[104] This peak overlooks Bunji and the whole course of the Indus (with a sight of the Gilgit Valley) from its sudden southward bend at the Makpon-i-Shang-Rong, till it again bends westward beyond Chilás.
[105] The last (semi-official) _Moscow Gazette_ says: “Russia will not neglect to avail herself of the first convenient opportunity to assist the people of India to throw off the English yoke, with the view of establishing the country under independent native rule.”
[106] I began to write this paper as an introduction to an academical treatment of the history, language, and customs of Hunza-Nagyr, when the apparently, sudden, but, probably, calculated complications on that frontier compelled me to abandon my task for the present and to discuss instead the ephemeral news as they were published from day to day in the press.
“Agàr qahàt rijál uftad az-sî qaum kam gîrî. Yakùm Affghan, doyum Kambó, soyùm bad-zât Kashmîrî.”
If there (ever) should be a scarcity of men, frequent little (beware of) three peoples: one the Affghan, the second the Kambó, and the third the bad-raced Kashmîrî.
[108] I was again on special duty in 1886, and its result was Part I. of the “Hunza-Nagyr Handbook,” of which a second and enlarged edition will appear shortly. My material, some of which has been published, has been collected between 1865 and 1889 in my private capacity as a student of languages and customs.
[109] In spite of Russian attempts to conciliate the orthodox Muhammadans of Turkey and thus to take the place of the British as “the Protector of Islám,” the news of the revision of the Korán by a Russian Censor and the _bévue_ of putting up the Czar’s portrait in Central Asian Mosques, have injured Russia’s propaganda among Muhammadans, whom also the accounts of the persecution of the Jews have estranged from a Power that began its rule in Central Asia by repairing and constructing Mosques, helping Mosque Schools and even subsidizing an employé to call “the faithful” to fast and _break_-fast during the month of Ramazán.
[110] “By the most recent account, Ghazan Khan, the son of Ghazanfar, has been killed by his own son, Muhammad Khan. Muhammad Khan’s mother was the sister of Zafar Khan, the ruler of Nagyr. She was killed by her father-in-law, Ghazanfar, and thrown over a precipice from her house. Ghazan Khan treacherously killed his paternal uncle, Abdullah Khan, ruler of Gojál, who unsuspectingly met him. On ascending the throne, Ghazan Khan is also said to have poisoned his ailing full brother, Bukhtawar Shah, and another (by a different Sayad mother) Nanawal Shah. The fratricidal traditions of Hunza and of the Khush-waqtia family of Yasin have now been somewhat thrown into the shade by the parricide of Muhammad Khan. The father of Ghazan Khan, Ghazanfar, is said to have died from the effects of a suit of clothes, impregnated with small-pox, sent to him by his daughter, the full sister of Ghazan Khan, who was married to Mir Shah of Badakhshan, in order to accelerate her brother’s accession to the throne. The father of Ghazanfar, Sullum, also poisoned his own father. This state of things is very different from the gentle rules and traditions of Nagyr, whose aged Chief, Zafar Khan, has nineteen sons, and who sent his rebellious eldest son. Muhammad Khan (whose mother was a full sister of Ghazan Khan of Hunza) to Ramsu in Kashmir territory, where he died. He was married to a daughter of his maternal uncle, and tried to sell some of his Nagyr subjects into slavery, against the traditions of that peaceful country, in consequence of which his father, Zafar Khan expelled him.” (See Part referring to the History and Customs of Hunza and Nagyr.) Yet it is this patriarchal, loyal and God-fearing Záfar Khan, whose letter to me I published last year, whom we accused of kidnapping and aggressiveness, so that we might take his country.