Another tūmān of Lamghān is Kūnār-with-Nūr-gal. It lies somewhat out-of-the-way, remote from the Lamghānāt, with its borders in amongst the Kāfir lands; on these accounts its people give in tribute rather little of what they have. The Chaghān-sarāī water enters it from the north-east, passes on into the bulūk of Kāma, there joins the Bārān-water and with that flows east.
Mīr Sayyid ‘Alī Hamadānī,781– God’s mercy on him! – coming here as he journeyed, died 2 miles (1 shar‘ī) above Kūnār. His disciples carried his body to Khutlān. A shrine was erected at the honoured place of his death, of which I made the circuit when I came and took Chaghān-sarāī in 920 AH.782
The orange, citron and coriander783 abound in this tūmān. Strong wines are brought down into it from Kāfiristān.
A strange thing is told there, one seeming impossible, but one told to us again and again. All through the hill-country above Multa-kundī, viz. in Kūnār, Nūr-gal, Bajaur, Sawād and thereabouts, it is commonly said that when a woman dies and has been laid on a bier, she, if she has not been an ill-doer, gives the bearers such a shake when they lift the bier by its four sides, that against their will and hindrance, her corpse falls to the ground; but, if she has done ill, no movement occurs. This was heard not only from Kūnārīs but, again and again, in Bajaur, Sawād and the whole hill-tract. Ḥaidar-‘alī Bajaurī, – a sult̤ān who governed Bajaur well, – when his mother died, did not weep, or betake himself to lamentation, or put on black, but said, “Go! lay her on the bier! if she move not, I will have her burned.”784 They laid her on the bier; the desired movement followed; when he heard that this was so, he put on black and betook himself to lamentation.
(Authors note to Multa-kundī.) As Multa-kundī is known the lower part of the tūmān of Kūnār-with-Nūr-gal; what is below (i. e. on the river) belongs to the valley of Nūr and to Atar.785
Another bulūk is Chaghān-sarāī,786 a single village with little land, in the mouth of Kāfiristān; its people, though Muṣalmān, mix with the Kāfirs and, consequently, follow their customs.787 A great torrent (the Kūnār) comes down to it from the north-east from behind Bajaur, and a smaller one, called Pīch, comes down out of Kāfiristān. Strong yellowish wines are had there, not in any way resembling those of the Nūr-valley, however. The village has no grapes or vineyards of its own; its wines are all brought from up the Kāfiristān-water and from Pīch-i-kāfiristānī.
The Pīch Kāfirs came to help the villagers when I took the place. Wine is so commonly used there that every Kāfir has his leathern wine-bag (khīg) at his neck, and drinks wine instead of water.788
Kāma, again, though not a separate district but dependent on Nīngnahār, is also called a bulūk.789
Nijr-aū790 is another tūmān. It lies north of Kābul, in the Kohistān, with mountains behind it inhabited solely by Kāfirs; it is a quite sequestered place. It grows grapes and fruits in abundance. Its people make much wine but, they boil it. They fatten many fowls in winter, are wine-bibbers, do not pray, have no scruples and are Kāfir-like.791
In the Nijr-aū mountains is an abundance of archa, jīlghūza, bīlūt and khanjak.792 The first-named three do not grow above Nigr-aū but they grow lower, and are amongst the trees of Hindūstān. Jīlghūza-wood is all the lamp the people have; it burns like a candle and is very remarkable. The flying-squirrel793 is found in these mountains, an animal larger than a bat and having a curtain (parda), like a bat’s wing, between its arms and legs. People often brought one in; it is said to fly, downward from one tree to another, as far as a giz flies;794 I myself have never seen one fly. Once we put one to a tree; it clambered up directly and got away, but, when people went after it, it spread its wings and came down, without hurt, as if it had flown. Another of the curiosities of the Nijr-aū mountains is the lūkha (var. lūja) bird, called also bū-qalamūn (chameleon) because, between head and tail, it has four or five changing colours, resplendent like a pigeon’s throat.795 It is about as large as the
kabg-i-darī and seems to be the kabg-i-darī of Hindūstān.796 People tell this wonderful thing about it: – When the birds, at the on-set of winter, descend to the hill-skirts, if they come over a vineyard, they can fly no further and are taken.797 There is a kind of rat in Nijr-aū, known as the musk-rat, which smells of musk; I however have never seen it.798
Panjhīr (Panj-sher) is another tūmān; it lies close to Kāfiristān, along the Panjhīr road, and is the thoroughfare of Kāfir highwaymen who also, being so near, take tax of it. They have gone through it, killing a mass of persons, and doing very evil deeds, since I came this last time and conquered Hindūstān (932 AH. -1526 AD.).799
Another is the tūmān of Ghūr-bund. In those countries they call a kūtal (koh?) a bund;800 they go towards Ghūr by this pass (kūtal); apparently it is for this reason that they have called (the tūmān?) Ghūr-bund. The Hazāra hold the heads of its valleys.801 It has few villages and little revenue can be raised from it. There are said to be mines of silver and lapis lazuli in its mountains.
Again, there are the villages on the skirts of the (Hindū-kush) mountains,802 with Mīta-kacha and Parwān at their head, and Dūr-nāma803 at their foot, 12 or 13 in all. They are fruit-bearing villages, and they grow cheering wines, those of Khwāja Khāwand Sa‘īd being reputed the strongest roundabouts. The villages all lie on the foot-hills; some pay taxes but not all are taxable because they lie so far back in the mountains.
Between the foot-hills and the Bārān-water are two detached stretches of level land, one known as Kurrat-tāziyān,804 the other as Dasht-i-shaikh (Shaikh’s-plain). As the green grass of the millet805 grows well there, they are the resort of Turks and (Mughūl) clans (aīmāq).
Tulips of many colours cover these foot-hills; I once counted them up; it came out at 32 or 33 different sorts. We named one the Rose-scented, because its perfume was a little like that of the red rose; it grows by itself on Shaikh’s-plain, here and nowhere else. The Hundred-leaved tulip is another; this grows, also by itself, at the outlet of the Ghūr-bund narrows, on the hill-skirt below Parwān. A low hill known as Khwāja Reg-i-rawān (Khwāja-of-the-running-sand), divides the afore-named two pieces of level land; it has, from top to foot, a strip of sand from which people say the sound of nagarets and tambours issues in the heats.806
Again, there are the villages depending on Kābul itself. South-west from the town are great snow mountains