uld. It was curious to notice how faithful the report
of his emissary was. The people of the country were described in the
following words: "The Kafirs were celebrated for their beauty and their
European complexions. They worshipped idols, drank wine in silver cups
or vases, used chairs and tables, and spoke a language unknown to their
neighbours." Their religion seems to have been a sort of debased Deism:
they believed in a God; at the same time they worshipped a great number
of idols, which they said represented the great men that had passed
from among them; and he described a scene at which he had been present,
when a goat or a cow was sacrificed, and the following prayer, pithy
and comprehensive, although not remarkable for charity, was offered up:
"Ward off fever from us. Increase our stores. Kill the Mussulmans.
After death admit us to Paradise." Killing the Mussulman was a
religious duty which the Kafirs performed with the greatest fidelity
and diligence. In fact, no young man was allowed to marry until he had
killed a Mussulman. They attached the same importance to the killing of
a Mussulman as the Red Indians did to taking the scalp of an enemy.
Their number did not appear to exceed 250,000. They inhabited three
valleys, and small as their number was they were constantly at war with
each other, and seized upon the members of kindred tribes in order to
sell them as slaves. The women were remarkable for their beauty; and
Sir Henry Rawlinson once said at one of their meetings that the most
beautiful Oriental woman he ever saw was a Kafir, and that she had,
besides other charms, a great mass of golden hair, which, let loose and
shaken, covered her completely from head to foot like a veil. In order
to show what was the state of our knowledge of the country down to
1879, he would read part of a paper by Mr. Markham on "The Upper Basin
of the Kabul River." "This unknown portion of the southern watershed of
the Hindu Kush is inhabited by an indomitable race of unconquered
hill-men, called by their Muslim neighbours the Siah-posh
(black-clothed) Kafirs. Their country consists of the long valleys
extending from the Hindu Kush to the Kunar river, with many secluded
glens descending to them, and intervening hills affording pasturage for
their sheep and cattle. The peaks in Kafiristan reach to heights of
from 11,000 to 16,000 feet. The valleys yield crops of wheat and
barley, and the Emperor Baber mentions the strong and head