1871.] The District of Dera Ismail Khan, Trans-Indus. 9 
Other similar ruins are seen close to the Indus. A year or 
two ago excavations were made at Kokri near Mianwali on the 
eastern side of the Indus, and several small figures of baked clay 
were found, the figures modelled with the black skin kulah still 
worn at Harat. Although the term Kafir Kot is applied indiscri¬ 
minately to all of these, it is very probable that the ruins so called, 
are of different dates, and different styles of architecture. Some 
may have been Bactrian and some Buddhist, while others probably 
are of much later date, and even subsequent to the Muhammadan 
conquest. In this district, besides the mounds near Tank, there are 
two Kafir Kots on the Kotta Boh, the low range which overlooks 
the Indus. These are not mere mounds of brick, but standing 
ruins of stone. The southern one of the two, near the small town 
of Bahlot, stands on a hill of loose boulder stones, some two or 
three hundred feet above the river. It is evident that the whole 
area of the ruins was originally surrounded by an irregular, but 
rectangular wall, built from the common boulder stones of the hill, 
roughly hewn to size. This wall had projecting bastions every 15 
or 20 yards. Within the enclosure so formed are three ruins or 
groups of ruins built, not of these same hard stones, but of a much 
softer earth coloured stone, which is now honey-combed in a 
very curious manner. At first I took the material to be brick 
or cement, but this was evidently wrong. I then thought that 
the buildings were of a different date from the surrounding wall ; 
but this supposition is also incorrect, for most of these ruined 
buildings stand on a foundation, and are approached by steps 
constructed of the ordinary stone of the neighbourhood. Whence 
this peculiar plastic stone was brought, I cannot say. It is 
certainly very different from any in the immediate vicinity. 
The first building at the Kafir Kot that a visitor is likely 
to enter, is about the size of an ordinary Hindu temple. At 
the base it is square, but above it rises to a dome. Just where 
the dome^ commences a small gallery, about a foot in width, 
runs round the interior, open and closed at alternate intervals. 
About a hundred yards distant are two smaller buildings not 
unlike ordinary shivalds. The carving on these is somewhat 
different. 
2 
