1854.] Gradus ad Aomon. 319 



or Tuft grass there produced, and called in this country Khubl, is 

 by far the most remarkable village on the right bank of the Indus. 

 It consists of several separate inhabited areas. One a rock, which 

 on the rise of the Indus, is isolated, and the others on a slight 

 elevation at the foot of mount Wunj. Nearer to the mountain is 

 the site of an older village now called Ghazikot, from which are 

 turned up Scytho Greek coins of the age of Mauas. I can, however, 

 discover no mountain in that neighbourhood, answering either in 

 character or in name to Mt. Meros. The people of Khubl are 

 Eusufzyes, of the Ootmaunzye branch of the Mundur division. They 

 form a little commonwealth, well answering the description of the 

 Nusaioi. The people westward of them are Juddoons or Guddoons, 

 or Guddana : at Umb on the north are at present Tunnawulies ; and 

 the Indus without boat is on their east. They are thus peninsulated, 

 and have often difficulty in holding their own. Their superior cour- 

 age alone has saved them. 



About three miles below Khubl is the village Nochi, the only site 

 that in name resembles Nusa. It is at present a small village at 

 the mouth of a ravine descending from Mt. Wunj. Behind it is the 

 site of the old town which might have contained 1,000 houses. In 

 the ravine is the shrine of the Saint Hajji Rehman Baba. He who 

 sits all day at this shrine becomes bullet-proof. The spurs of Mt. 

 Wunj rising above Nochi are called Srikot, Pathan Rohr, Koonda, 

 Kapooreon da Gut, Kawfur Lurri, and Jubbi. None of these bears 

 any resemblance either in character or name to Mt. Meros. If 

 Nochi be Nusa, then Mt. Wunj is Mt. Meros. It however does not 

 answer to the description of the historian. It has neither grape- 

 vines, nor fruit trees, nor laurels, nor dense groves, nor the wild 

 beasts of all lands. On the contrary, though a sublime and almost 

 inaccessible summit, its character is that of barrenness. Near the 

 crest however, there is a little pine forest, and the ruined walls of 

 five houses are standing there, in one of which was lately found a 

 sledge hammer, so rotten, as to break into powder upon the anvil. 

 Although therefore the name Nochi answers well to Nusa, which in 

 process of time would probably have been thus changed, and al- 

 though the state of the society of Nochi and Khubl answers well 

 with that of Nusa ? yet other particulars are against the identity, 



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