1854.] Some Remarks on the Origin of the Afghdn people. 575 



It is therefore evident that the Afghans have immigrated into 

 their present territories from the westward,* and that the aborigines, 

 the Seah Posh Kafirs, or Black-clad Pagans, the Suwatees, and the 

 people inhabiting the hills to the north-east of Suwat, on the one 

 side, and possibly the Beluchis and Jats on the other ; have been 

 forced by the gradual advance of this powerful race, to move to the 

 north-east and south-west respectively. 



* The empire of the Great Cyrus extended, according to the best authorities, 

 from the iEgean to the Indus, and from the Euxine and Caspian to Ethiopia and 

 the Arabian sea. As it was customary to transport a whole tribe, and sometimes 

 even a whole nation from one country to another, and as the Jews were ever a 

 stiff-necked race, is it not possible, that the Great King may have transported some 

 of the most troublesome amongst them to the thinly-peopled provinces of the 

 east, where they would be too far away from their native land and captive country- 

 men to give trouble in future ? Or, as I have remarked in another place, is it not 

 probable as well as possible, that those of the Jews who could effect their escape, 

 might have fled eastward, preferring a wandering life in a mountainous country, with 

 independence, to the grinding tyranny of Cyrus's successors and their Satraps ? In 

 fact there was no other direction to which they could have fled, except towards the 

 north, inhabited by the Scythians who would have massacred, or at least made 

 slaves of them or sold them as such ; or eastward, which being mountainous and 

 but thinly peopled, was likely to afford them a permanent and secure retreat. 

 According to Ni'amut Ullah, Zohak's children, to escape the exterminating ven- 

 geance of Feridun, fled for refuge to the Kohistan of Ghor, and settled there ; and 

 at his time, its only inhabitants were some scattered tribes of the Israelites, 

 Afghans, and others. 



There are a number of Jews to be found in the south-west parts of India, and 

 in the Bombay Army there are a great number. Where did they come from ? and 

 when did they come ? 



Again in the 5th year of Darius (A. M. 3488 ; Ant. J. C. 516.) Babylon 

 revolted and could not be reduced until after a seige of twenty months. It is 

 therefore probable that the Jews, of whom a considerable number remained at 

 Babylon, went out of the city before the seige was formed, as the prophets Isaiah 

 and Jeremiah had exhorted them long before, and Zachariah very lately in the 

 following terms : " Thou daughter of Zion, that dwellest with the daughter of 

 Babylon, flee from the country and save thyself." Isaiah, xlviii. 20. Jeremiah 1. 8 

 li. 6, 9 — 45. Zachariah ii. 



It also appears that Ochus son of Artaxerxes Memnon, carried a number of Jew- 

 ish captives into Egypt, and many others into Hyrcania, where he settled them on 

 the coast of the Caspian A. M. 3653, Ant. J. C. 351 ; might not some have been 

 sent eastward also ? See Solin. C. 35, Euseb. in Chron. etc. 



