e silk
and cotton weaving and the making of shoes. Multan has also some
reputation for carpets, glazed pottery and enamel, and of late for tin
boxes. A special feature of its commerce is the exchange of piece goods,
shoes, and sugar for the raw silk, fruits, spices, and drugs brought in
by Afghan traders. The Civil Lines lie to the south of the city and
connect it with the Cantonment, which is an important military station.

~Peshawar~ (34.1 N., 71.35 E.) is 276 miles from Lahore and 190 from
Kabul. There is little doubt that the old name was Purushapura, the town
of Purusha, though Abu Rihan (Albiruni), a famous Arab geographer, who
lived in the early part of the eleventh century, calls it Parshawar,
which Akbar corrupted into Peshawar, or the frontier fort. As the
capital of King Kanishka it was in the second century of the Christian
era a great centre of Buddhism (page 164). Its possession of Buddha's
alms bowl and of yet more precious relics of the Master deposited by
Kanishka in a great _stupa_ (page 203) made it the first place to be
visited by the Chinese pilgrims who came to India between 400 and 630
A.D. Hiuen Tsang tells us the town covered 40 li or 6-3/4 miles. Its
position on the road to Kabul made it a place of importance under the
Moghal Empire. On its decline Peshawar became part of the dominions of
the Durani rulers of Kabul, and finally fell into the hands of Ranjit
Singh. His Italian general Avitabile ruled it with an iron rod. In 1901
it became the capital of the new N. W. F. Province.

~The Town~ lies near the Bara stream in a canal-irrigated tract. On the
north-west it is commanded by the Bala Hissar, a fort outside the walls.
The suburbs with famous fruit gardens are on the south side, and the
military and civil stations to the west. The people to be seen in the
_bazars_ of Peshawar are more interesting than any of its buildings. The
Gor Khatri, part of which is now the _tahsil_, from which a bird's-eye
view of the town can be obtained, was successively the site of a
Buddhist monastery, a Hindu temple, a rest-house built by Jahangir's
Queen, Nur Jahan, and the residence of Avitabile. The most noteworthy
Muhammadan building is Muhabbat Khan's mosque. Avitabile used to hang
people from its minarets. The Hindu merchants live in the quarter known
as Andar Shahr, the scene of destructive fires in 1898 and 1913.
Peshawar is now a well-drained town with a good water supply. It is an
entrepot of trade wit