An account of Upper and Lower Suwdt. 
[No. 3, 
244 
it is said lie could scarcely walk a hundred yards from weakness. 
This I have heard from Muhammad Afzal Kh&n, Khattak, who has 
often seen him there. When the Seikhs got the upper hand at 
Peshawar, he left the Khattak country and returned to Suwat, and 
took up his residence at Saiydugan. 
I noticed that the Akhund’s head shook a little, which unless 
cured, will probably turn to the disease named lakwali in Arabic, 
which is a spasmodic distortion of the face. 
I had been led to believe from people generally, that the Akhund 
was possessed of some wealth—but it was very little, comparatively, 
that we saw ; and that little was constantly expended,—that he was 
constantly employed, from morning to night, “ with his fanatic 
subjects plotting in vain,”* and occupied with the world’s affairs. 
Instead of which I beheld a man, who has given up the world, a 
recluse, perfectly independent of every body ; and occupied in the 
worship of God. Sometimes he comes out of his house for two or 
three hours daily ; sometimes only every other day. At this time 
people come to pay their respects, the greater number of whom are 
sick persons. For these he.prescribes some remedy, and prays over 
them, after which he again returns to his closet within his dwelling. 
If two parties chance to have a dispute, and they both agree that it 
shall be settled according to the skarce or orthodox law of Muhammad, 
he explains to them the particular precept bearing on the case, from 
the Arabic law-books. ISave this, he has no connection in the 
matter. 
The food of the Akhund is a single cake or bannock of bread, 
made from the shamukah (panicum frumentaceum ,) the most bitter 
and unpleasant grain it is possible to conceive, which he eats in the 
morning before dawn. He fasts during the day ; and in the evening 
he eats sparingly of boiled vegetables sprinkled with salt. The only 
luxury he indulges in is tea, made in the English fashion, with milk 
added, as you yourself take it. About two or three hundred poor 
persons receive lood at his guest-chamber daily ; and the animals of 
those who come from a distance receive a measure of corn and some 
grass. He pays for all he obtains to feed these parties, in ready 
* Rev. J. Cave. Browne: “ The Punjab and Delhi, in 1857.” This author, 
at page 292 also states, “The Swat valley is inhabited by a warlike and fanatic 
race of Mahommedans ruled by a Moulvie of Moulvies^ a patriarch or pope of 
the Mahommedans of this part of Asia, called the Akhoond of Swat.” 
