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0277 Cathay and the Way Thither : vol.2
Cathay and the Way Thither : vol.2 / Page 277 (Color Image)

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doi: 10.20676/00000042
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AND THE INDIAN ARCHIYLLAGO.

merly noted for its Pirs. An old fellow still resides there in the midst of the jungles on the bank of the beautiful Svind Bheel (lake). The illiterate Moslems around have a tradition that the Pirs there make the tigers their playmates and protectors, and that boats ready manned start up from the lake ready for their use whenever they wish.

" Banga Bazar is a modern village. The hillocks and jungles to the eastward are the resort of the Pirs.

" I think it probable that all the eastern portion of the Zillah of Silhet was uninhabited when Mullik Yuzbek first entered the valley in 1253. Hence we find that the Hindus preponderate in the population of the western half, and the Moslems in that of the eastern half."

A later note from the same gentleman adds : I have found four celebrated spots in this Zillah at which report says Shah Telall settled some of the Pirs who accompanied him, viz., Silhet Latoo, Hapaniya Tillah in Toroff, and HABANG Tillah on the south-eastern bank of the Chingra Khal river, about six miles north-west from Silhet, and about four miles north from the village of Akhalia. At present nothing is to be found in any of these places excepting Silhet, where there is a masque kept in repair by government. I believe the Habang Tillah on the Chengra Khal must be the one Col. Y. spoke of."

These interesting notes appear to me to render it certain that Silhet was the field of our traveller's tour. That Shaikh Jalaluddin's name has got shortened by familiar use is of no importance against this view—Shah is a title often applied to eminent Mahomedan saints—whilst we learn that tradition still regards him as a saint and a leader of saints ; that the date assigned to him corresponds fairly with that derivable from Ihn Batuta, for the death of Jalaluddin must have occurred close upon the middle of the 14th century, shortly after Ibn Batuta's visit, i.e. in 1347 or 1348 (see supra pp. 461, 464) ; and that the name of Habank still survives, and has a legendary fame. If no remains of Ibn Batuta's great city exist, that is small wonder. Neither climate nor materials in Bengal are favourable to the preservation of such remains, and I know of no medieval remains in Bengal Proper except at Gaur and Pandua.

The name of Al-Azrak, which our author applies to the river which he descends from Habank, is the same as that (Bahr-al-Azrak) which we translate as the Blue Nile of Abyssinia. Ibn Batuta applies the same name to the River Karun in Khuzistan (ii, 23). A Persian title of like significance (Nil-Ab) is applied by Musalman writers to the Indus, and also it would appear to the Jelum (see Jour. A.S., ix, 201; Sadik Isfahani, p. 51; Dow's Firishta, i, 25), and the name here may therefore have been given arbitrarily. According to Wilkinson, however, Azrak signifies black rather than blue (Rawlinson's Herod., ii, 25); and it is possible that the name of the River Surma, suggesting the black collyrium so called, may have originated the title used by Ibn Batuta.

I doubt if water wheels are at present used for irrigation, as described by the traveller, in any part of Bengal Proper, though common in the Upper Provinces.

I should strongly dissent from Mr. Pryse's idea that Eastern Silhet was

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