National Institute of Informatics - Digital Silk Road Project
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Ruins of Desert Cathay : vol.1 |
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i6 THROUGH SWAT AND DIR
CH. II
little exploits is kept in view at all times. But the
frequent patrols and pickets we passed this afternoon were
probably a special safeguard provided by the active Levy
Jamadar of Chakdara who rode with my party.
The smart soldierly bearing of the men was evidence
of the progress made during the last eight years in the
organization of this useful local corps. Raised originally
partly with a view to give occupation to selected ` Bad-
mashes ' of these tracts and to keep the more fiery young
spirits out of mischief, the Levies had taken their share
in the fighting of 1897 round Malakand and Chakdara-
needless to say, on the wrong side. The composition of
the corps can scarcely have changed very much ; yet the
Martinis they now carried showed the increased reliance
placed on them. The Native Assistant for Dir, who was
to see me through to the Chitral border, proudly assured
me that since the new armament some two years before
no rifle had yet been abstracted. In appearance I was
glad to see the men still looked the tribesmen they are.
With the exception of fluttering white shirts, evidently
washed for once in my honour, and brand-new Pugrees of
red and khaki, there was no trace of a uniform.
Considering our late start from Chakdara, the march to
Sarai, the usual first halting-place, would have been enough
for the day. But good reasons had decided me to push on
to the Lowarai by double marches. It was getting on
towards 5 P.M. when we passed the Levy fort of Sarai ; yet
I could not forgo my intention of using what remained of
the day for my first piece of archaeological survey work. At
the hamlet of Gumbat, some two miles to the south-west of
Sarai, I had found in 1897 the comparatively well-preserved
ruin of an old Hindu temple, closely resembling in plan
and style shrines I had, in times gone by, surveyed in the
Salt Range of the Punjab. There had been no time then
to effect a proper survey, and now, too, Fate willed that
the work had to be done in a hurry. Luckily, Naik Ram
Singh was now riding along to assist me.
As our ponies scrambled up the terraced slopes of the
hillside, along the lively little stream which spreads fertility
here near the grove of Jalal Baba Bukhari's Ziarat, it amused
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