2CG An account of Upper and Lower Suwdt. [No. 3, 
There appears to me to be no particular reason why the grave¬ 
yards should be disturbed, in this manner, save on account of the 
paucity of land for such a large population, and the avarice of the 
Suwati Afghans ; for they have more grain than they can consume, 
since they export large quantities. Another reason may be their 
stupidity ; and a third, that they are of so many different clans, and 
do not respect the dead of others as much as their own. When the 
lands are re-distributed, and a clan removes to another place, the 
new-comers do not consider the dead as theirs, and hence show no 
compunction about disturbing them. With my own eyes I saw 
ploughs which were just passing over a grave. I asked those who 
were guiding them : “ Why do you thus disturb the dead in this 
manner.” I received this reply: “ That they may go to Makka 
the blessed.” What can be expected after this ? 
The patches of land about the lower ranges of hills, or spurs from 
the higher ranges, if fit, they also bring under cultivation ; and 
where they cannot bring their bullocks to work the plough, the 
work is done by band. In fact, there is scarcely a square yard of 
tillable land neglected in the whole of Suwat; for all the valley is 
capable of cultivation, there are no stony places, no sandy tracts, or 
the like to prevent it. 
When the Yusufzi tribe had effected the conquest of the samah , 
or plain of the Yusufzis, as it is now termed, lying along the northern 
bank of the Kabul river, from its junction with the united rivers of 
Panjkorali and Suwat, until it empties itself into the Indus near 
Attak,—from the Dilazak tribe, about the year H. 816, (A. D. 1413), 
they remained quiet for some time. At length Shaykh Mali who 
was, by all accounts, the chief of the tribe, and another of their great 
men, Malik Ahmad, having consulted together, determined to effect 
the conquest of Suwat, then held by a dynasty of kings, who claim¬ 
ing descent from Alexander of Macedon himself, had for many 
centuries past, ruled over the regions lying between the Kabul river 
and the mountains of Hindu Kush, as far east as the Indus ; toge¬ 
ther with the whole northern or alpine Panjab, as far east as the 
river Jhelum, the Hydaspes of the ancients. The Yusufzis, accord¬ 
ingly, taking with them their wives and families, invaded Suwat by 
the Malakand Pass, the scene of a terrible defeat sustained by the 
troops of the Emperor Akbar r under his favorite, Raja Bir-bal, at 
