1864.] 



An Account of Upper KdsJi-kdr. 



135 



There is no fixed rate of taxation in either of the two states ; some- 

 times a fifth or a fourth of the produce is levied ; but, at times, as 

 much as one half has been collected. 



Trade is chiefly carried on by means of barter, money being very 

 scarce. 



The language of both Upper and Lower Kash-kar contains a great 

 proportion of Persian words. This, however, is no matter of surprise, 

 when we consider that these countries formed a portion of the exten- 

 sive empire of the Persians. The people are said to express themselves 

 with much circumlocution. 



The Venetian traveller, Marco Polo, appears to have visited Kash- 

 kar, which he thus briefly describes. " At length you reach a place 

 called Kash-kar. The province is extensive, and contains many towns 

 and castles, of which Kash-kar is the largest and most important*** 

 Besides the Muhammadans, there are amongst the inhabitants several 

 Nestorian Christians." The matter of the Nestorians is a somewhat 

 difficult one to solve. The Si'ah-posh tribes, inhabiting a portion of 

 the valley of the Kash-kar river, may probably be the people he refer- 

 red to ; and whom, differing widely in manners and customs from the 

 Muhammadans of those parts, he, without due inquiry, and chiefly, 

 if not solely, on native report, may have fondly concluded to be 

 Christians. 



INDEPENDENT AFGHAN STATES. 



The petty states at present held by the powerful and numerous 

 Afghan tribe of Yusufzi, the most turbulent, and the most independ- 

 ent of the Afghan clans, who have reduced the original inhabitants of 

 these countries to a state of vassalage since their exodus from Kabul 

 in the reign of Mirza Ulagh Beg, grandson of Timur (the account of 

 Herodotus and the Ud/trves of the Pes'hawar oracle notwithstanding) 

 in which they themselves reign in feudal turbulency — consist of Pani- 

 korah, including that part of the " Sania'h* — above the junction of 

 the Panj -korah river with the river of Suwat, called the district of 

 Talash ; Suwat ; Buner ; and Chumlah ; the whole lying to the north 

 of the British possessions, part of which includes the south-western 

 portion of the Samali, lying nearest to the left bank of the Landdaey 

 or Panj-korah river. I have given a description of the valley of 

 # A Pus'lito word signifying " a plain." 



T 2 



