Part 3

To resume the narrative: once again, unaccompanied by my two friends, I left Chitral on the morning of May 23rd, and struck off from Urguch, spending the first night at Balankaru, in the Rumbur Valley. The people are the Kalash section of the Kafirs, inferior in appearance, manner, and disposition to their neighbours situated westwards; they pay a small tribute in kind to Chitral, and are allowed to retain their own manners and customs. To Daras Karu, in the Bamburath Vale, famed for its pears, I next proceeded; here also are Kalash Kafirs, and some Bashgali settlers. The valley is very narrow, and the cultivation restricted principally to terraced fields on the hill-slopes. Kakar was the next march; beyond it no trace of habitation. After a short stay we proceeded up the valley till dusk, and spent the first part of the night under some rocks. All beyond was snow, interminable snow. Starting at midnight for the head of the pass (the difference in elevation between our night's encampment and the crest was 7,000 feet) it took us an hour to do every thousand perpendicular feet. The view on the Kotal as the sun was rising was a sight never to be forgotten; near and around us the hills clad in white with different tinges of red showing, and clouds rising in fantastic shapes, and disclosing to view the blue and purple of the distant and lower ranges. I was very fortunate in having a clear morning, as it enabled me to bring my plane-table into great use. As the descent was very tedious, owing to the upper crust of the snow having melted under the rays of the morning sun, we decided on adopting a sort of "tobogging" system by sitting ourselves on the snow, raising the feet, at the same time giving the body a reclining position; a jerk, and then we were off, following in each other's wake, bringing ourselves up every now and again by embedding our feet in the snow. By this means we got down almost to the base of the hill in a very short time, and on arriving at the Ludhe villages were well received.

Going out was abandoned, but whilst thus inactive so far as going about went, my time was spent in examining closely into their manners and customs, when an urgent message was brought from the Aman ul Mulk, desiring me to return immediately, owing to some unfavourable news that was abroad. Thinking of my two friends, whom I had left at Chitral, being involved in some difficulties, I hurried back, only to learn that the chief had sent for me on the paltry excuse of having heard that the chief of Asmar and the Kafirs had begun their annual quarrels. So once again was another opportunity of penetrating further frustrated. During my absence on this trip that arch-fiend Rahat Shah had arrived at Chitral from India. As he has quite the ear of the ruler, all further chances of our getting on in the may of exploring were at an end, and so we decided on returning to India _viâ_ Kashmir. In return for the presents we had given Aman ul Mulk when we first arrived at Chitral, he gave us others, and immediately threw every obstacle in his power to prevent our getting away, and it was only on refusing to accept his presents that we were supplied with carriers.

Starting on the 5th of June, on the fourth day we arrived at Drasan (6,637 feet). The fort of Drasan commands the entrance to the Turikho and Tirach valleys, whose waters meet a few miles north-west of the fort. Both these valleys are very fertile; in the latter one, and just before its junction with the former, are several yellow arsenic mines, but the working of these is not encouraged by the present ruler. Gold also, I was told, is to be found in the streams about Chitral; this statement proved correct, as I was able to work up some with the aid of mercury, and on having the ore tested by a goldsmith's firm in India, it was pronounced by them to be 21 carat; but this washing is seldom permitted, the reason assigned by the chief being that if once it were known that Chitral produced gold, his country would be lost to him.

Mastuj (elevation 7,289 feet) is on the main or Chitral stream, and commands the entrance to the Laspur Valley, which leads more directly to Gilgit _viâ_ Gupis and Gakuch, and was the route traversed by Major Biddulph. On reaching Gazan, we left the main route and followed up the smaller one along a stream taking its rise at the Tui Pass (14,812 feet). The ascent to it is easy, but the descent exceedingly difficult, a nasty piece of glacier having to be traversed, over which we were unfortunate enough to lose two horses, and had several of our followers severely frost-bitten about the feet. Two marches further and Gilgit was reached, and from there in eleven double marches we arrived at Srinagar, where my disguise was thrown off. To dwell on these last stages of our journey would be merely repeating what has been so ably handled by such authorities as Drew, Tanner, and Biddulph.

In conclusion, I would here record that whatever success has attended this undertaking is due in a great measure to my faithful companions and allies, Hosein Shah, Sahib Gul, and the Saiad.

