have all been liberally indented on in proverbial manufacture. The essentiality of "the three s's," as "shortness, sense, and salt " have been termed, and of popularity, is universally true of all good proverbs in all countries, and in all languages. Let us suppose a man ambitious of having it recorded oi Sis tombstone, " P.S. He made a proverb," all he haa to do, and mighty easy it is, is to take as his ingredients the said " three s's " and mix them judiciously and well. Having done so, he can do no more, but the rub has still to come, for unless the public take the dose readily and pleasurabh^ no amount of puffing or persuasion can force it into their mouths. The earliest popular Book of Proverbs is, I suppose, that commonly ascribed to King Solomon. Since his time, millions of new proverbs have sprung up. had their day, and disap- peared, and millions are now existent, some old, some new ; and the more the proverbs of different nations are compared to- gether, the closer does the similarity of ideas on a numerous class of subjects appear, but of this more presently. This collection is the first yet attempted of Pashto proverbs, and, being the first, is necessarily very imperfect ; but it con- tains specimens of prevailing Pathan opinions on aU important social topics, and as such I trust it will be found valuable. It would have been easy to obtain many hundreds more, and in fawjt several hundreds were rejected, as being grossly indecent, wanting popular sanction, literal and recent translations from another language, or sayings already recorded in a slightly altered dress. Every endeavour has been made to exclude sayings evidently derived from the Persian or, Arabic, but I have admitted them in cases where the derivation appeared PASHTO PROVERBS TRANSLATED INTO ENGLISH. 233 doubtful, or the saying was so common that to exclude it simply for want of originality would have been ridiculous. I conceive that what is wanted in a collection of this sort is to obtain an insight into a people's hidden thoughts on their own social condition, and we can best do so by studying them from their expressed thoughts, which, in the shape here given below, cannot lie. Every race of man, from the highest to the lowest in the intellectual scale, whose language is sufficiently copious and flexible, must have numerous proverbs, which are un- written and unconscious self-criticisms, accessible to all the world. Through them the innermost secrets of the brain can be exposed as plainly as the physical secrets of the brain can be laid bare , by the dissecting knife. A knowledge of the pro- verbs current amongst uncivilized races is, therefore invaluable for the purpose of elucidating their thoughts and feelings. But, in drawing our conclusions from them as to a people's social and intellectual status, we must not forget that as it is the leaders of public opinion who either invent or first give cur- rency to a proverb, so the higher-toned proverbs of a people are in advance of their moral condition, and represent rather what their "best selves" would have them be and do, than yrh&t they are and do. Where antagonistic proverbs on the same subject are found, some refined and ennobling, others coarse and debasing, the latter will, in most cases, more truly represent popular opinion — that is, the opinion of the masses — than the former. Most of those given below were collected slowly and laboriously, between the autumn of 1872 and the hot weather of 1874 ; but, with the exception of those under the headings of Husbandry, Class and Local, they are not all familiar amongst the peasantry of the Trans-Indus portions of the District, as some were obtained from Peshawar, Khost, and the Khatak hills, and some are only current over ;i very cir- cumscribed area. Nor must it be supposed t]i:ii most of them are only known in this District. If the genesis and method of circulation of a proverb be examined, witli reference to the 234 PASETO PROVERBS TRANSLATED INTO ENGLISH. minds of those who speak them, the reason why many of the classes, which may be styled ethical and cynical, should be almost universally known, will be manifest. Though mankind is divided into many races, some of which have neither ap- parent connexion in speech or descent from common parents, nor any sort of intercourse together, yet the Creator has made " the whole world kin," by endowing all men with like minds and passions. And the thoughtful of all races— except perhaps the very lowest in the scale, of the working of whose minds we as yet know little, be they white or black, Aryan or Semitic, civilized or savage — have long since, by the aid of the teachings of exj^erience, arrived at similar conclusions on the various feel- ings and inftaefices whjch govern the actions of their fellows, and on the wiiole allow tOt each conclusion the same weight. The mainsprings of action Jbeing similarly judged, the amount of honour or shame attachable to any particular act, although depending to some extent on the degree of each people's en- lightenment, is also, in the case of many instincts and attri- butes, estimated alike. Thus we find that amongst most peoples, whose languages have yet been studied, proverbs relating to the passions, bravery and cowardice, goodness and wickedness, wisdom and foolishness, the weakness of women, the deceit of man, and other cognate classes, have a strong family resemblance. Pathans no doubt contrast less with Englishmen than many other races, yet the gulf between them is sufficiently wide to leave room for surprise at the similarity in meaning of many of the proverbial sayings current in their respective tongues. No other reasonable explanation than that indicated above can, I think, be oflfered for the remarkable parallelism between the proverbs of difierent countries. It may be contended that proverbs on .such subjects as are in harmony with the fixed belief of the vast majority of mankind (such as the influence and effect of the passions, the uncertainty of life, the existence of a Supreme Being) spread from one centre. But though no PASHTO PROVERBS TRANSLATED INTO ENGLISH. 235 doubt some few have thus obtained an almost universal circu- lation, such a hypothesis cannot be entertained for a moment in respect to the large number of analogous proverbs which eicist in all languages of which we have knowledge; and we must fall back on the theory that their genesis is to be accounted for by the common but independent experience of different minds. So great is the antiquity of proverbs of the description to which I have been referring that few can be traced back to their origin. It may be said of them that they have been for centuries the heirlooms of the whole human race. Still, considering the separate generation theory as the true one (although, by the way, during the Crusades, there must have been a considerable interchange of thought as well as blows between Christians and Musalmans), and applying it in the pre- sent case, we. are confronted by a new difficulty, which is this. The Pathans, being what they are, it is unlikely that they were themselves the creators of all their finer proverbs, for there are in some of them a delicacy of expression, and a subtle know- ledge of the finer workings of the human heart — points whose depth and force are but feebly conveyed in my traijslations — which induce the conclusion that they are the productions of educated minds. Whence then came they? No doubt the thoughts were here — rude and cumbrous, but still articulate — but it could not have been until some stranger — some wandering minstrel, returning pilgrim, or holy sayad or akhoond fresh from the Western schools of learning — had, with the practised touch of the skilful artist, reduced the loose, struggling utter- ance into shape, that any of them received the epigrammatic pointedness which converted a popular truism into a proverb. In the process, the sayings of other tribes were either repro- duced bodily, OT with some slight but necessary alterations suitable to the special condition of the particular tribe. In support of this theory, I may mention that when I had fairly exhausted the proverbs of the Pathans him worthless as earth. 