representative who
is admittedly a "defender of the faith" only so long as he has power to
enforce his decrees and is accepted by the general _consensus_ of the
faithful, the very essence of Sunni-ism, the "al-sunnat wa jamaat".
This view is in bold contradiction to the _hereditary_ principle,
represented, by the "Mahdi" of the "Imam's" descent from the Kureish
tribe of Arabia, which caused the very separation of the Shia sect from
the Sunnis, which is the very essence of Shia belief, and which has
among other fictions, led to the assumption of the name of "Kureishi"
by some of the Kafirs.

Sir Henry Rawlingson was glad of the opportunity of expressing his high
appreciation of the value of Mr. McNair's exploration. His journey was
not a mere holiday trip, or an every-day reconnaissance survey; on the
contrary, it was a serious undertaking, and opened up what he (Sir
Henry), for twenty years had maintained to be the great natural
highroad from India to Central Asia. The route to the north of the
Kabul river and along the Chitral Valley was by far the most direct and
the easiest line of communication between, the Punjab and the upper
valley of the Oxus; and although native explorers had, as Colonel Yule
had observed, already traversed the route and brought back a good-deal
of general information concerning it, Mr. McNair was the first European
who had ever crossed the Hindu Kush upon this line, or had gained such
an acquaintance with the different ranges as would enable geographers
to map the country scientifically, and delineate its physical features.
The seal which Mr. McNair had exhibited to the meeting was of
Babylonian workmanship, and although relics of the same class were of
no great rarity in Persia and Mesopotamia, it was a curious
circumstance to find one in such a remote locality as the Swat Valley,
and could only be explained by supposing it to have belonged to one of
Alexander's soldiers who brought it from Babylon. Eldred Pottinger had
found a similar relic at Oba on his journey through the mountains from
Herat to Kabul. The tradition in the country had always been that the
Kafirs whom Mr. McNair visited, were descended from Alexander's
soldiers; but there was not in reality the slightest foundation for
such a belief. Neither in language nor religion, nor manners and
customs, was there the least analogy between the Kafirs and Greeks. The
various dialects spoken by the tribes of the Hindu Kush, including the