[77] These legends should be compared with the Chitrál Fables published by Mihtar Nizám-ul-Mulk in the _Asiatic Quarterly Review_ of January, 1891, namely: “the vindictive fowl,” “the golden mouse,” “the mouse and the frog,” “the quail and the fox.” See Appendix III. as also Legends in “The Hunza-Nagyr Handbook.”
[78] The scrupulousness of the Gipsies in discharging such obligations, when contracted with a member of the same race, used to be notorious. The Dôms or Rôms of the Shins are the “Romany” of Europe and our “Zingari” is a corruption of “Sinkari” or inhabitants on the borders of the River or Sin = the (Upper) Indus.
[79] Tromba, to be made eatable, must be ground into flour, then boiled in water and placed in the “tshamúl” [in Astori] or “popúsh” [Ghilgiti], a receptacle under the hearth, and has to be kept in this place for one night, after which it is fit for use after being roasted or put on a tawa [pan] like a Chupatti [a thin cake of unleavened bread]. “barao” or tshítti baráo = sour baráo [móro baráo = sweet baráo].
[80] Almost every third man I met had, at some time or other, been kidnapped and dragged off either to Chilás, Chitrál, Badakhshán or Bukhárá. The surveillance, however, which is exercised over prisoners, as they are being moved by goat-paths over mountains, cannot be a very effective one and, therefore, many of them escape. Some of the Kashmir Maharajah’s Sepoys, who had invaded Dardistan, had been captured and had escaped. They narrated many stories of the ferocity of these mountaineers; _e.g._, that they used their captives as fireworks, etc., etc., in order to enliven public gatherings. Even if this be true, there can be no doubt that the Sepoys retaliated in the fiercest manner whenever they had an opportunity, and the only acts of barbarism that came under my observation, during the war with the tribes in 1866, were committed by the Kashmir invaders.
[81] This is undoubtedly the _canis rutilans_, a species of wild dog, which hunts in packs after the wild goat, so numerously found in the high mountains round Gilgit. The snow-ounce also pursues it. Dardistan, specially Hunza, is the paradise of the ibex, the wild sheep, including the _ovis poli_, and the red bear.