114 H. G. Raverty —Tibbat three hundred and sixty-jive years ago . [No. 2, 
These tyrants had made over the Maulana as a present to this infidel, 
and thereby having obtained permission of him to depart, they all went 
off to Yar-kand. That Tibbatl infidel killed the Maulana by fastening up 
his mouth with a wooden skewer ! The Soru affair, in consequence of 
this incident, had to be abandoned. 
“ I brought Mahmud’s corpse to Mar-yol, and from thence sent it 
on to Kashghar to be deposited in the sepulchre of our forefathers. 
This affair happened in the beginning of winter, in Scorpio , when the 
cold of Tibbat is so intense, that we proceeded to Mar-yol; and during 
that winter, and up to the beginning of spring, we endured such hard¬ 
ships and misery as cannot be expressed. When spring came round, 
for the sake of the horses, I set out with 70 persons, for Utluq, a place 
to which people go, and which is noted throughout Tibbat for the 
nourishing powers of its grass. There I employed my time in hunting 
the wild ass, and the wild yak, and in due course returned to Mar-yol 
again. When I set out for Utluq, I had left Iskandar Sultan at Mar- 
yol in charge of the rest of the men; and now that all had assembled 
in one place, and the horses had become fat and strong, the men, unable 
any longer to endure the miseries and privations of this service, 
all of a sudden separated and deserted, and went off to Yar-kand. Only 
50 men out of the whole of them remained with us: all the rest had 
fled. At this juncture, Jan Ahmad, the Atkah, whom two years before, 
on the way back from the Ursang expedition, I had sent to Rashid 
Sultan with presents, as before mentioned, arrived from Yar-kand, and 
brought me information, which plainly showed that it would not be 
well or safe for me to remain in Tibbat any longer. This was the 
reason why I remained in it so long; for if I had left it and gone off 
any where else, Rashid Sultan would have been sure to have laid the 
fault on me ; but now he had broken the most solemn promises and 
compacts, confirmed by the most binding oaths, and they were buried 
in oblivion ; but the breaking of his oaths lay on his own shoulders. 
Immediately after the arrival of Jan Ahmad, therefore, I prepared to 
set out towards Badakhshan.” 
The Author proceeds into Badakhshan. 
“ I have before mentioned that out of 700 persons along with me 
in Tibbat only 50 now remained, the rest having fled in the best manner 
they were able towards Yar-kand. I have likewise mentioned the 
difficulties and hardships met with on the routes in Tibbat, through 
want of forage for horses, the lack of firewood, the excessive coldness 
of the air, and the difficulty of communication. 'All these difficulties 
exist to that degree that, even the mildest nature would refuse to put 
