5 



1864.] An Accmmt of Tipper KdsJi-kdr. 133 



who are so much celebrated for their good looks. A great many 

 people are yearly sold into slavery ; and a boy or a girl can, generally, 

 be purchased for one hundred rupees. The more comely of the females 

 fetch high prices, varying from five hundred to one thousand rupees. 

 Two or three hundred slaves are sent annually into Ttirkistan, by the 

 Darwan Pass of Badakhshan, and constitute one of the chief exports 

 from the country. 



The imports consist of salt, which is very expensive • chintzes and 

 other piece-goods of low price and coarse texture from Yarkand, 

 Pes'hawar, and Badakhshan, together with boots and shoes, metals, 

 and a few pearls and precious stones from the latter country ; tea, 

 sugar, and horses from the former state ; sundries, consisting of nee- 

 dles, thread, scissors, knives, combs, &c, of rough workmanship, from 

 Kashmir, and Pes'hawar; iron from Panjkorah; gur or coarse sugar, 

 spices, medicines, matchlocks, swords, ammunition, and copper cook- 

 ing utensils. 



The other exports besides slaves, are unbleached silk, the produce 

 of the country, and known amongst the traders of Kabul and other 

 parts of Central Asia, as Jcorah* Kash-kari ; shawls also the peculiar 

 manufacture of the country, the woof of which, termed («*j-}) pud, is 

 sometimes of a coarse description of silk called pattf by the Kash- 

 karis, and sometimes of cotton, and the warp called (;13) tar, of pure 

 silk. These are rather expensive, ranging in pries from twenty ru- 

 pees ; but a cheaper description is manufactured, the woof of which 

 is of wool, and the warp of cotton, and which can be procured as low 

 as two rupees each ; chokahs, or cloaks with sleeves, the cloth of which 

 is woven from pashm^ a species of wool or fur, of three different colours 

 with which all animals, even dogs, are provided, in this cold region, 

 but more particularly goats. It is called shawl-wool. These garments 

 vary in price from one to twenty rupees. 



The peculiar method of weaving these mantles or Kash-kari shawls 

 brings to mind a passage in Pliny with regard to the fabric from 

 which the Coan vests, so much esteemed by the Greeks and Romans 

 were made. Heeren in his " Asiatic Nations," also refers to the subject 

 in the following terms. " The first Grecian author who has made 

 mention of the silk-worm, and described its metamorphosis, is Aris- 



# In Hindi means " unbleached" or " raw." 



t The terms ^j and j 13 are Persian. The Sanskrit for silk is ^ p&n 



