344 Notes on Kdfiristdn. [No. 4. 



Those who have thus abandoned the religious observances of 

 their forefathers, and who dwell in the valleys and hills bordering 

 on the Afghan territories to the south and west, are called by the 

 latter, Nimchalis ; but they are by no means a separate race of 

 people, as considered by Bnrnes and others, being really the 

 converted portions of the Si'ah-posh Kafirs I have above alluded to, 

 and the descendants of those who have intermarried with their 

 Afghan neighbours, or the offspring of Afghan females whom they 

 may have captured in their forays. The very name of Nimchah 

 (A^r*-^) — a Persian derivative from *# mm, half or the middle, and 

 A^. chaJi, a particle added to nouns to form diminutives, and to 

 express somewhat of contempt — alone would suggest this solution 

 of the question ; eveu if the valleys, which the Nirachahs are stated 

 by those authors as inhabiting, did not exactly agree with the 

 names of districts and tribes of the Kafirs, mentioned in the fore- 

 going account, as residing in the vicinity of the Afghans. The names 

 of the valleys I allude to, are, Darah-i-Shiinah, Atu, Darah-i-Inkar, 

 Darah-i-Wadi-hu, Mardamtak, Darah-i-Nil, Pandii Darah, Darah- 

 i-Tapah-kal, and Darah-i-Mashamund ; seven of which are inhabited 

 at the present day by six out of the eight tribes I have noticed as 

 having abandoned the religious customs of their ancestors, and 

 become, in name, followers of the Muhammadan faith. The two 

 tribes of A skin, and Ashpin, are not termed Nimchahs by the 

 Afghans, who know little of them, as they are subject to the Shah 

 of Kashkar or Chitral, and are very distant from the Afghan 

 boundary. 



As recently as the reign of the Moghul Emperor Jehangir, 

 several families of the tribes inhabiting the valleys to the west of 

 Lamghan, consisting of the darah of Shamatak, and fourteen smaller 

 ones contiguous, embraced the Muhammadan faith. These places 

 are now occupied by the small Afghan tribe of Safi. 



In the reign of the sovereign just alluded to, we find from the 

 Persian work entitled Khulassat-ul-Ansab of Hafiz Kahmat Khan, 

 an Afghan of the Kotah-khel, that in his days, even, the Afghans 

 undertook expeditious against the Kafirs or Infidels of several parts 

 of Afghanistan, taking their wives and children prisoners ; and at the 

 same time remarks, that the infidels of Darah Lamghan, Darah-i- 



