1862.]] An account of Upper and Lower Suiodt. 259 



are so well versed in their own genealogical lore as to be able to 

 relate their descent viva voce, for five hundred years or more, this 

 chief does not know the names of his ancestors, nor the number of 

 generations between Khan Kachu and himself! After this specimen, 

 it is not very astonishing, that Mir ^Ealam, Chief of Tarmah, did 

 not know how he stood with regard to Hamzah Khan, his own great 

 ancestor. 



From the writings of Khushhal Khan, the renowned chief of the 

 Khattaks, in the reign of Shall Jahan and Aurangzeb his son, we 

 find that the descendants of Khan Kachu were several times dis- 

 persed ; hence their present comparative diminution of power, and 

 smallness of territory, and want of worldly goods. 



The most celebrated and powerful chiefs of Suwat, indeed the two 

 families who exercise the chief power over the whole valley, are those 

 of Tarmah, already mentioned, and the chief just named; otherwise 

 all Afghans are Khans, particularly when from home, or on their 

 travels. My business here, too, as you are aware, lay more with 

 Mullas ; and I endeavoured to avoid the chiefs as much as possible. 

 At Allah-ddandd, however, Suhbat Khan, son of Hukamat Khan, 

 Sher Dil Khan's brother, has also a portion of the Karrnzi country ; 

 but he is four or five years older than his nephew, who is the chief 

 of this branch of the Yiisufzi tribe, 



The tomb of Khan Kachii is at Allah-ddandd, also that of the 

 famous Malik Ahmad, who took so prominent a part in the affairs of 

 the Yusufzis, from the time of their being expelled from Kabul by 

 Mir Ulagh Beg, grandson of Ti'mur-i-lang, up to the time of their 

 conquest of Suwat and Panjkorah, and other districts about Pesha- 

 war, which some have stated to have been theirs, already in 

 Alexander's day.* I could not discover any thing about Shaykh 



* Major J. Abbott in his " Gradus ad Aornos," (Journal for 1854,) quoting 

 Arrian, with reference to the seige of Massaga, states : "The enemy had 7,000 

 mercenary troops of the neighbouring districts (the Rohillas, probably, ivho still 

 swarm in that neighbourhood." Again : " By the 3rd and most obvious route 

 crossing the Nagooman at Lalpoor, lie would have threaded the Caroppa Pass, 

 have entered and conquered the Doaba of Shub-gudr, have crossed at Ashtnugr 

 the river of the JSusvfzyes, or as they still call themselves, Asupzye, Aspasioi, i. e. 

 the Issupgwur, and would have found himself in the country of the Aspasioi !" 

 Surely Major Abbott knows that Rohillahs are Afghans, and that their 

 country is called Ron ; and if the Yusufzis only reached Kabul in Ulagh Beg's 

 days, and years after conquered Peshawar and Suwat, it is evident they could 

 not have been there in Alexander's days, any more than the Normans, who con- 

 quered the Saxons at Hastings, could have been in England, in the days of 

 Julius Ccesar. 



