AMONG THE AFFGHANS. 285 



solitary Englishman, Major Turner of the Survey of 

 India, was in vain trying to wend his way through 

 the suspicious intermediate tribes ; and beyond all, 

 stood up one giant pyramid, perhaps seen for the 

 first time by a European probably 2500 feet high, 

 if not higher. To the west ran the long range of the 

 Safed-Koh, its top one field of snow, broken into 

 irregular fantastic peaks, falling towards Kurram like 

 a huge wall ; and beyond, the hills of Tirah and the 

 Khyber. For two hours we were very busy with 

 the theodolite and field-book ; but meantime clouds 

 had been gathering overhead, and the first flakes of 

 snow warned us from old experience that it was 

 time to move off. Meantime the sun had softened 

 the snow, and every step down we sank thigh-deep 

 for some miles could not even relieve the journey 

 by a slide. We had given an attendant a soda-water 

 bottle in the morning, intending to leave it on the 

 summit, but of course it had been forgotten, and we 

 had to content ourselves by making a small cairn 

 with the few stones that lay among the snow on the 

 top. Not fifty yards below was a pile of stones orna- 

 mented with some twenty long sticks the ziarat or 

 shrine of some Fakir, said to be that of the Syud 

 Karram or Si Karram, from which some derived the 

 name of the peak. It had long been supposed to be 

 a corruption of Sitaram a Hindoo celebrity of the 

 olden times ; but this the Moslems distinctly dis- 

 avow. Si Karram the "three virtues" said a 



