Preface, 
XI 
other than those now produced. It was impossible to 
obtain from the Kafirs employed, with any degree of cer¬ 
tainty, information regarding many points on which it was 
sought. As I am not a linguist, it seemed to me that the 
leisure available for this work would be utilised better in 
procuring a large number of sentences on every day topics 
and in simple form, than in endeavouring to solve gram¬ 
matical intricacies which, with men such as the Kafirs, 
might have taken up a great deal of time with possibly 
very small result. 
The amount of time taken up and the difficulties and 
disappointments experienced in endeavouring to elicit 
grammatical and other linguistic information, from such 
very unsophisticated men as are the Kafirs, are described 
in Surgeon-Major Bellew’s lecture at the United Service 
Institution, India, 1879; Dr. Leitner’s similar lecture 
of 1879; Dr. Leitner’s “ Dardistan ” (1877); and Sir 
George Robertson’s “Kafirs of the Hindukush.” Dr. 
Leitner’s opinion was that the difficulties in the way of 
finding out the rules of Kafir grammar were insuperable. 
Dr. Trumpp in his article in the Royal Asiatic Society 
Journal, 1862, remarks on the absence of aspirates in the 
Kafir language. Sir G. Robertson informs me he tried to 
teach some Kafirs to pronounce a few English words, such 
as “happy,” “hard,” but found it impossible. In my 
vocabulary of sentences a few Will be found. 
As is the case in some other languages, notably Turk¬ 
ish, the attention paid by the Kafirs to certain intricate 
rules of euphony, which must be puzzling to any one not 
born in the country, is very remarkable. 
Sir G. Robertson, in his manuscript notes, remarks on 
the great difficulty experienced owing to the apparently 
