IIIF Color HighRes
National Institute of Informatics - Digital Silk Road Project
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| IIIF Color HighRes |
| Ruins of Desert Cathay : vol.1 |
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Citation Information
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
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