10£ Extracts from the Persian History of Sindk, [Feb. 



of danger by telling them, he was sure flesh was concealed under th« 

 grass. These men would not believe him, but to prove the truth of his 

 assertion, thrust their spears amongst the bundles of grass in the fore- 

 most carts. The Summdhs who were thus wounded, wiped the stain 

 of the blood to prevent detection ; the door-keepers were deceived, the 

 brahman was taunted as a false diviner, and the whole of the carts 

 passed into the city. In the night, the Sammdhs left their places of 

 concealment, and took possession of the place, and of the whole country, 

 the descendants of the Summdhs, are governors of Cutch to this day*. 



Downfall of the Cities of Alor and jBrdhmandbdd. 

 Dilu' Rai was a tyrant, and his oppression and injustice caused 

 the downfall of the cities of Alor and Brdhmandbad ; as they are 

 extraordinary circumstances, I will relate them. It was the practice 

 with that monster of cruelty, to deprive every merchant who visited his 

 city of half his property, and to seize by force the beautiful wives of 

 his subjects, who were made to minister to his sensual gratifications- 

 It happened that a very wealthy merchant by name, Sief ul Mulk, 

 (some say, he was not a merchant, but a prince in disguise,) halted at 

 Alor on his road to Mecca ; he was also accompanied by his wife, a 

 very beautiful woman : in those days, the waters of the river Mehrdn y 

 ran close by the city of Alor. Now when Dilu' Rai, heard of the 

 riches of Sief ul Mulk, and of the beauty of his wife, he determined 



* The city of Goontree or Goatree, ooe of the three remarkable ruins in Cutch and 

 which the writer of this has visited, was the scene of this stratagem ; as the strong 

 current in this province agrees so nearly with what our author has written, it is 

 herewith given in the words of Captain Burnes, whose paper on these and other 

 subjects connected with Cutch, leave but little employment for the pens of others. 

 After describing the situation of the city, and the discord which exists amongst its 

 inhabitants, the account says, " Discord having been once sown among them, their 

 city fell into the hands of a body of Sumas or Jharejas through treachery. This tribe 

 had migrated from Kacho in Sindh to Cutch, and tended herds of cattle in the 

 neighbourhood of Goontree, supplied the city with grass, &c. and heing encouraged 

 by the differences among the Rajpoots, they secretly introduced armed men into the 

 city, not exactly in the bowels of the wooden horse, but concealed during night in 

 carts among the grass, and thus possessing themselves of Goontree, as the Greeks 

 did of Troy, they forced the Sands to flee from Cutch, and they settled in Bal beyond 

 Lemree in Jhalaivar, where their posterity are said still to exist. 



V It is in the mouth of every one, that the inhabitants of Kattywdr are from Cutch t 

 which gives probability at least to this story. 



"The chiefs of the tribe of Suma, which thus came into power, were Mor and 

 Munai names of notoriety to this day, and often mentioned by the Bhats of the 

 country in their songs; and it was the son of this Mor, who afterwards took Kuncot 

 in Wagur, and extended his rule over all Cutch, and converted the province into a 

 petty kingdom in which it has ever since continued." 



