a shepherd for that of a husbandman, but never return from an agricultural to a pastoral life. The few shepherds of the Kalunder Khail, however, furnish an example to the contrary. The uncle of a man from whom I had the story, was possessed of land in Kuttawauz, but he married into a pastoral family, and being struck with the pleasures of a wandering life, he laid out a sum of money he had gained by some madder which he had cultivated, on the purchase of sheep, and joined the moving horde with which he was connected. The pleasures which seduced him, must seem great even to the husbandmen, for those of the Kalunder Khail, at least, annually betake themselves to the imitation of a pastoral life. Every summer they pitch their tents at some distance from the fort, which is so entirely abandoned that the gates are locked: they remain in tents during the whole of the summer, moving occasionally within a moderate space round their fort. "The enjoyments of this season are great," (says one of my informants) "but its pleasures are equalled, if not surpassed, by the idleness and repose of winter." Besides the shepherds who only move to the Gomul, there are others who prolong their march to Damaun. These are joined by merchants from the fixed inhabitants, and the whole number is considerable. Such are the manners of the inhabitants of Kuttawauz, and probably of the Alizyes of Zoormool, the Suhauks of Khurwaur, and of all the southern Solimaun Khail: but the interposition of the village in checking disturbances is more marked in many divisions, and in some they even compel the parties to submit to a Jeirga, or to quit the village. In some clans too, the form of government is more decidedly republican, and the sentiments of every individual must be taken before any measure of importance is decided on.

This is the case among the Ahmedzyes who possess the east of Logur, and all the southern part of the valley of the Caubul river as far as Jellallabad. Yet as they are in perfect obedience to the King, the Khaun of the whole division, who is the representative of the sovereign, has much more influence than among the southern Solimaun Khail, and the whole division, though it consists of 12,000 families, looks to him as its head in all cases.

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The Ghiljies in the four Tuppehs of Caubul, are a quiet, orderly, industrious set of people, entirely obedient to the King, and subject to the authority of their own Khauns. In dress, and in some respects in manners, they resemble the citizens of Caubul.

The King derives a moderate revenue from the whole of the Ghiljies; but it has almost all been allotted to different persons, so that little now comes into the royal treasury. Part is granted to the Khauns of the Ghiljies themselves; part to the Dooraunee Sirdar who commands their contingent of troops; and a considerable portion was assigned to Abdoorcheem Khaun, and has not been resumed since his rebellion.

In their character the Ghiljies are confessedly the second tribe in the Caubul dominions. They are more turbulent and less civilized than the Dooraunees, but they are a brave and respectable people. In their persons they are probably the largest, handsomest, and fairest of the Afghauns.

The dissimilarity of their country to that of the tribe they belong to, gives the Kharotees the same claim to separate mention which has been allowed to the Atchikzyes among the Dooraunees. Their manners indeed do not differ so much from those of their brethren, but their interests are more distinct, and they really form a community only connected with the Ghiljies in name.

The Kharotees inhabit the country situated to the east of Kuttawauz, among the branches of the range of Solimaun. They have the principal ridge of that chain on the east ; and a branch which it sends out separates them from Gurdaiz on the north; the Gomul is their boundary on the west, as it would be on the south, but for the interposition of the little territory of Wauneh. The Kharotee country encloses the little district of Oorghoon, belonging to the Poormoollees or Foormoolles, an independent tribe of Taujiks.

The Kharotees possess a few narrow plains and valleys, divided by high and inaccessible mountains.

They count four towns, or rather villages, since Sirufza, the largest

of them only contains 500 houses. They amount to 5000 or 6000 families, most of whom follow agriculture.

Their country, though richer than Kuttawauz, produces but one harvest in the year, and is buried in snow for three months every winter. They have bullocks for the plough, but the nature of their country makes them prefer goats to sheep for the remaining part of their stock, yet they have many camels in the plains.

In most particulars they resemble the southern Solimaun Khail, but the whole clan is united under the command of the hereditary Khaun, who has respect and weight, though little or no power. The Mulliks of villages are equally weak; but, as men are obliged to submit their quarrels to a Jeirga, their want of power is not so much felt. One fact is alleged of them on good authority, which is so much at variance with the practice of the Afghauns, that I am almost inclined to doubt its accuracy. It is, that they pay more attention to wealth and popularity than to birth, in the election of a Mullik. I can discover nothing in the situation of the Kharotees to account for this unusual neglect of hereditary superiority.

