36S Notes on Kafiristan. [No. 4. 



In summing up the character of this unsophisticated and highly 

 interesting race, I may remark that they appear hy all accounts, and 

 even from the descriptions of their enemies, to be of a merry and 

 sociable disposition ; and though quick to anger are as easily appeased. 

 Hospitable to a fault, they treat their guests more kindly than brothers. 

 Even their enemies allow that they are as sincere in their friendship 

 as in their enmity ; are faithful to their agreements ; and hold 

 boasting, lying, and duplicity, in sovereign contempt. 



Lieut. Wood, in the interesting work, " A Journey to the Oxtjs," 

 — to which I have already several times referred — remarks concerning 

 them (in which I most cordially agree) that, " They resemble Euro- 

 peans in being possessed of great intelligence, and from all I have 

 seen or heard of them, I consider they offer a fairer field for mission- 

 ary exertion than is to be found any where else on the continent of 

 Asia. They pride themselves on being, to use their own words, 

 brothers of the F&rangis ; and this opinion of itself, may hereafter 

 smooth the road for the zealous pioneers of the Gospel." 



Fortunate indeed will be that man who has the opportunity of first 

 exploring these regions ; and still more so he, who is destined to 

 disperse the dark clouds of idolatry which now hang over them, by 

 the bright light of Christianity. 



