118 G. W. LEITNER, PH.D., LL.D., D.O.L., ETC. 
were murdered as soon as looked at. One who acknowledges 
him, or has brought some of the water with which he has 
washed his feet, would always be able to pass through those 
regions perfectly unharmed! I found my disguise as a Bokhara 
Mullah in 1866 to be quite useless, as a protection, at Gilgit, 
whence menwere kidnapped to be exchanged fora good hunting 
dog, but in Hunza they used to fill prisoners with gunpowder, 
and blow them up for general amusement. His Highness,who 
is much given to horse-racing, confines his spiritual adminis- 
tration to the collection of taxes throughout Central Asia from 
his followers or believers, and the believers themselves repre- 
sent what is still left of the doctrine of the Sheik-ul-Jabl or the 
Ancient of the Mountain, the head of the so-called Assassins, a 
connexion of the Mahdi, if he be the Mahdi, or the supposed 
Mahdi, in the Soudan. I consider he is not the Mahdi as fore- 
told in Muhammedan tradition ; but, be that as it may, the 
7th Imam of the Shiahs has given rise to the sects both of the 
Druses in the Lebanon and to the Hunzas on the Pamir. They 
are the existing Ismailians, who, centuries ago, under the 
influence of Hashish, the Indian hemp, committed crimes 
throughout Christendom and were the terror of Knight- 
Templar, as ‘‘ Hashishin,” corrupted into ‘‘ Assassins.” 
Now I have been fortunate enough, owing to my friendship 
with the head of their tribe, to obtain some portions of the 
Kelam-i-pir volume, which takes the place, really, of the 
Koran, and of which I have got a portion here. I 
thought it might not be unworthy of your society to 
bring this to your knowledge, as a very interesting remnant 
which throws, inter alia, considerable light, not only on their 
doctrine, but also on the Crusades. Bya similar favour, I have 
had the opportunity of hearing the Mithaq, or covenant of the 
Druses, and that covenant of the Druses is a kind of prayer 
they offer up to God, not only in connexion with the Old Man 
of the Mountain, the head of the Assassins who began about 
1022, but also with those mysterious rites which also take place 
in what I may call the fairy-land of Hunza. I do not know 
whether you are already wearied, but, if not, I might, perhaps, 
read you out some portions. First, with regard to the covenants, 
or one of them, which the “ U’quela ” or the “ initiated ” or 
“‘wise,”’ as distinguished from the “Juhela” or “ignorant ” 
“‘Jaity,’? among the Druses, offer up every night. 
This Druse covenant makes the mad Fatimite ruler of Hgypt, 
Hakim, the ‘ Lord of the Universe.” As ‘I said before, the 
present ‘‘ Lord of the Universe”? for the Hunzas is the lineal 
descendant of the 7th Imam, a resident of Bombay, one to 
whom the Mulais make pilgrimages, instead of going to 
