344 H. H. HAYDEN. 



Cup-marks in B Ami An. 



On the descent from the Ak Rabat Kotal to Bamian, and at about one-and-a-half 

 mile below the top of the pass, two large blocks of limestone have rolled down from the 

 small scarp above the road, and lie at the side of the footpath. Both of these are 

 covered with cup-marks on the side next the path. On the top of each block is a heap 

 of pebbles and several of the cups contain small stones. Many of the marks are quite 

 fresh and show signs of recent excavation. It is, therefore, clear that the present 

 Mahommedan inhabitants still continue to hollow them out as they pass by. 



The question of the origin of cup-marks has been dealt with at some length by 

 Mr. E. H. Walsh, I.C.S., in a Memoir published by this Society [vol. i, 271 (1907]. 

 My observations throw no further light on the matter. The people of Bamian have 

 apparently no idea of the meaning or origin of the marks, and, when asked, merely 

 say that the place is a " ziarat " and that a holy man presumably died on this spot. 

 When he died or who he was they do not know, and there is no trace of anything 

 resembling a grave. 



Plate xv shows old cups below and freshly-cut ones, with pebbles in them, above. 

 The other block, on the left-hand side of the picture, is covered with more numer- 

 ous and much finer cup-marks, but when I saw it, I had unfortunately used my last 

 film and was unable to photograph it. 



It is interesting to find customs of this kind surviving in a Mahommedan com- 

 munity so strictly orthodox as that of Afghanistan, but this is by no means the only 

 instance of the kind. Throughout the hill-country of Bamian and Saighan it is quite 

 usual to find the hill-tops and passes crowned by cairns in which one is tempted to see 

 a survival of the Buddhist " la-dse " (°TSfy of Tibet. The cairns may be heaps of 

 stones on which are planted sticks with white flags attached, or they may be built-up 

 piles of horns of ibex and wild sheep. None of these, so far as I could ascertain, have 

 any historical legend attached to them, although they are classed under the comprehen- 

 sive term " ziarat." They are in just the places in which in Tibet one would confi- 

 dently expect to find a " la-dse " erected in honour of such local deities as inhabit 

 passes and mountain-tops. As in Tibet, too, solitary trees beside the mountain-streams 

 are hung with flags and their branches adorned with horns, and although more rigid en- 

 quiries than I was able to make might elicit a story of some legendary saint, it is 

 difficult to avoid the conclusion that the devout Mahommedan, who strokes his beard 

 as he passes by, is unwittingly doing homage to the tutelary deity whose simple shrine 

 has survived the iconoclasm that destroyed the more pretentious monuments erected 

 to the founder of Buddhism and defaced the magnificent carvings in the valley of 

 Bamian. 



Babar's tomb at Kabul. 



On the western flanks of Sher Darwaza lies the Bagh-i-Babar, perhaps the most 

 beautiful garden in all Afghanistan. Here are the chenar trees under which Babar is 

 said to have sat, the marble water-channels and the basin that he filled with wine, 

 and here too are masses of the purple drghawdn, the flowering shrub in which he took 