7. When a man grows old, every illness is ready for him. POVERTY. About one-half the sayings on this subject come from Marwat, and their grim simple humour is admirable. None knows better than a poor Marwat what poverty means ; but as "poverty is the mother of health," his stalwart frame and buoyant dis- position enable him to bear up against it. Of the other half, some have their origin amongst the Bannuchis, Khataks, or Wazirs, but most are widely known, and to assign any particular tribe or locaUty as their source is impossible. 334 PASHTO PROVERBS TRANSLATED INTO ENGLISH. 1. On a poor priest's call (to prayer) no one repeats the creed even. A poor man is disregarded, even should he remind us of our bounden duty. 2. In a poor man^s hand a quarter-cake looks a whole one. 3. empty hand ! thou art mine enemy. Poverty or want of a patron has been the ruin of many a good man. 4. The bald-headed man has not a single hair on his head, nor does he require any one (to dress his hair). That is, a poor man is his own master; no one interferes with him, nor he with any one. 5. The ass carries the load, the potter's seat aches. The strong and rich make much of slight inconveniences, forgetful of the real grievances and hardships of those under them. 6. Though for others it is the evening of the Eed, it is that same night for the poor. That is, Christmas-eve is like any other eve to the poor. 7. To-day poor, always poor. 8. Poverty is a pure sovereignty, the rich man knows not of its delights. A poor man has only one care, namely, how to fill his belly, but a rich man has many. 9. Be damned, debt ! thou who turnest a n(ian out of house and home. 10. The ass's bray is doleful, (because) his portion is small. 11. When God makes a man poor, he (the poor man) cooks twice in the day-time. PASHTO PROVERBS TRANSLATED INTO ENGLISH. 335 A Muhammadan generally cooks and eats once after sunset, and once an hour or two after sunrise ; thus he only cooks once in the day-time. The meaning of the proverb is that God in the case put increases the man's daily expenditure, and thus beggars him. 12. The old lady had just as much ghi as was spent on her head. That is, hardly enough for her own use. Means that the poor have to struggle hard to live, so don't ask them to assist others. 13. Poor fellow ! one of your eyes is black, one white. A man who could only afford antimony for one of his eyes is spoken to. Meaning is, that a poor man can com- plete nothing he commences, if an outlay is involved in -it. 14. Oh, that I be not poor, or (if so), be not wise ! That is, know not of the pleasure of being well off. " Where ignorance is bliss," etc., etc. 15. Though I am poor, I am not such a wretch as to steal a traveller's scrips. That is, a man may be a bit of a scamp ; still, he will not be dead to all sense of shame. 16. Had the jackal possessed sandals of his own, he would not have stolen those of a stranger. This is the proverb a thief would use who alleges in his de- fence he was driven to steal from poverty, which 'is after all the cause of most thefts. 17. There is none more miserable than a debtor. "We say, "He who oweth is always in the wrong; " also, " Who goes a-borrowing goes a-sorrowing." 18. If you have not a purse (literally " knot ") of your own, you will sit before another with parched lips. That is, there is nothing for nothing in this world. Purses 336 PASBTO PROVERBS TRANSLATED INTO ENGllSH, being little used, money is carried knotted up in the corner of the wearer's plaid or turban ; consequently a man who has no knot in his clothes will probably have no money about him. 19. See the cotton cloth in the Hindoo's shop and my mother's naked staring poverty (literally " day"). This is a Marwat saying. A Marwat's idea of wealth is a Hindoo's shop well stocked with cotton piece goods. 20. A poor wretch is nobody's son or brother. 21. The slave-girl sleeps where it is warm. 22. The day-labourer is far from God. He is a poor wretch, working to keep himself alive, and does as little as he can, cheats both God and his master, by giving the former short prayers and the latter short work. 23. What is a long tramp to a sweeper? (To put) basket on head and call liis dog. Means that a poor man is alwa}"^ ready. 24. The food of the poor is cooked with patience. 25. The rich man's dog always tears to pieces the poor man's kid. 26. The poor man longs for a cheap market, and at one turn wears out two shirts. That is, he buys his clothes " cheap and nasty," and in the time one shirt ought to be worn out, has worn through two. 27. P6or in men poor in bones, i.e. strength. The man who has not many relations, be he himself never so strong, is weak and powerless. Amongst the AVazirs the law of survival of the fittest is illustrated, for once a family or clan gets much reduced in nimibers, PASHTO PROVERBS TRANSLATED INTO ENGLISH. 337 sooner or later they disappear, through blood feuds and the greed of stronger families to possess themselves of their lands. The maxim, " one man no m^n," is true everywhere, for what person or party succeeds except by being " strong in men " ? " Interest " might be defined " strength in men." 28. The poor have two faults : when they eat little, it is said their throats are small ; when they eat largely, it is said they have seen nothing [i.e. not seen food for long). That is, whatever they do, they are found fault with. 29. Though the country become porridge, the poor man's (share) is a spoonful. That is, from the general prosperity he would not benefit, possessing no land. This is a Marwat saying. 30. The camel is for sale at one farthing; true, but as I don't possess a farthing, what can I do ? A bargain is no bargain to a man who can't afford to buy it. " Quod non opus est asse carum est." 31. The cattle of the poor graze on the border. On the border they are liable to be carried off by hill- robbers; and when that happens, their owners are liable to fine should it be found the number of armed men in charge of them was under the prescribed number. This is a Marwat saying. 32. Poverty is no crime, but theft and adultery are. 33. The prick of a needle in a cat's head is plenty. A little punishment is enough for a poor or weak man. 34. One Bahlol, one his bowl. Applied many ways, e.g. to remind one of the vicissitudes of life, or- that poverty and contentment are com- patible, for "man wants little here below." Bahlol, I am told, was once King of Balkh, and abdicated in 22 338 PASHTO PROVERBS TRANSLATED INTO ENGLISH. favour of his brother, being afraid of the account he should have to give after death. Becoming a fakeer, he gave up everything he possessed, except his kach k6l, or bowl-of-all-work, which he retained in token of his calling. His brother ordered him to Hv« decently, or leave his kingdom. So Bahlol asked counsel of the first thing he saw, which was some human excrement. It told him it had first been wheat, then a dainty cake ; but the moment it -had come in close contact with man, had been despised and rejected, until it had become the dishonoured thing he saw. Bahlol then went into the jungles, and lived and died a hermit. 35. I have one ass, and one pack-saddle: I have no anxieties above or below. Means that a poor man has reason to be contented, as, having nothing to lose, no one can cause him anxiety. 36. Confound you, debt ! for you have ruined two houses. That is, the lender as well as the borrower ; for if the latter bq ruined, the former suffers with him. PRIDE, SELF-CONCEIT, AND LAME EXCUSES. This is a mixed and homely group, in which considerable knowledge of the weakness and vanity of the human heart appears. Animate nature is freely drawn upon " to poin^ the moral " of the difierent sayings ; and the ass and the crow, as usual, do not show to advantage. 1. When the lizard gets fat, he goes of himself to the sweeper's house. There he is killed and eaten. Man in prosperity, like a lizard when in good condition, gets self-confident, and PASHTO PROVERBS TRANSLATED INTO ENOLISH. 339 through some rash act ruins himself, for " Pride will have a fall." 2. The scald-headed woman prides herself on her sister's hair. Said of the small-minded man, who boasts himself of his relations' good qualities or riches. 3. The spoon even became conceited, because through it the porridge had been cooled. Refers to the man who contributes an insignificant part in some work, and thinks he has done everything. 