1845.] Account of the Cabool and Peshawar Territories, fyc. 661 



the Recent History will refer to the published (not in Albemarle 

 street) account of the Khyber Pass, dated Cabool, 1st October 1837, 

 he will find the description of the three Passes of Tatara, Karapah, and 

 Abkhanah thus prefaced : — " There are three other Passes, which are 

 connected with this one (the Khyber), in as much as a simultaneous 

 passage would most likely be attempted by an invading force through 

 more than one." 



The author of the Recent History also blames the natives of the 

 country for calling the Pass, Haft kotal, and blames all Europeans for 

 copying them. 



While Darrah is a word applied both to a valley (Shahar Darrah, 

 Shah Darrah), and to a defile (Darrah i Khyber, Darrah i Bolan), 

 the word Kotal is applied to a ridge either rising from the plain or to 

 the surmounting ridge of a Pass ; and the Pass that puzzled the wide- 

 awake author of the Recent History, the " Daylight Traveller," to 

 account for its name, is called Haft kotal, or seven ridges. 



It is a pity, however, that the natives were not taught by our 

 Recent Panjab authority to call it Haft kotalak, and that Europeans 

 were not taught to translate it the seven paslets, and this new-coined 

 word might be entered in the dictionaries in which Kotal is not to be 

 found opposite to Kotalak. 



The word for a ridge must not be confused with the one for a 

 spare horse led in state before a chief. I hope the author of the Recent 

 History of the Panjab will next give us the Recent History of the 

 Protected Sikh States, and in the Preface parody the above quotation 

 thus — 



, , , , , Alia 



had travelled in the country, yet when the British attacking force was 

 at Thanesir, and the insurgents in Kythul, no information regarding 

 the fort was to be procured." 



I was only three days in Peshawar in 1837, and was never again in 

 that neighbourhood until with General Nott's force in 1842. 



From Dacca to Peshawar there are four roads ; the Khyber, Abkha- 

 nah, Karapah, and Tatara. 



Dacca contains 100 houses of Momand Afghans, of the clans Alamzai, 

 Morcha-khel, and Moosazai, who act as guards to travellers and 

 kafilas, who without them are sure to be plundered. 