The following discussion ensued on the reading of the above paper:--

Colonel Yule said he had for thirty or forty years looked with intense interest at the dark spot of Kafiristan on the map of Asia, and had therefore listened with great pleasure to Mr. McNair's modest account of one of the most adventurous journeys that had ever been described before the Society. Twenty or twenty-four years ago we had nothing but the vaguest knowledge of Kafiristan, but the country had been gradually opened out by General Walker and Colonel Montgomery's pundits in disguise. Foreign geographers had sometimes cast it in the teeth of Englishmen that their discoveries beyond the frontiers of India had been made vicariously, but in this case it was an Englishman who had performed the journey. He believed he was right in saying that no Englishman before Mr. McNair had ever visited the Swat Valley. It was now inhabited by a most inhospitable race, who had become Afghanised, but rumours had often been heard about the Buddhist there. Eighteen or twenty centuries ago it was one of the most sacred spots of Buddhism, filled with Buddhist monasteries and temples, but, as far as he knew, no European except Mr. McNair had ever seen those remains. If further explorations were carried out there probably most interesting discoveries would result. Passing on to the Panjkhora river and to Dir, there was very little doubt that those valleys were the scene of some of Alexander's exploits on his way to India. Many scholars supposed that Dir was one of the fortresses which Alexander took, and incidentally the place was mentioned by Marco Polo as the route of a Mongol horde from Badakshan into Kashmir. He believed that the earliest distinct notice of the Kafirs was the account of the country being invaded by Timour on his march to India. When he arrived at Andaráb he received complaints by the Mussulman villagers of the manner in which they were harassed by the infidels, and a description was given of how the great Ameer himself was slid down snow slopes in a sort of toboggin of wickerwork. He captured some of the Kafir forts, but could not penetrate into the country. After that very little mention was made of them in history, till Major Rennell referred to them in his great memoir on the map of Hindostan, and Mountstuart Elphinstone, who, the Afghans used to say, could see on the other side of a hill. He always seemed able to collect items of knowledge which further research proved to be correct. He (Colonel Yule) rejoiced that had lived to see Kafiristan partially revealed by an Englishman and not by a Russian.

