2GG An account of Tipper and Lower Suwat. [No. 3, 



There appears to me to be no particular reason why the grave- 

 yards should be disturbed, in this manner, save on account of the 

 paucity of land for such a large population, and the avarice of the 

 Suwati Afghans ; for they have more grain than they can consume, 

 since they export large quantities. Another reason may be their 

 stupidity ; and a third, that they are of so many different clans, and 

 do not respect the dead of others as much as their own. When the 

 lands are re-distributed, and a clan removes to another place, the 

 new-comers do not consider the dead as theirs, and hence show no 

 compunction about disturbing them. With my own eyes I saw 

 ploughs which were just passing over a grave. I asked those who 

 were guiding them : " Why do you thus disturb the dead in this 

 manner." I received this repby : " That they may go to Makka 

 the blessed." What can be expected after this ? 



The patches of land about the lower ranges of hills, or spurs from 

 the higher ranges, if fit, they also bring under cultivation ; and 

 where they cannot bring their bullocks to work the plough, the 

 work is done by hand. In fact, there is scarcely a square yard of 

 tillable land neglected in the whole of Suwat ; for all the valley is 

 capable of cultivation, there are no stony places, no sandy tracts, or 

 the like to prevent it. 



When the Yusufzi tribe had effected the conquest of the samaJi, 

 or plain of the Yusufzis, as it is now termed, lying along the northern 

 bank of the Kabul river, from its junction with the united rivers of 

 Panjkorah and Suwat, until it empties itself into the Indus near 

 Attak, — from the Dilazak tribe, about the year H. 816, (A. D. 1413), 

 they remained quiet for some time. At length Shaykh Mali who 

 was, by all accounts, the chief of the tribe, and another of their great 

 men, Malik Ahmad, having consulted together, determined to effect 

 the conquest of Suwat, then held by a dynasty of kings, who claim- 

 ing descent from Alexander of Macedon himself, had for many 

 centuries past, ruled over the regions lying between the Kabul river 

 and the mountains of Hindu Kush, as far east as the Indus ; toge- 

 ther with the whole northern or alpine Panjab, as far east as the 

 river Jhelum, the Hydaspes of the ancients. The Yusufzis, accord- 

 ingly, taking with them their wives and families, invaded Suwat by 

 the Malakand Pass, the scene of a terrible defeat sustained by the 

 troops of the Emperor Akbar, under his favorite, Raja Bir-bal, at 