4. The reed hoped for the degradation of its fellow - grasses ; its top became dry in the river. 5. Every man thinks his own intellect the best. Corresponds to "Every cock thinks his own crow the loudest." 6. The crow tried to acquire the strut of the partridge, and forgot even his own. Refers to the man who does not stick to his own profession or trade, and in learning a new one, forgets his old one, and so ruins himself. The red-legged partridge is looked upon as a type of graceful deportment, and the crow of awkwardness. 7. The goat kept jeering at the doombah^ '^ May your bare buttocks be damned ! " The " doonihah" is the fat-tailed sheep. Its tail is so brond and heavy, weighing in a full-grown sheep from twelve to thirty pounds, as to completely conceal the posterior. The goat on the contrary has a little scrubby tail of five or six inches in length, which it always carries erect, and which, consequently, never conceals its hinder parta. Burns's " giftie " is here again a desi- deratum. 340 PASHTO PROVERBS TRANSLATED INTO ENGLISH. 8. Mayest thou make me great, but not prideful ! (literally, " great of neck "). 9. The fox thought his shadow very large. Said of conceited little men, who view themselves and their actions through a magnifying glass. 10. Every one says the smell of his own chuming- skin is sweet. The ''gharaJcai " is a goat-skin in which butter-milk and butter are churned. The corresponding proverb in English is, " Every cook thinks his own broth the best." 11. That is the ass, but its saddle is another. Thus by dressing like a gentleman a snob won't become one. 12. No one feels the smell of his own breath. That is, every one is blind to his own faults. 13. Unless a man lowers himself, he will not became straight. Put your self-conceit in your pocket, and you will find your affairs go on better. 14. He who has humbled himself has saddled Barak. That is, is in a fair way of securing good fortune. Bar4k is the Muhamraadan Pegasus. The Prophet is said to have gone in one night from Mecca to Jerusalem and back on him, and afterwards rode him to Heaven. 15. What is more unclean than the ass? yet he will not drink muddy water. Meaning that the ass alone is unaware of his own impurity. 16. The moment the hare started up, the dog began to ease himself. This and the following five proverbs are intended to expose lame excuses, and persons who deceive others through false appearances. PASHTO PROVERBS TRANSLATED INTO ENGLISH. 341 17. When mother's turn came, father fell sick. A boy is supposed to have naively said this of his father, who, being fonder of another and younger wife, had failed to eat and sleep at his mother's, when her turn came round, and in excuse pretended indisposition. 18. The crow both eats refuse and flaps his wings. By which act he would have you believe that he is a clean and most particular feeder. Said of a man who does dirty actions and is always preaching honesty. 19. You have not got a grain -of gram or barley in your house. I made a mistake about the fringe of your turban. This was originally said by a bride on examining her husband's house, and finding it empty. She had married him supposing by his dress he must be rich. Said now of men who pinch at home in order to keep up appearances abroad. 20. Though the food was another's, the stomach was your own. This might be said of men who over-drink themselves and ascribe their next morning's head to the soup or tish. In the proverb a physician is supposed to be addressing his patient. 21. A forced labourer sits on other's water. That is, in order to escape work, will make use of any excuse, however false or improper. 22. The porcupine says, " Oh my soft little son, softer than butter," and the crow says, " My son, whiter than muslin." Corresponds to our " The crow thinks her own bird the fairest." 342 PASHTO PROVERBS TRANSLATED INTO ENGLISH. 23. Though you have much barley (wealth), my eyes are black with pride. Both sexes apply antimony to their eyes as a beautifier. Means that purse-proud men should remember poor men are often family-proud. 24. The sieve says to the goblet, "May your two holes be damned ! " This is exactly equivalent to the English proverb, "The kiln calls the oven Burnt house," and to the Italian, " The pan says to the pot, Keep off, or you'll smutch me." The Germans say, " One ass nicknames another Long-ears." Bums's "giftie " is felt to be a universal want. 25. Camel ! what (member) have you straight that your neck should alone not be so ? The camel is supposed to think himself a handsome, straight- limbed animal, though all others know him to be the reverse. In Syriac the proverb runs, " If the camel had seen his hunchback, he would have fallen and broken his neck." SELFISHNESS AND INGRATITUDE. The former being a failing common to all men, and the latter a vice to be founa in some persons everywhere, it follows that Pashto sayings on such subjects are not imlike those current amongst ourselves. Pathans are an intelligent race, and a fair percentage of them are shrewd observers of human nature. 1 . I am ready to protect you, you to kill me. 2. An inheritance is better than a skunk of a son. That is, it is better to leave your property to strangers than that such a son should succeed you. PASHTO PROVERBS TRANSLATED INTO ENGLISH. 343 3. The father's heart is on his son, and his son's on a dry stone. Said of a son who returns his father's affection by loving some utterly worthless object. 4. He who is in a fix regards not son or daughter. Means that man is so selfish that, when invoWed in diffi- culties, he will forget his own flesh and blood in order to extricate himself. 5.' The jackal's dung was wantod and he ran off to the thicket. Corresponds to our ** dog in the manger." 6. The ungrateful son is a wart on his father's face : To leave it is a blemish, to cut it pain. 7. The one was dying, and itie other was asking his daughter of him. 8. He, to whom I taught archery, has in return buried an arrow in my breast. 9. First self, then the world. 10. The ass was in distress for himself, his master about the load. The ass was dying, but all the owner thought of was how to get the load carried on. There fe a similar proverb in Punj&bi, the translation of which is, " The goat was weeping for his life, the butcher for his fal" There are several such in Persian. 11. His father was dying of hunger, and the son was asking him for sugar-plums. 12. The cat does not kill the rat for God's pleasure (but his own). There is a similar proverb in Persian. 344 PA^HTO PROVERBS TRANSLATED INTO ENGLISH. 13. What does the satiated man know of the hungry- man's state ? 14. Though the brother be mounted, it is for his own house. That is, he will not let his brother have a share in his good fortune, but keeps it for himself. 15. Who gets fed to satiety in my house claims to be my sister's husband. Said of an ungrateful man. STRENGTH. Until the annexation of the Punjab, twenty-six years ago, Pathans thought « " The good old rule, the simple plan, That he should take who has the power, And he should keep who can," quite sufiBcient for them, as the proverbs here given will illus- trate. In the old days, and all beyond our borders even now, wealth and strength were convertible terms ; for wealth was strength in men. Now, for those who have become our fellow- subjects, it consists in length of purse, which, amongst other advantages, enables a rich man to litigate to his heart's content. 1. (Keep) at a distance from or silence towards a strong man. The same occurs in Persian. 2. Don't mix like an equal with those with whose strength you are not equal. 3. Strong men's water rises on high ground. That is, they take more than their share of canal water, and of everything else as well. 4. Do not tyrannize over any one, else it will happen 80 with you too. 1 A PASHTO PROVERBS TRANSLATED INTO ENGLISH. 345 5. A sister is a sister, a mother a mother, but the business is by strength. It is all very well to have sisters and a mother to assist you ; but unless you have strength, you won't accom- plish your object. 6. He (God) has given strength to the strong. 7. To be in the right is good, but without the power (to 'have it enforced) is nothing at all. 8. Who eats the bread of the powerful eats his own lips. That is, will sooner or later suffer for it. 9. One hundred taps of the goldsmith (do not equal) one of the blacksmith. 