THE DARDS AT KHALATSB IN WESTERN TIBET. 415 



seekers, we were able to examine the skull of a man. It was of very distinctly dolicho- 

 cephalic shape, and thus speaks in favor of the popular tradition that the ancient inhabi- 

 tants of the site were Dards. The fact that the ancient Dards buried their dead, in- 

 stead of burning them, as is the custom of Lamaists, has given rise to the supposition 

 that the Dards were Mohamedans. If those of Khalatse were Mohamedans at their 

 arrival in Ladakh, we should have to date their emigration from Gilgit many centuries 

 later than I have done to the present. But I think there are a number of facts which 

 make it improbable that the emigration of, at least, the bulk of this tribe of Dards should 

 have taken place in Mohamedan times. ( i) The prayer to god Zhuni, offered at Khalatse 

 in Dardi, has nothing of Mohamedanism about it. (2) The hymnal of the Dards of Da, 

 which is still sung at the time of the Bono-na festival, does not contain any traces of Mo- 

 hamedanism, although the word khoda, god, is occasionally used in it, side by side with 

 Tibetan names of gods. That Mohamedan and Tibetan mythological names have en- 

 tered the Dard pantheon, is due to the present isolated position of the tribe in the middle 

 of adherents to these great religions. But song No. Ill of the hymnal (Indian Antiquary 

 1905), containing the Dard account of the creation of the world, reminds us more of Hin- 

 duism than of Mohamedanism, and the individual names of gods occurring in the 

 hymnal may be the last remains of indigenous Dard mythology. (3) Very ancient 

 Buddhist sculptures, scattered all over Ladakh, are exactly of the same style as the 

 ancient Buddhist sculptures of Gilgit. Compare the plate in the " Tribes of the 

 Hindookoosh," by J. Biddulph. 



The Dard Castle on the shore of the Indus. — At the end of the cultivated area of Kha- 

 latse, there are the ruins of an ancient fort (on the right shore of the Indus) which 

 popular tradition calls a Dard castle. Of the walls nothing is left, but foundations in 

 the ground can still be seen. On the land side this castle was surrounded by a deep 

 ditch which is now filled up with stones ; on the riverside the shore is very steep. About 

 one hundred feet below the castle, just above the river, the foundations of a pier of a 

 bridge can be seen, and also on the opposite shore there are traces of masonry. Thus 

 we see that the purpose of the castle was to protect a bridge. 



The erection of a bridge across the Indus, of only about three miles off the Balu mkhar 

 bridge, is surprising, and the only reason to account for it can be that it was built in 

 rivalry to the Balu mkhar bridge, to draw the trade away from there. The disadvan- 

 tage of the Balu mkhar bridge, as compared to this new bridge, is that the merchants 

 were obliged to travel on the left shore of the Indus over very uneven ground for a dis- 

 tance of about four miles. They were saved this unpleasant part of the journey if 

 they crossed the Indus already at the site of the Dard castle. And thus it is very 

 probable that the Balu mkhar bridge lost its importance for the Indian trade as soon as 

 this new bridge was constructed. 



There are several rock-carvings of some interest in the vicinity of this castle, among 

 them a fight between two horses. This seems to have been a favourite sport with the 

 ancient Dards, for representations of horse fights on rocks do not belong to the very 

 rare types of rock-carvings. But the drawings are generally not so detailed as they are 

 here. It is strange, however, that on a drawing of full figures of animals, as we have 



