1862.] An account of Upper and Lower Suwat. 243 



connive at such acts, much less the bishops and priests of those 

 countries. Such too is the case in Suwat. The Akhund is high 

 priest or rather a devotee, whom the people regard as a saint, and 

 who is looked upon, by the people of those extensive regions around, 

 as the head of their religion ; but he is without the slightest real 

 power, either temporal or spiritual ; his influence being solely through 

 the respect in which he is held. 



It is in the villages on the outskirts of Suwat, and other places on 

 the border, that bad characters, who have fled from justice, seek 

 shelter, with whom the Akhund, as already stated, has no more to 

 do than the man in the moon ; but parties, for their own purposes, 

 make use of the Akhund's name. 



The Suwati Afghans are so tyrannical, so prejudiced, and so fana- 

 tical, that even the admonitions, and the expostulations of the 

 Akhund are unpalatable to them. Whatever they do not like, or 

 whatever may be against the custom of their Afghan nature from 

 time immemorial, they will neither listen, nor attend to. A cir- 

 cumstance which lately happened is a proof of this. A trader of 

 Peshawar, after great expense of time and money, had caused to be 

 felled, in the hilly district above Suwat, about two thousand pine 

 trees, which, in their rough state, were thrown into the river, for the 

 purpose of being floated down to Peshawar. When the trader and 

 his people, with their rafts, entered the Suwat boundary, the Suwatis 

 seized them, and would not allow the rafts to proceed. The trader 

 supposing the Akhund to have influence, went and complained to 

 him. The Suwatis of Lower Suwat, through fear of their chiefs, 

 with whom the Akhrind had expostulated about the behaviour of 

 their people, gave up all the trees they had not made use of them- 

 selves, and they were not many ; but the people of Upper Suwat, 

 that is to say, from Charbagh to Chur-rraey, on both sides of the 

 river, would not obey, and did not ; and the trees may still be seen, 

 lying about in hundreds, on the river's banks. 



With the exception of a few servants, the Akhund, whose name is 

 iEabd-ul-ghaflYir, has no followers whatever. He is of the Naikbf 

 Khel (the Naikpee Khail of Elphinstone,) and left Suwat when a 

 mere child. He resided in the Khattak country, at Sarae, at the 

 zidrat or shrine of Shaykh Pam-Kar, where he remained as a student 

 of theology until past his thirtieth year ; and was so abstinent that 