10. If the strong man be strong enough, the field and the seed become his. 11. One mountain does not go to aid another, but man does to fellow-man. A proud man is here ironically likened to a mountain, as in his loftiness he ignores the existence of those he supposes inferior to himself. The English proverb, " Friends may greet, but mountains never meet," which is but a translation of the Latin, " Mons cum monte non miscebitur; pares cum paribus," conveys the same meaning. 12. Though the dam be strong, it is nothing before the flood. Means, " The weakest always goes to the wall." 13. When there is a chief, it is through supporters ; if there be none, the chief gets lost in the thicket. 346 PASHTO PROVERBS TRANSLATED INTO ENGLISH. 14. Though the mallet be old, it is enough to smash the pitcher. 15. The great have ears, not eyes. They cannot see for themselves, but must trust to the state- ments of others. I fancy this proverb is common to most languages. 16. With oppression there is no advancement. 17. The powerful man will neither become your son ifor brother. To no end will stones fall on your house. That is, he will never become your friend, but in the end throw you and yours over, and so bring you to ruin. 18. The water reached the sluices, it is theirs who are most numerous in braves. This is a very old Bannuchi saying- Thirty years ago, when might was right, it was true, 19. However much you cry and wriggle, I'll pull off your wings. When in the hands of a tyrant, a weak man's best hope is in silent submission to his will. 20. The spoon is always in the pot, but let the pot be sometimes in the spoon. The pot here represents a powerful man, the spoon a dependent. The proverb gives advice to the former to allow the latter a little power and independence occasionally, but implies that the advice is given to the winds, as who ever heard of a chief making over part of his authority to a dependent, or of a spoon containing a pot ! 21. Who wants great wealth, let him desire probity ; Who wants great empire, let him desire robust health. PASHTO PROVERBS TRANSLATED INTO ENGLISH. 347 "Honesty is the best policy" for the trader, and for the ambitious man a strong constitution is a requisite. 22. The village whose head man is a youth is of no account. This is a Marwat sajHng, and Marwats do not believe that old heads are ever placed on young shoulders. 23. Though the water has strength, the earth has width. Means that two things of equal strength will not damage each other ; also that man should not be anxious about the future, for when a difficulty presents itself, some way of meeting it will also occur. 24. Either loads (of favours) or thunderbolts rain down from a strong man. 25. The gain is his master's, it is the dog's business to pursue (game) Though the dog catches the hare, his master alone profits by it. So, amongst men, the powerful appropriate to themselves the fruit of the labour of the weak. 26. Though the stone be small, it is strong for the pitcher. Means strength does not depend on size— not on quantity, but quaUty. 27. Force breaks the back of skill. Thia is a simile taken from wrestling. 28. Shara' is good, but force is its friend. Laws are aU very well, but without force to make them obeyed, would be useless. 29. It is the merit of the buffalo that he does not fight. The domestic buffalo, were he as pugnacious as an English bull, would be a very awkward customer to meet; 348 PASHTO PROVERBS TRANSLATED INTO ENGLISH. luckily he never shows fight. The meaning is, that it is fortunate the strong are often magnanimous, and seldom oppress the weak. 30. Though the mountain be high, there is a straight road to its top. There is no one so great as to be above control. Public opinion would condemn the most powerful Pathan chieftain if he acted contrary to custom. A similar proverb exists in Persian. 31. May est thou (God) preserve me from debt to a newly-made man, and from the strength of a weak man. For the former would be as exacting as Shy lock, and the latter would be a hard task- master. 32. Though the snake be a snake, it is helpless before the cat. Cats are said to eat snakes. A strdng man must give way before a stronger. WEALTH. The normal condition of a Pathan is one of poverty, and there are few dirty actions that he will not do for the sake of .money, provided he can throughout them preserve his honour, which, as explained before, simply means secrecy. Perhiips in this respect he is no worse than the rest of the world, for every- where the omnipotence of money is acknowledged, and it is a sad truth that until a man is raised above the possibility of want, he is ready to sell himself and his principles \o the highest bidder. The thoughts underlying all the sayings here collected are familiar to us in our own language, showing that on what is a common pursuit of most men from the cradle to the grave, their digested opinions are very similar, whether the thinkers be Christians or Musalmans. PASHTO PROVERBS TRANSLATED INTO ENGLISH. 349 1. Wealth is a Hindoo's beard. That is, uncertain ; for the Hindoo shaves when in mourning, which he often is, as his family connexions are ex- tensive. "Riches have wings." 2. When you happen to have (money), sleep ; When it leaves your hand, be clamorous. That is, when you are wealthy, live at ease and enjoy it; but when you lose it b}'^ lending, dun the debtor ; or if by spending, then work hard. 3. The road is open for the moneyed man. If "■ money is the god of the world," the man who possesses, it can go where he likes. 4. The jackal's skin ensnared him in calamity. The jackal is valued for his fur, which is used for coats. 5. Wealth is his who eats (enjoys) it, not his who keeps it. So we say, "The gown is hers who wears it, and the world is his who enjoys it ;" also, " Wealth is not his who gets it, but his who enjoys it." 6. He (God) has given wealth to them who don't know how to clean their noses. That is, to idiots, for " Fortune favours fools." 7. Who eats gold passes bloody stools. That is, who acquires wealth does so with great toil. 8. The purse-proud man is overbearing towards every one. 9. The rich man saith, " Would that I were richer ! '* Corresponds to our " Much would have more." 10. Though the elephant be dying of thirst, there is water standing knee-deep in his belly. 350 PASHTO PROVERBS TRANSLATED INTO ENGLISH. Meaning what is starvation to a ricli man would be com- parative wealth to a poor man. 11. Though yoii hoard like Karim, it will pass away as yesterday. 12. Wealth is a cliff's shadow, i.e. always changing, unstable. 13. To the moneyed man a mistress comes from Kabul. 14. Some die in its pursuit, some from it. Wealth is spoken of. 15. If you have money, why use entreaty ? "Money and friendship bribe justice." So if you have money, use it in a difficulty. 16. From whom did you gain? From my brother — that is no gain. Such profit is like " robbing Peter to pay Paul." 17. Though I have much, I have not over-much. 18. Though it was a cliff yesterday, it is a crossing to-day. Said in reference to the fickleness of fortune. 19. When Umar was a chief, he was " dear " to all ; When he became poor, he was " dog " to all. 20. May there be youth, not ghi (clarified butter). Ghi is here, as elsewhere, synonymous with wealth. The meaning is, that if a man has youth, he has everything he can desire. Health and youth go together. We say, " Health is great riches." WOMEN. Muhammadans generally regard women as a marketable commodity, only secure when under lock and key. Like pretty Jessica's papa, they think the golden rule is " Fast bind, fast PASHTO PROVERBS TRANSLATED INTO ENGLISH. 