10 The District of Dera Ismail Khan, Trans-Indus. [No. 1, 
Each of them has, on the south side, a little vault somewhat be¬ 
low the level of the ground. The buildings appear to have had 
originally three stages. About another hundred yards off, is a 
third group, forming a sort of triangle with the ruins already enu¬ 
merated. The visitor passes, on his right three shrines or cells, 
and then mounts eight steps, constructed of the ordinary hill stone, 
to a platform, at each front corner of which is a small temple, while 
the centre supports a building of greater size. All these face the 
east as is the case with modern Hindu temples. 
The ruins of the northern Kafir Kot, some twenty miles higher 
up the Indus, bear a general resemblance to those already describ¬ 
ed, and are on a larger scale, though not so well preserved. There 
is a similar bastioned wall of stupendous dimensions, in places six¬ 
ty or seventy feet high, of enormous thickness, and built of very 
large stones. The ruins within the area are of the same honey¬ 
combed stone as those of the lower Kafir Kot. The largest of them 
is a long rectangular hall, with windows along the upper half of the 
wall. It was apparently double-storied, but the roof has of course 
disappeared long ago. There are other buildings, bearing a nearer 
resemblance to those previously described. The carving varies in 
detail, but is everywhere perfectly chaste, and free from all figures 
of men or animals. 
Leaving the subject of antiquities, I proceed to give such scant 
history as can be obtained touching the town of Dera Ismail Khan, 
and then condense—for here our information perplexes by its quan¬ 
tity—an account of the different tribes in the neighbourhood. 
Although I have stated that the southern boundary of our dis¬ 
trict corresponds with the partition line between Pathan and Ba- 
loch frontier tribes, yet within the district itself, where the popula¬ 
tion is not pure but intermixed, Baloclies come much further north, 
and there is evidence that in former days they occupied tracts of 
country where Pathans have now encroached. For instance the 
Baloch Kasranis formerly owned the country now belonging to the 
Pathan Ustaranis ; and Kulachi, now the capital of a powerful Af¬ 
ghan tribe, derives its name from a Baloch sub-division. The 
town of Dera Ismail Khan itself was founded by a Baloch tribe 
called Hot. In the year 870 a. h., Malik Suhrab Hot, came to this 
