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0096 Ruins of Desert Cathay : vol.1
中国砂漠地帯の遺跡 : vol.1
Ruins of Desert Cathay : vol.1 / 96 ページ(白黒高解像度画像)

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doi: 10.20676/00000213
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32   IN CHITRAL

CFI. IV

like those of Darius on the Behistun rock. But, alas ! what

a Chitrali ruler of the eighteenth or nineteenth century

had thought fit to engrave here was only a few rhetorical

couplets in Persian, turned apparently after the model of

Jehangir's famous line in the Great Moghul's palace at Dehli.

Their presence had attracted still more modern scribblings,

and, as a mark of the religious propensities of the honest

Gurkhas usually forming the Chitral garrison, plentiful

signs of Siva's trident. Hastily we rode back to Gairat ; for

the afternoon was advancing, crossed the wire suspension

bridge between two almost vertical rock spurs, and then

hurried on over the narrow zigzagging path towards Chitral.

Elsewhere it might be thought a test for one's nerves

to trot along such a precipitous track with the river

hundreds of feet below. But one soon learns to share the

Chitralis' unbounded confidence in their ponies. Even

my apprehension about the cameras gaily jolting along on

the back of mounted Chitral Levies was allayed by the

remembrance how one of them had tumbled down with

his pony from the path on the opposite bank close to the

inscribed rock without the camera sustaining any damage.

The fall luckily had been only of five or six feet, though it

made the Sowar insensible for a few minutes. On a large

alluvial fan formed by the river draining the Bambureth

and Kalashgum valleys we passed a series of pretty

hamlets collectively known as Ayun (Fig. i r). Ensconced

in groves of walnut and Chinars each looked a rural

picture ; but there was time only for rapid glances at the

lovely green swards stretching between hamlet and hamlet.

Pleasant, too, were the meetings with villagers in

groups, lounging under the trees or returning from their

fields. Their bearing seemed at all times polite and full

of good-natured ease. Ten years of British control have

sufficed to teach young and old a relatively smart imitation

of the military salute. Well built and slim in gait, these

Chitralis impressed me as the most taking representatives I had as yet met of the Dard race (Fig. 12). With their

clear, sharp-cut features, fair complexion and hair, they

reminded me of types common at the Italian foot of the

Alps. Seeing how close the affinity in language and race is