351 find ; " ^nd like him, they have often to cry in vain, " Oh my daughter ! Oh my ducats ! " for our Courts perversely refuse to acknowledge that a woman is, like a cow, at the absolute disposal of her owner, that is, of her father, brother, or husband, as the case may be. The consequence is that many a girl now- a-ciays dares to dispose of her own person, atid, if married, seeks the protection of the law when her husband administers too much stick to her. A Pathan sums up his opinion about the softer sex in two very comprehensive proverbs, which are given below, namely, *' A woman's wisdom is under her heel," and " A woman is well either in the houSe or in the grave," th& argument being that because she is an utter fool, she is only fit to be a plaything and a slave. Some tribes allow their women as much liberty as any civilized nation does ; thus Waziri and Marwat females, whether wives or maidens, do not conceal their faces, and go abroad as much as their lords and masters do. But in both cases the origin of the custom, as it is with most customs if we could but trace them back to their source, was necessity ; for both tribes are very poor, and must either employ their women away from home in the fields, and in bringing water from the distant spring, or starve. Bannuchis, who are better off, and can employ their women in spinning at home, keep them in comparative confinement, and when they go out, which is seldom, they always appear closely veiled. An. unfair ruse is sometimes practised to make them show their faces, for, if the words "You have no nose," be repeated to one of them, when meeting her, she will often indignantly and involuntarily uncover her head for an instant to repel such a base insinuation. The cutting off of the nose was formerly the ordinary penalty for unfaithfulness, and still is 80 in the hills«and amongst the Waziri tribes generally. The sayings here given do not exclusively relate to what men think of women, but include several on what women think of men. Only a v6ry few on love are given, as they contain 352 PASHTO PROVERBS TRANSLATED INTO ENGLISH. the same kind of sentiments as are familiar to us in love poems in our own language. Those who think that women are unfairly depreciated here, and that some of the proverbs about them ought to have been omitted on account of their coarseness, must I'emember the estimate in which the weaker is held by the stronger sex, and that had I excluded all coarse proverbs, for I have many, I would not have represented that estimate as it is. Our own sayings on the softer sex are not over-delicate themselves ; and we, compared to Asiatics, have no grounds for having such proverbs at all. But in this respect we are not the only offenders ; for the proverbs of all nations are utterly devoid of gallantry where women are concerned, the reason being that their manufacturers were men, and their time of manufacture a period when women were held in subjection as inferior creatures. 1 . Though the mother be dry, she must suckle her boy. Corresponding to our " Every bird must hatch her own 2. He divorced the Tridow, and she gave up her dower. A brother generally marries a deceased brother's wife, and should they disagree, and he be willing to divorce her, he does so, on her renouncing her dower, which is generally fixed high at time of m'arriage, to prevent capricious divorce. A widow is generally forced to marry her late husband's nearest male relation. In the hot weather of 1874 a friend was breakfasting with me, and happening to say he would like to see a nose operation, I sent for an old Bannuchi Malik, named Zabita Khan, of Dharmakhel, and he came, bringing a middle-aged Dawar woman with him, to whom he had supplied a nose ten days before. Asked to tell her story, she said, as well as she could through her cut and swollen lips, that when her husband had died, his brother had claimed her in order to get his estate ; I PASHTO PROVERBS TRANSLATED INTO ENGLISH. 353 but as she was unwilling to marry him, he cut off her nose, and slit her lips, and cast her forth. She had gone straight to Bannu, and Zabita Khan had per- formed a very neat operation, having supplied what was wanted from her cheeks instead of forehead, as was usual. Two quills did dufy for the time as nostrils. This old Malik has always three or four patients on hand. On one occasion I saw five at his house, three women and two men. The former had lost their noses for unfaithfulness ; the latter for at- tempting intrigues with other men's wives. 3. Marry a virgin in the dark (literally " at night"), a widow on sight, a divorcee never. 4. The fecald-headed woman does not get her head dressed, nor does she dress another's. Women always dress each other's hair ; but a scald-headed woman, having none, has no occasion for it. Tlie meaning is, that there is nothing for nothing in this world. 5. Though a brother-in-law goes here and there (in search of a wife), he will at last marry his deceased brother's widow. This is a woman's consolation to a widow, who wanted to re-marry. 6. Were an old woman anything of a seer, she would ruin many families. That is, she would know how to ply her trade suc- cessfully; for intrigues in India are conducted as a rule by old women. 7. Though a mother is meat, it is not lawful (to the son to eat it). Though a son may not marry his mother, other men may. What is lawful for one may not be so for all. 23 354 PASHTO PROVERBS TRANSLATED INTO ENGLISH. 8. Whom 1 did not know to be a woman put on a nose-ring. That is, a person whom I despised has become famous. A ^ quality, e.g. beauty or bravery, is not a speciality of any one class : a slave- girl may be beautiful, or a sweeper brave. 9. The widow neither got religion nor a husband. She tried the former first, as it is commendable that a widow should not re-marry, but consecrate herself to the memory of her deceased husband ; but giving up the attempt, did her best to get re-married, and failed, from being old. Our proverb, " Between two stools a man comes to the ground," has a similar ap- plication. 10. The girl was not worth a farthing, yet he broke a sixpenny bracelet on her. Said of a mr.n who half ruins himself in the pursuit of a worthless object. 11. Though you feel no shame because of your sister- in-law, feel it before your brother. That is, though a man is brutal enough to have no scruples about his poor sister-in-law's honour, he will have them when he remembers she is the wife of his brother. 12. Who has not a bad name will not have mistresses. This is a Bannuchi proverb. It is said that once a man becomes " tor,'* that is, famous for his gallantries, he will have many lovers. 13. A woman will escape from the poverty of her father's house, but not from that of her father-in-law's. Every woman is married as soon as she reaches a suit- able age; her father's circumstances therefore little PASHTO PROVERBS TRANSLATED INTO ENGLISH. 355 concern her, as at fourteen or fifteen she leaves his h^u8e for good. 14. The widow, through hopes of her son, missed a husband (and her son turned out a scamp). Said with reference to the fallaciousness of hopes. 16. See the mother, comprehend her daughter. Means " Like mother like daughter." 16. Eyes black in themselves are good, for courtesans blacken their eyes with coUyrium. Black eyes in man or woman are considered a beauty. 17. You came for fire, you 'have become the mistress of the house. This is said of persons who procure advancenjient on false pretences. It was originally said by an old neglected wife to her young and petted rival. 18. Look to a man's word and a woman's beauty. The same occurs in Persian. 19. Who likes squabbles at home contracts two marriages. Two wives never pull well together, especially if about equal in age. Shakespeare says, "Two women placed together make bold weather." 20. When one is young, he is the life of the lasses ; when old, their sport. 21. A woman is well either in the house or in the grave. That is, the "pardah," concealment, is good for a woman. 22. A love meeting, though but of a moment's dura- tion, is better than three half-loads of Sadarawan barley. Sadarawan is a tract on the left bank of the Kurra, owned by Baunuchis and Wazirs, and famous for its barley. 356 PASHTO PROVERBS TRANSLATED INTO ENGLISH. 23. What is the use of merely looking at Umar ? It is as a dog is pleased when you beat it with a bone (and don't give it to him). TJmar's sweetheart is supposed to be speaking. 24. I shall keep a good lover, give him white kisses for food, and my lap for a home ; but should he get im- patient, well 1 have not medicine for an impatient lover. " Love is sweet tyranny," and if the lover does not endure " his torments willingly," a pretty woman can easily find another who will. 25. What will her mother's or grandmother's beauty avail the bride who is not herself beautiful ? This is a couplet from Abdur Rahman Khan, and is a great favouT-ite with the people. Our proverb, " Every tub must stand on its own bottom," is of similar meaning, 26. One pretty one has caught many lovers. Let not a man pride himself on being a great man's par- ticular friend, for, like a pretty woman, he has many friends. 