82 
C. Swynnerton —Folktales from the Zipper Punjab. [No. 2, 
told to the compiler, and translated to him viva voce from the Panjabi by 
his hospitable host and attached friend Thomas Lambert Barlow, Esq. 
There within sight and hearing of the majestic river of history and 
romance, in a district exclusively pastoral, close to the fabled mountain of 
Gangar, in the midst of many a ruined temple and fortress of an earlier 
race and a former faith, on ground historical and even classical though now 
so obscure and unknown, these interesting gleanings of old-world folklore 
were carefully gathered and stored. Exactly opposite lies a line of rocky 
hills overlooking the rushing waters of the river. On this spot stood an 
ancient city of fabulous strength and vast extent, the home of four Hindu 
brothers, all of them kings. Each of the low peaks of which there are several 
is crowned by a tower, a palace or a temple, while traces of connecting 
walls and ruined dwellings traverse the ground on all sides to the very 
edge of the cliff. This city according to tradition was so vast that one of 
its gates was close to Hund, an equally ancient site, which stands on the 
same bank about twenty miles to the south. What was the name of this 
once mighty capital ? Possibly it may survive among the popular names 
of the peaks and ravines on which it was built, as Gcillah, Pihur, Gharri 
dha Lar, Parri dha Kattha, Gaddhi dha Kattha, Gangarianh dha Kassi, 
Bhoru dha Kattha. Hund has been identified as the spot where “ Sikander 
Badshah” crossed over his conquering army of Greeks, and undoubtedly it 
possessed an important ferry from the very earliest ages. 
A few miles to the north of Ghazi where the hills begin to close in, 
we can almost see the collection of hamlets known as Torbela, the inhabi¬ 
tants of which are addicted to the curious vice of eating clay, as people 
in other parts are given to the consumption of opium. Opposite Torbela 
stands the warlike independent village of Kabbal. It is here, between 
these two rival villages not more than twelve miles from Ghazi, that the 
Indus breaks through the gorge of the restraining peaks on either side, the 
last spurs of the Himalayas, forming the territory, in part independent, 
but partly under our dominion, which the inhabitants call Yakistan. How 
beautiful is the view miles and miles up the river, with the descending lines 
of the precipitous mountains, one behind the other, receding ever more and 
more into blue haze, until crowned by the distant snows ! As one sits in 
the warm winter sun, among the river boulders at Ghazi, where the gold- 
washers are busy at work, and as one directs one’s gaze northwards, past the 
bare tawny hills into the remote distance, one thinks how all this land was 
once in the hands of a dynasty of Greeks, of helmed Menander, or lightning- 
wielding Antialkidas, whose coins attest the excellency of the arts in these 
remote places when under their accomplished sway, but of whose influence 
every living trace seems to have disappeared, unless, in the classical designs 
of the village basketwork, or in the graceful devices in red and green on the 