Dr. Leitner said it was well that travellers, however naturally accurate in their observations, should submit their results to the criticism of learned societies, for, after all it was in such centres that information from various quarters could be best collected, sifted, and compared. The task of a pioneer is proverbially ungrateful, but he is sufficiently rewarded if he collects facts for the examination of scholars, and if some of these facts stand that test. On the other hand, it was essential that, as a rule, no one should be sent out on a geographical, anthropological, or ethnographical mission who was not something of a linguist or who was not accompanied by a linguist, and who had not given proof of sympathy with alien races. Hayward fell a victim as much to his temper as to the greed and treachery of Mir Wali, whom he had insulted. An Arabic proverb says that "the traveller even when he sees is blind," and if, in addition to this artificial blindness, he is practically both deaf and dumb owing to his ignorance of the language of the people among whom he moves, it is almost certain that he will make many mistakes, if not insure failure. Now few results are apt to be more delusive than a mere collection of words, or even of short sentences. The instances of "a dead policeman" as a Non-aryan equivalent for the abstract term "death" which the inquirer wanted; of the rejoinder of "what do you want?" for the repeated outstretching of the "middle finger," a special term for which was sought, and numerous other mistakes, are often perfectly avoidable, and it was therefore desirable that the traveller, armed with an inexhaustible patience, should not content himself with a collection of words, but also add the sentences in which they occur, and, if possible, also collect fables, songs, and legends. The process in dealing with a race whose language one does not know at all is more difficult, but, even in initial stages, the procedure of pointing to objects that are required will not only generally give their native equivalents, but will also elicit the orders or imperatives for these objects being brought, whilst the use of these imperatives by the traveller will often elicit the indicative or future in the assent or dissent of those to whom the imperatives are addressed, or else an ejaculatory affirmative or negative. The early training in, at least, two languages will also enable the inquirer to discriminate between the substance of a fact or thought, if he might use such a term, and the sound that represents it, for, if he has only studied his own language early in life, he will never be able to emancipate himself completely from the confusion which is naturally engendered between the idea and his special manner of expressing it. Adaptation, again, even more than translation, is what is required, and in order that the adaptation, should be practised successfully, geographical inquiry cannot be altogether dissociated from philology, nor can philology be dissociated, as it so often is, from ethnography, history, and anthropology, which throw either a full light or at least a side-light or half-light on linguistic problems, as has been pointed out by Dr. Abel. The gestures too of a race are of importance in eliciting correct information, for it is obvious that where, on rugged mountain sides, ascent or descent can only be practised by the aid of the hands as well as of the feet, the terms for "up" and "down" may be significant of surrounding topography, just as, to reverse the argument, where many meet only to fight, the putting of the fingers of both hands together will mean "collision," instead of its being the more usual sign for "multitude," or the limit of computation which a savage race may have reached. Finally, in this age of subdivision of labour on a basis of general knowledge, the present practice of explorers working separately without the co-operation of colleagues in the same or kindred branches, and sometimes even without a knowledge of the material that already exists, should be discouraged. The first step to be taken is the compilation of travellers' handbooks, dialogues, and vocabularies for the various districts of the so-called "neutral zone," so as to give to these travellers the key of information and to the sympathy of the people, and our Government of India especially might with advantage steadily collect both old and new information, not at the time _when_, but long _before_, an emergency arises, so that it may be dealt with by a wealth of knowledge when it does arise. Had this view obtained when the "poor relatives of the European" were seen by Sale, Macnaghten, Wood, and others, thousands of Kafir men and women would not have been carried into slavery by the Afghans, hundreds of Kafir villages would not have been destroyed, and the area of Kafir traditions would not have been both corrupted and narrowed by the broadening of the belt of "Nimchas," or converted Kafirs, which so increases the difficulties of an exhaustive inquiry into at least the _past_ of an interesting race. Above all should we have had a faithful ally in our operations against Kabul, for even as it was, the tardy knowledge of that war by the Kafirs sufficed to bring thousands into the field ready to be let loose on their hereditary foe, whilst it put a stop, at any rate temporarily, to the internecine feuds, which, as much as Muslim encroachments, reduced the number of Kafirs. He hoped that the visit of Mr. McNair and of the native Christian missionaries recently in Kafiristan, might be another step towards the future union and civilisation of a race that, whether in part descended from the colonies planted by Alexander the Great or not, should no longer be treated as "poor relatives" by their European brethren, for whom the interposition of friendly and vigorous tribes of mountaineers, along with the Dards with whom they have so much in common, between the British and Russian possessions in Asia, cannot fail to be an advantage in the interests of peace. As to the various routes to and through Kafiristan, he would add nothing to-night to what had been so ably stated, but as regards the languages, he could not forbear mentioning that there are at least five distinct dialects spoken by the tribes, which differ as much as Italian does from French, if not from German, although based on Aryan roots common to them all. Their religious beliefs and customs also show great divergencies as well as similarities. The members of various Kafir and kindred tribes, of whom he submitted a few photographs to the meeting, and whose measurements have been taken, have supplied an amount of information which may be laid before the Society in due course, along with, he hoped, a very full account of a neighbouring race that is anthropologically and linguistically perhaps even more interesting than the Kafirs, who are mainly Dards; he meant the people of Hunza (Hun-land?), who language is, if not a prehistoric remnant, at any rate like no other that has hitherto been discovered, in which the pronouns form an inseparable part of numerous substantives and verbs, and in which gutturals are still in a state of transition to vowels. This people practise a code of religion and of quaint immorals fortunately confined to themselves, but which is not without some bearing on the question of the "Mahdi," now giving us some trouble in Africa. As some Kafirs call themselves "Kureishis," wnich favours a Shia notion in opposition to their Sunni persecutors, he might incidentally observe that the expectation of a "Mahdi" is a singular importation of a Shia notion, not entirely without our aid, into the orthodox Sunni Mahommedan world, which has so long been content with the _de jure_ Khalifa, the Sultan, belonging to the category of "imperfect" Khalifas, as a chief and representative who is admittedly a "defender of the faith" only so long as he has power to enforce his decrees and is accepted by the general _consensus_ of the faithful, the very essence of Sunni-ism, the "al-sunnat wa jamáat". This view is in bold contradiction to the _hereditary_ principle, represented, by the "Mahdi" of the "Imam's" descent from the Kureish tribe of Arabia, which caused the very separation of the Shia sect from the Sunnis, which is the very essence of Shia belief, and which has among other fictions, led to the assumption of the name of "Kureishi" by some of the Kafirs.