27. What harm have you done me by going ? I, who have curls on my face, shall take another lover. As a pretty woman can always find lovers in plenty, so a man of good qualifications need never be at a loss for employment ; if he loses one appointment, he can always obtain another. 28. First see his thorn inclosure, then the man himself. This is advice to a young woman about to marry, namely, she should see that her intended has a comfortable home before accepting him. 29. When the mother is of bad repute, the daughter will not be of good repute. PASHTO PROVERBS TRANSLATED INTO EXOLIS/i. 357 oO. Choose a cow out of a herd^ and a wife after know- ledge of her. 31. A sister or daughter is like a bowl of ^hi: if you bring it near to you, you get greased all over ; if you put it from yoUj a dog walks off with it. 32. Keep your sister and daughter well supplied with clothes and food and away from yourself. That is, give them dowers and marry them off. " Marry your daughters betimes, lest they will marry iliem- selves." 33. Look at the brother, and comprehend the sister from him. 34. Though a son and brother are (obtained) by prayers, yet a husband is sitting at every bush. That is, husbands are plentiful, but children are not. •35. Ass-like mother ! still " dear mother." That is, a mother, though never so foolish, is always " dear mother" for her offspring. 36. A greedy marc enriches a house, but a greedy woman impoverishes it. The former keeps in good condition, and has good progenv, which sell well ; the latter spends all her husbantl's gains. 37. Hills are not without water, villages arc not with- out husbands. 38. The more devout you would be, the more you will avoid women. 39. When you have not a share in the cooking pot, throw it down on the hard clay and smash it. This is the charitable advice of one woman to another, who 308 P ASH TO PROVERBS TRANSLATED INTO ENGLISH. complained that her husband neglected her. This and the preceding eleven are all Marwat sayings. 40. Jests are played, but not with married women. 41. The mother understands' her son's talk. 42. Gowhara ! whether it be "jt?2/w" or*"5^r" berries, you are welcome to either. The story runs that the above reply was given by a Marwat to an incorrigible wife he had, who, when out late at night, used always to excuse herself to him by saying she had been eating some of the jungle fruits of the place. It is now repeated as advice to a husband with a gadabout wife to leave her to her own devices, for "where shall he find leash or band for dame that loves to roam ? " 43. step-mother I if thou speakest well, thou wilt regard me with ill-will. own mother ! if thou speakest ill, thou wilt regard me favourably. 44. An empty cup, if topsy-turvy, is well : ati empty house is better than a shrewish wife. 45. Let a widow re-marry, so that she may not be badly named. Though the Prophet held it highly commendable that a widow should not re-marry, yet he preferred her doing so, like Saint Paul, rather than that «he should give rise to scandal. 46. A new bride came, and started a new practice. Means that no two men have the same habits. A woman generally gives way to her husband in all things ; yet each new bride who enters his house introduces some change into his domestic arrangements. II V PASHTO PROVERBS TRANSLATED INTO ENGLISH. 359 47. A rival wife, even of earth {i.e. humble and low bom), is objectionable. 48. The young wife is not of weight in her (liusband's) house. Though she may be much admired beyond the family circle, yet she is not appreciated in it. Means that people seldom value fully what they possess. 49. A woman's wisdom is under her heel. That is, it never appears. This is a low Bannuchi sneer at women. An Italian proverb says, " Women know a point more than the devil." "^ 50. What sort of a husband is he who cannot curb a shrewish wife ? What sort of a wife is she who cannot manage a bad husband ? Means that when man and wife fall out, you may be sure that both are in fault. 51. If I get free this time from this sweetheart, well I'll renounce all sweethearts. The meaning is, that once a lovfer has been deceived by his mistress, he distrusts all other women, like the burnt child in our proverb. 52. Though they have neither bravery nor swords, yet are young girls more conceited than generals. 53. Without a go-between, a love meeting is difficult. 54. Every one is in love Avith Laila : the lucky man is he with whom Laila is in love. 55. If the widow intends re -marrying, why does she not do it at once ? 56. See me with the old eyes; though my face be a 360 PASHTO PROVERBS TRANSLATED INTO ENGLISH. wreck (literally " black "), I have gone througli many cares (for you). So the old wife conjures lier husband, who is thinking of divorcing her. 57. If the widow burns (from grief), she burns ; what matters it to the heir in possession (of her - deceased husband's estate) ? 58. Labour on a daughter's sleeping-rug is vain. Because when married she will be nothing to her father. 59. Kill ray mother, but set rae free {i.e. divorce me). Said of people who are reckless and selfish when they wish to gain an object. 60. The henpecked man has neither house nor shame. 61. Muff! I won't do any work, I shall only grind cloves in a powerful handraill. Said by a wife indignantly and scornfully to the poor hen- pecked thing she called her lord, to t^U him plainly that, as he could not keep her in order, she would not work for him, but would pass her days in adorning her person for her lovers. Women think the scent of ground cloves delicio.is, and use it on their persons, in order to enhance their attractions. 62. What the mother ate her child sucked. So we say, " As the twig is bent, so it grows." 03. Until you make him your brother, you may not live with him. This is advice to a woman to call her lover her brother, and means that, if one throws a veil of decency over his vices, he or she will be able to practise them with im- punit3^ The translation above given is not quite literal. i 1 PASHTO PROVERBS TRANSLATED INTO ENGLISH. 361 64. The kiss is the forerunner of adultery, j Had it been, " Kisses are the messengers of love," it would I: have been an hoilest English proverb in Pashto ; but the expressed thoughts of Pathans about love and women are generally impure, and the above is no ex- ception. Many of the sayings in this collection might Lave found a more appropriate place under some special heading ; but they were unfortunately written down and arranged as they are before the plan of dividin* the subject into more than three heads, namely, Moral, Miscellaneous, Class and Local, was thought of. As the labour of alteration would be great, and, after all, little would be gained thereby, they are allowed to remain as first arranged. Of the sayings themselves a large number cannot be classed within the proverb category, being merely familiar similes or pet conceits of the people. 1. Those who keep camels should have lofty gateways. The camel is the largest animal known in Marwat, and camel-owners are regarded as wealthy. The meaning is that men, who profess pre-eminence in anything, ought to act up to their professions ; thus if one wishes to be accounted wealthy, let him live in a good house and spend his money freely, and so on. Akin to this is our " Great ships require deep waters." 2. You have carried off the meat, but you will bring it to the fire (to be cooked). Meaning, you thought yourself very clever in making off with my portion of the meat ; but as you cannot eat it until it is cooked, and the fire is with me, you have gained nothing by your cuteness. This is said of persons who are " Jtoo clever by half." S62 PASHTO PROVERBS TRANSLATED INTO ENGLISH. 3. Don't use ridicule, some of it is sure to fall on your own head and feet. So we gay, "Those that live in glass houses should not throw stones." The text, " Judge not that ye be not judged," also conveys the same meaning. 4. What can a fly do but give a little petty annoy- ance? Meaning that it behoves a man not to fret at little things, which cannot really hurt him. 5. You kept on playing with the carding- comb, and now you have been caught fast. This was originally said of the meddlesome monkey. 