570 Some Remarks on the Origin of the Afghan people. [No. 6. 



work from which I have given an extract, that the Afghans are not 

 the aborigines of the country they at present inhabit, but have gra- 

 dually advanced from the west of Asia, and it is not improbable, but 

 that during the lapse of ages, they might have been forced from 

 various causes, to emigrate from the districts in the vicinity of Jeru- 

 salem, as stated in the tradition I have quoted. The Seah-Posh 

 Kafirs are in all probability the Paropamisadse of the writers of anti- 

 quity, respecting whom, on some future occasion, I hope to offer 

 some remarks. 



According to the Makhzan Afghani, after Feridun's victory over 

 Zohak, the latter was subjected to such acts of tyranny, that his 

 children fled for safety to the mountain tracts of Ghor, which at that 

 time was only inhabited by a few scattered tribes of the Israelites, Af- 

 ghans, and others. If Jewish families could, at that period, have been 

 inhabitants of Ghor, it is equally possible that the Afghans them- 

 selves might have come originally from the Holy Land.* 



The mountain districts of Afghanistan heard not the " Allah Ak- 

 bar" of the conquering Arabs, until the fourth or fifth century of the 

 Hijerah, by which time the sun of their power had commenced to 

 wave. Up to this time even, we find that the Kafirs or Infidels in- 

 habited the mountain districts of Ghor, and continued to dwell there 

 up to the thirteenth century of our era, when Marco Polo visited 

 those regions.f 



The Yusufzo'e tribes, who now hold the whole of the districts to 

 the north of the Lundy Sind, or Kabul river, J were even in the time 



* In the reign of Saosduchinus king of Babylon, called in scripture Nabucho- 

 donosor the First (A. M. 3335. Ant. J. C. 669) the prophet Tobit, who was still 

 alive and dwelt among other captives at Nineveh, a short time before his death, 

 foretold to his children the sudden destruction of the city, of which at that time 

 there was not the least appearance. He advised them to quit the city before its 

 ruin came on, and to depart as soon as they had buried him and his wife. The 

 Jews, at this time being captives, to follow the advice of Tobit, would have had in 

 the first place to have escaped from Nineveh by stealth, and having accomplished 

 this much, where could they hope to find a more secure retreat, than towards the 

 east, and in the direction of the mountainous tracts now inhabited by the Afghan 

 tribes ? See Tobit C. XIV. V. 5-13. 



f Travels of Marco Polo; Marsden's Translation. Book I. Chap. 22. pp. 122. 



J Lundy Sind, in Pushto signifies the " Little river," in contradistinction to the 

 Abu Sind, or " Father of rivers," as the Indus is termed. 