They are often at war with their rude neighbours the Vizeerees and Jadrauns, and also with the Foormoollees, who are probably much more civilized than themselves. In this last war, which was occasioned by mutual murders, they give no quarter: "Our war," said a Kharotee," is not for power, nor for glory, but for blood."

The climate compels the Kharotees to be entirely idle in winter : even their fire-wood is stored before the end of autumn, and their only business is to clear away the snow from their roofs, or to make roads through it from house to house. The poorer Kharotees, who cannot afford four months of idleness, are driven to warmer climates, and carry with them the greatest part of the bullocks and camels of the tribe. They only go as far as the southern valley of the Gomul, and return in spring to their own country; but upwards of three hundred families have renounced their share in the land, and have become as thorough wanderers as the Nassees. This has taken place

within no long period of time, and some of the first shepherds are still alive. The Kharotees account for the change very rationally. Their fields (they say) are so closely hemmed in by steep mountains that it is impossible for them to extend their cultivation, nor does the deep shade of the pines with which the mountains are covered, permit the growth of any herbage which might maintain their flocks. The natural increase of their population, therefore, reduced them to distress. The lands of each person were divided, according to the Mahommedan law, among his sons, and the portion which fell to the share of each was soon too small to maintain a man. Many, therefore, abandoned their land to their brothers, and betook themselves to pasturage. They have now no connection with the country of the Kharotees, as they spend the winter in Damaun and the summer near Ghuznee; but their separation is too recent to have broken the ties which bound them to their clan: they still acknowledge the common Khaun of the Kharotees, and when they pass their native country in their annual migrations, their relations assemble and bring them berries, the seeds of the Jelghoozeh pine, and other produce of the mountains, for which the shepherds make returns in little presents from Damaun. The manners of these shepherds exactly resemble those of the Nassees, which I shall soon describe, but they are even more destitute of all the comforts of life. *

A few words will suffice for the Wurduks. I have mentioned that they are bounded on the west by the Paropomisan mountains, and on the other three sides by the Ghiljies. Their country is a long hollow between the hills (which separate them from Logur and Khurwar), and the Paropamisan mountains, the latter are penetrated by some deep valleys also belonging to the Wurduks. The river, inaccurately named from from Ghuznee, rises in the south of their lands, and runs through the centre for the whole of their extent.

The Wurduks are all agricultural. They are a quiet, sober people,

* It is one of their camps which is described in the narrative page (30).

perfectly obedient to the King, to whom they pay revenue, and furnish a large portion of troops. They have no wars with their neighbours, and their own Moollahs, or the King's Cauzy at Logur, settle their internal disputes.

What remains unmentioned of the country inhabited by the Afghauns, belongs to the tribe of Caukers. Surrounded by the Beloches, or by remote tribes of Afghauns, it is nearly inaccessible to enquiry; and, though I have obtained particular accounts of some parts of it, and have heard many vague relations from travellers respecting the remainder, my notions on the subject are still indistinct, and I must forego the attempts I have hitherto made at minute description, both with regard to the Caukers and their country.

The boundary of the Cauker country, on the north, is the same as the southern boundary of the Ghiljies: on the north-west it has Urghessaun, the part of Toba which belongs to the Atchikzyes, and Pisheen; on the west, the country of the Beloches; on the south, that of the Speen Tereens; and on the east, the range of Solimaun and some of the little countries at its base, which have been already described. The whole forms a square of about a hundred miles.

The west of the Cauker country is mountainous. Its most distinguishing feature appears to be the range which I have mentioned as running north and south between longitude 68 east, and longitude 69 east. West of that range, the first place in the Cauker country, coming from the north, is Seeoona Daug (a high, cold, and barren plain, suited only to pasturage) and the Cauker part of Toba, which, though more mountainous, probably resembles the part already described as belonging to the Atchikzyes. Further south, this high plain ceases, but there are many valleys in the hills, and Tor Murgha, Burshore, Nareen, Togye, and Hunna, are particularly conspicuous among those which open to the west. Still further south, the hills in question are only separated from the table land of Kelaut by the narrow valley of Bolaun. The valley of Burshore deserves more particular mention.

It commences at the source of the Lora and accompanies that river

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