6. Meat, although burnt, is better than pease-pudding. Meaning a good article, though damaged, is better than a cheap undamaged one. 7. The death-agony is not such an easy matter that any old hag can bear it. That is, a difficult or dangerous task cannot be done by any one, but requires a brave man. 8. As you were not fit for marriage, why did you marry ? Our " Look before you leap " conveys a similar meaning. 9. One cannot swim on dry land. 10. "Whilst enjoying life you were happy ; Now that )^ou are dying your vitals bum. A man who has led a life of pleasure should, when his time comes, meet death without repining ; he cannot expect "all gains" and "no pains." 11. The tanner's house was so stinking that when rain fell on it the stench became much worse. The tanner and his trade are looked down upon. The I PASHTO PROVERBS TRANSLATED INTO ENGLISH. 363 above is said when a man has a bad reputation, owing to which all the world is ready to believe anything that is bad of hira on very insufficient grounds. Simi- larly we say, " Give a dog a bad name and hang him." 12. For dyers their own nails became fire, In Moghal times a special tax is said to have been imposed on dyers. The tell-tale colour of their hands, pro- claiming their occupation, made evasion impossible. The proverb is now applied in cases where, owing to some marked distinction, a man cannot conceal what he is. Thus a Bannuchi, owing to his peculiar pro- nunciation of vowels, could not pass himself off as belonging to Marwat. 13. Even without a kid, Eed will come. This is often used against a jack-in-office, full of his own importance, who forgets that work would go on just as well without him. 14. Can Eed be spent without a kid ? This is much the same as the preceding, the answer being, "Yes, of course, take another animal if you cannot procure a goat." There are two Eeds : one celebrates the termination of the month of Ramzan, during ■ whicn a strict fast from sunrise to sunset is observed, and which corresponds to our Lent ; the other, known as "the great Eed," or more properly "the Eed of sacrifice " {'I'd-i-lTurbdti), commemorates Abraham's intended sacrifice of Isaac, or Ismail according to Muhammadans. 15. Though the cock crow not, morning will dawn. This is much as the last two in meaning. 16. If the she-ass be hurt, what matters it to the he-ass ? " No one knows the weight of another's burden " has the same thought in it. \ 364 PASHTO PROVERBS TRANSLATED INTO ENGLIS 17. StretcL your feet only as far as your covering So we say, " Stretcli your legs according to your covt also " Cut according to your cloth." Probably language possesses a proverb of similar meaning. French say, " According to the bread must 1 knife " (Selon le pain il faut le couteau). 18. When a blind man would weep, he can do so blind eyes even. Those who have lost their eyes, as well their eyesigh referred to here, and are erroneously supposed unable to weep. Our " Where there is a will, thei way," expresses the meaning of this proverb. 1 9. From a wet man some moisture can be got, fi dry man none. So we say that " Blood cannot be drawn from a stone, you are friends with a rich man, you will get soi his wealth ; but from a poor man you cannol anything. 20. Strike the ass on the ears, so that it may forg' bray. That is, when you strike, strike hard. So " when yoi hurt ; when you feed, fill," also " Age, quod agis. 21. Though the buffalo has large horns, they an his own head. That is, their weight rests on him alone. A man i bear his own joys and sorrows himself. 22. A feather does not stick without gum. There is a reason for all things. 23. It rains not as it thunders. If it were to, all crops would be destroyed. I have h' this used about ourselves, that were we to punisl we scold, we would be very severe rulers. In Eng we say, " Ilis bark is worse than his bite." PASHTO PROVERBS TRANSLATED INTO ENOLISH. 365 24. Take care of your own tail-less ox ; do not call another man a thief. That is, look after your own affairs well, and do not meddle in those of others. / 25. Don't dig a well in another's path, or you will fall in yourself. The same occurs in Persian. We say, " Harm watch, harm catch." 26. The country dog catches the country hare. That is, take the means supplied ready to hand hy nature to effect an object, and you will succeed. Somewhat similar is the English proverb, " Set a thief to catch a thief" 27. Though my house has been burnt, my house walls have become ^^ pucca^ That is, the heat has converted sun-baked bricks into fire- baked ones, and therefore the walls have become much stronger. Similar are, " Out of evil cometh good ; " also, " It is an ill wind which blows nobody any good." 28. They will circumcise him who eats sweets. Children are generally circumcised when very young, and before the operation is performed are given lollipops to keep them quiet. The meaning is that when a man professes to be very friendly, he will probably do you harm. " Timeo Danaos et dona ferentes." 29. Who lives with a blacksmith will at last carry away burnt clothes. Similarly we say, " Who lies down with dogs must rise up with fleas." 30. hungry fellow ! w-liat will you get from a hare's lung ? The lung is food nt) doubt, but won't satisfy a hungry man. 366 PASUTO PROVERBS TRANSLATED INTO ENGLISH. Above is said when one asks a man for what he either has not got or cannot afford to give. 31. Don't eat of every tree, one will be as oleander for you. Do not be friendly with every man you meet, or some day you will repent it. So we say, " The cow that eats all -^ grasses at last eats poison." 32. Don't cram all five fingers into your mouth at once. That is, do not exert yourself to do what is contrary to custom or good breeding. In eating, only the tips of two or at most three fingers are ordinarily put into the mouth. 3S. Through too many butchers, the sheep becomes unfit for food. This is exactly parallel to our proverb of " Too many cooks spoil the broth." 34. The dead man would howl if the living would hear. No man experienced in native character can doubt the truth of this proverb. When Settlement operations com- menced, one Superintendent, new to the District, decreed a number of redemption of mortgage claims in favour of the plaintifls on rather weak evidence, and immediately scores of old claims, which had lain dormant since annexation, were brought. 35. I don't want any benefits from you, but drive the dog away from me {i.e. don't harm me). When the Say ads and Uluma (holy and learned men), of Bannu, soon after the commencement of Settlement operations, urged in a body their claims to total exemption from assessment, I explained to them that, as a class, they might consider themselves handsomely treated by Government should the same hght rate PASHTO PROVERBS TRANSLATED INTO ENOLISH. 3G7 at which they had hitherto been assessed be mijn- tained. When unable to extract from me any positive assurance, some one repeated the above, meaning, of coarse, that in any case they hoped they would be as favourably dealt with in this regular Settlement as they had been in the two preceding summary S^tlements. When I hinted that the saactity and learning of many of them was doubtful, considering that the number of those who knew more than a verse or two of the Koran was small, and of those who could read, or write their own names still smaller, they asked me to allow them to prove their qualifications by handling deadly snakes before me — a proposition I was under the painful necessity of declining, as I did not wish to be tried for murder. 36. If milch cows low, they want their calves ; then why do dry cows low ? That is, men should not be fussy in matters which do not concern them. 37. If the wolf could make sandals, he would make them for himself. In his marauding expeditions, the wolf gets plenty of skins, but makes no use of them. The meaning is ■that what a man won't do Ibr himself, he won't do for another. 38. The dun-coloured dog is brother to the wolf. That is, there is a good deal of truth in outward appear- ances, say what you will. If a man looks a rogue, he probably is one. 39. Neither was the ass mauled, nor the stick broken. That is, neither suffered much harm, yet the beating effected its object. Be modej-ate in all things, even in punishing. 