1854.] Some Remarks on the Origin of the Afghan people. 571 



of Baber but new comers, and in this, his statement agrees with the 

 account in the Tazkirat-ul-Muluk. In another place Baber mentions 

 the people of Bajawer, as " rebels to the followers of Islam, and be- 

 sides their rebellion and hostility, they followed the custom and us- 

 ages of Infidels, while even the name of Islam was extirpated from 

 among them."* Prom this it appears that the people of the country 

 had been converted to Muhammedanism, and relapsed again to idol- 

 atry, but were not Afghans.f 



Nowab Allah Yar Khan, son of the Nowab Hafiz Eahmat Khan,J 

 in the preface to a lexiographical work of which he is the author, 

 states, that " there are two divisions of the Afghans, whose language 

 also differs in many respects, so that the words used by some tribes 

 are not known to, or understood by, others. They are termed Pushtun 

 and Pukhtun and they speak the Pushto and Pukhto§ respectively. 

 The former is the western dialect, having some affinity to the Persian, 

 and the latter the eastern, containing many Sanskrit and Hindi 

 words. The people who dwell about Kabul, and Kandahar, Shora'wak 

 and Pishin, are designated Bar Pushtun or upper Afghans from y t 

 above ; and those occupying the district of Eoh, which is near Hind 

 (India) are called Lar Pukhtun or lower Afghans from^.* below" 



He describes Eoh, about which has been, and still continues to be, 

 great diversity of opinion, as " bounded on the east by Suwat and 

 Kashmir, west by the Helmund river, north by Kashkar or Chitral 

 and Kafiristan, and south by the river or sea of Bukker, called in 

 Persian Nil-ab, (The Blue Water) and Nil'aow or Aba-Sin, (The 

 Father of Eivers) by the Afghans." 



The author of the Perang-i-Jehangiri gives a somewhat similar 

 account of it; "Eoh," he says, "is the name of a range of lofty 

 mountains, in length extending from Suwat aud Bajour, to Siwni, 

 which is in the district of Bukker in Siud, and from Hassan Abdal 



* Baber's Memoirs, page 248. 



f "Although Bajour, Sewad, Peshour, and Hashnagar, originally belonged to 

 Kabul, yet at the present time some of these districts have been desolated, and 

 ohers of them entirely occupied by the tribes of Afghans, so that they can no longer 

 be properly regarded as provinces." Ibid, page 141. 



J The author of the Khullasat-ull-Ansab. 



§ Merely in substituting sh for kh, z for g, etc. 



4 f 2 