Sir Henry Rawlingson was glad of the opportunity of expressing his high appreciation of the value of Mr. McNair's exploration. His journey was not a mere holiday trip, or an every-day reconnaissance survey; on the contrary, it was a serious undertaking, and opened up what he (Sir Henry), for twenty years had maintained to be the great natural highroad from India to Central Asia. The route to the north of the Kabul river and along the Chitral Valley was by far the most direct and the easiest line of communication between, the Punjab and the upper valley of the Oxus; and although native explorers had, as Colonel Yule had observed, already traversed the route and brought back a good-deal of general information concerning it, Mr. McNair was the first European who had ever crossed the Hindu Kush upon this line, or had gained such an acquaintance with the different ranges as would enable geographers to map the country scientifically, and delineate its physical features. The seal which Mr. McNair had exhibited to the meeting was of Babylonian workmanship, and although relics of the same class were of no great rarity in Persia and Mesopotamia, it was a curious circumstance to find one in such a remote locality as the Swat Valley, and could only be explained by supposing it to have belonged to one of Alexander's soldiers who brought it from Babylon. Eldred Pottinger had found a similar relic at Oba on his journey through the mountains from Herat to Kabul. The tradition in the country had always been that the Kafirs whom Mr. McNair visited, were descended from Alexander's soldiers; but there was not in reality the slightest foundation for such a belief. Neither in language nor religion, nor manners and customs, was there the least analogy between the Kafirs and Greeks. The various dialects spoken by the tribes of the Hindu Kush, including the Kafir tongues, were all of the Perso-Indian branch of the Aryan family, and showed that the mountains must have been colonised during the successive migrations of the Aryan tribes from Central Asia to the southward. It might perhaps be possible some day to affiliate the various tribes, when the vocabularies had all been collected and compared by a good philological scholar, but at present there was much uncertainty on the subject. Colonel Yule had expressed his pride and satisfaction at Mr. McNair's success, and had congratulated the Society on the great feat of exploring Kafiristan for the first time having been accomplished by an English rather than by a Russian geographer. He (Sir Henry) would furnish a further source of gratulation by remarking on the fact that on the very day when Mr. McNair had related to the meeting the incidents of his most remarkable journey, intelligence had been received from the Indian frontier of another surprising geographical feat having been achieved by a British officer who was already well known to the Society, and who was, in fact, the chief of the department to which Mr. McNair belonged. He alluded to the successful ascent of the great mountain of Takht-i-Suliman, overlooking the Indus Valley, by Major Holdich, of the Indian Survey Department. This mountain, from its inaccessible position beyond our frontier, and in the midst of lawless Afghan tribes, had long been the despair of geographers, but Major Holdich with a small survey party had at length succeeded in ascending it, and was said to have triangulated from its summit over an area of 50,000 square miles. The Survey Department might well be proud of holding in its ranks two such adventurous and accomplished explorers as Major Holdich and Mr. McNair. The President said that Mr. McNair agreed with Sir Henry Rawlinson that the route he had described would undoubtedly be the best into Central Asia, but the account of the journey did not inspire him (the President) with any confidence as to immediate results in the future. Mr. McNair had to disguise himself as a Mahommedan who was acceptable to the Kafirs, and it did not appear that he had in any way facilitated the entrance into the country of any one who could not conceal his nationality. The reports, famished by native explorers sent from India, had, however, been fully established by Mr. McNair, and it would therefore appear that the best way of solving the problem was to send educated natives into Kafiristan. He was sure the meeting would heartily join in giving a vote of thanks to Mr. McNair for his interesting paper.

It will be noticed by those who read the paper closely flow remarkably absent from it are all allusions to personal experiences, such as fatigue, weariness, physical discomfort, sense of disappointment, or other of the necessary incidents of so toilsome an effort and long sacrifice. As was the character of the man, so is his paper, simple, direct, without any of the exaggerations of peculiar features in the exploration or rhetorical artifices of description to enhance the effect of the discoveries of the traveller, and with an entire suppression of himself. For all that appears in the paper, he might have been engaged in the most enjoyable pursuit, free from all personal risk or daily discomfort.

I desire to testify rather to what I knew of the man himself during a close friendship of over eighteen years.

In youth he was very ardent and affectionate, but as he advanced in years the hardships of his life and the long periods of solitude he passed through seemed to mellow the natural demonstrativeness of his nature, and he appeared to me to have suffered that chastening which all men derive as their blessed portion from communion with Nature in her loving and silent moods; the very ruggedness of mountain solitudes speaking to the heart of man with a solemnity no tongue can reach. A subtle writer in the London _Spectator_ of the 14th September last, in the course of an article on "Clouds," has attempted to describe the idealising lesson of her works to the spirit of man as "the tranquil rhythm of this fair Nature, the hurrying throb of the human interests it measures, there is the eternal poem of human life." In this wise, a subdued sweetness in William McNair's nature remained, which was a transfiguration of his ardent, buoyant, somewhat impulsive early manhood.