368 PASHTO PROVERBS TRANSLATED INTO ENGLISH. 40. Make a division, look to men. That is, give the largest shares to the best men. In these law-abiding times a saying like the above is a dead letter, but it was not so thirty years ago. 41. The dust went off and stopped with the ashes; the wind came and swept both away. This is commonly said of a weak man, who seeks assistance in some diflBculty from a man as weak as himself, and both thereby suffer loss. I have heard it applied to the case of the Muhammad Khel tribe four years ago. They were in rebellion, and procured assistance in supplies from the inhabitants of the Dawar valley. The former were blockaded, and had to pay a heavy fine before being re-admitted into British territory, and the latter, early in 1871, were attacked in their own valley, defeated with heavy loss, and also fined. In this case " the wind " was of course the " Sarkdr." 42. Who are brought up at Mama's fireside get their heads turned. Mama was a very powerful chief. The meaning is that when poor men are too much noticed by their superiors, they become foolishly vain. 43. One calamity says to another ''^aw." " J3au " is an expression used to frighten children. What is meant is that evil men are not to be frightened with mere threats from men as bad as themselves. 44. No one would let him into the village, yet he asked leave to deposit his arms in the chief man's house. This is said of a shameless man, who requires a good snubbing. 45. Don't put your fingers into every hole. If you do, you will get stung some day. This is said to meddlesome people..- PASHTO PROVERBS TRANSLATED INTO ENGLISH. 369 46. Take sides, but keep on God's side. 47. Be it but an onion, let it be (given) graciously. That is, show courtesy in small matters as well as great. 48. Either stand up to me or off from me. That is, no half measures. " The whole hog or none." 49. "Who understands himself, understands the world ; who does not eats earth. It was Pope, I think, who wrote, " And all our knowledge is ourselves to know." 50. God's way is narrow, and is common to a father and his son. That is, though godliness is not easy, yet a godly father will generally have a godly son. 51. Who talks much will be mistaken : who eats much will make himself ill. 52. Do not take hold of the sword-grass ; but if you do, seize it tight. There is a similar proverh in English ahout the nettle, also the verse : " Tender-handed stroke a nettle, And it stings you for your pains; Grasp it like a man of mettle, And it soft as silk remains." 53. Ask for your head from God ; there are plenty of turbans, Hamid ! That is, if a man's life is safe, there are plenty of ways of livelihood open to him. With health and safet}' lie need not be anxious about a hat. The Italians say, " He that hath a head won't want for a hat." 64. Though the cow be black, its milk is white. That is, don't judge from outward appearances. We have adopted a similar proverb from the French, viz. " A black hen lays a white egg." 1 370 PASHTO PROVERBS TRANSLATED INTO ENGLISH. 55. Property which is not according to the owner's position is called ^^hardm''^ (unlawful or forbidden). Thus, if a poor man wear a silk turban, one may suspect he came by it improperly. 56. When you have one (eye) blind, put your hand over the other. That is, when you have once suffered a loss, take care not to suffer a similar one again. 57. Fire catches not on living flesh. Though grief may be hard to bear, still men can and do bear it. 58. Either far from a calamity or in the midst of it. Troops in battle are more liable to become unsteady when under a dropping fire, but not actually engaged them- selves, than when in the thick of the fight. So in a cholera epidemic, people are less anxious when in it, than when they know it is raging all round them and may break out at any hour where they are. 59. The grave's earth is expended on the grave. When a corpse is placed in the grave, there at first sight ought to be some earth to spare ; but there never is, as what is not shovelled into the grave is heaped up over it, to mark the spot. The meaning is, that in this world there is a superabundance of nothing, for every- thing has its own use. 60. The city is eaten by good policy, not by the sword. The ruler governs by policy, not by brute force. We are said "to eat" Hindustan now. 61. That part burns which has caught fire. That is, each man must bear his own burdens. When a man's child dies, the father suffers grief, not his friend. I ■ PASHTO PROVERBS TRANSLATED INTO ENGLISH. 371 62. "What dost thou where thou hast neither sheep nor lambs ? Said to a meddlesome person as a hint to him to mind his own business. 63. When edged tools are used, blood flows. The same as our " You can^t play with edged tools without getting cut." 64. -If partridges called not inopportunely, neither sportsman nor hawk would know their where- abouts. Hence from this it appears that his own tongue is to each man a traitor. This is said to be a couplet from an unpolished poem by a poet named Muhammad Fazil. 65. If the cow has turned out (good), the bread is in milk ; if not, she is (as) another's. That is, if she turns out well, the owner will have milk with his bread; if not, he must not take it to heart. Though a man should look out for profit, if he does not get it, he should not be cast down. 66. As mother so daughters : as the mill so the flour. So we say, " Like mother like daughter ; " " Like carpenter like chips," and so on. 67. As thou so west, so wilt thou reap. This proverb is to be found in all languages. 68. A hint for a gentleman, a club for a clown. In English it is, " A nod for a wise man, and a rod for a fool." 69. The thief knows the thief ; bosom friend the bosom friend. 372 PASHTO PROVERBS TRANSLATED INTO ENGLISH. 70. The sword is (tested) by examination, the arrow by discharging it. That is, some men's characters are easily read, other's not until tested. 71. When there was gram, there were no teeth; When there were teeth, there was no gram. That is, things do not fall out exactly according to man's wishes. Thus, in 1874 in Marwat there was a bumper crop of gram and wheat ; but the out-turn was large elsewhere as well. So the farmers found it diffi- cult to dispose of their grain except at very low rates. 72. When there was a son, there was no clothing for him; When there was clothing, there was no son. This is similar to the last. 73. Why wash the bottom of the pitcher? Don't perform useless labour ; if you wash the bottom of a pitcher, it will get dirty again as soon as you place it on the ground. 74. Where a house is, there will be the noise of voices ; Where pots are, there will be a clatter. That is, you will everywhere find what you naturally ought to expect, e.g. in houses inhabitants, in water fish, among agriculturists money-lenders, and so on. 75. Tree ! tree ! who would have cut thee down Hadst not thyself supplied the axe-handle ? We bring most of our misfortunes on ourselves. 76. If the silk be old, you won't make even an ass's pack-saddle from it. Meaning that all things, whether good or bad, come to an end alike. PASHTO PROVERBS TRANSLATED INTO ENGLISH. 37o 77. First know yourself, then betroth yourself. Meaning, don't rush blindly into matrimony ; see you can afford it, then marry. This is a good precept, which few but Marwats in this District act upon. 78. The horse can stand the horse's kick. Means that it requires a strong man to resist a strong man. 79. If he will die from sugar, why kill him with poison ? Meaning, if you can gain your object by soft words or kindness, why use force ? 80. Discharged spittle cannot be caught up again. 81. Who is plundered together with everybody else is not plundered at all. Of similar meaning is our " Two in distress makes sorrow the less." 82. "What was your father doing ? He was gelding donkeys. What did he get for his pains ? He soiled his own clothes. This refers to a man who does useless labour . 83. Good soup is made from good meat. 84. Who gains his living on the plain will be a fool if he go to the hills. If a man is well off where he is, why should he go else- where? None of the old settlers in the plains in Bannu ever visit the hills, except under necessity, e.