Nāsir Mirza, who, a little before, had come to his government, now waited upon me at Adīnapūr. As the Aimāks of that neighbourhood, with their followers, had moved down with all their families into Lamghānāt, for the purpose of wintering there, I halted a day or two in that vicinity, till I was joined by them and the troops that were behind; and then taking them along with me, I went on to Kūsh-gumbez,* lower down than Jūi-Shāhi.* Nāsir Mirza having made* some provision for his dependants and followers from the country under his government, stayed behind by permission at Kūsh-gumbez, promising to follow in two or three days.
Marching from Kūsh-gumbez, when we halted at Garm-cheshmeh,*
they brought me one Pekhi,*
a head-man of the
Gagiānis, who had been used to accompany the caravans.
I carried on Pekhi along with me, in order to have the
benefit of his information concerning the road and the
Passes
Kheiber.
country. In one or two marches I passed Kheiber, and
encamped at Jām.*
I had heard of the fame of Gurh-Katri,*
which is one of the holy places of the Jogis of the Hindus,
who come from great distances to cut off their hair and
shave their beards at this Gurh-Katri. As soon as I reached
Jām, I immediately rode out to visit Bekrām.*
I saw its
stupendous tree, and surveyed the country. Our guide was
Malik Bu-saīd Kamari. Although we asked particularly
for Gurh-Katri, he did not show us where it was; but just
as we had returned, and were close upon the camp, he said
to Khwājeh Muhammed Amīn that Gurh-Katri was close
upon Bekrām, but that he did not mention it, for fear of
being obliged to go among its narrow caverns and dangerous
recesses. The Khwājeh, exclaiming against him as a perfidious
rogue, immediately repeated what he had said; but
as the day was nearly spent, and the way long, I could not
go back to visit it.
At this station I held a consultation about passing the river Sind, and which way I should direct my course. Bāki Cheghāniāni advised that, instead of crossing the Sind, we should proceed against a place called Kohat, which lay at the distance of two marches; that the inhabitants were very numerous and very wealthy; and he produced some Kābul men, who confirmed what he had stated. I had never even heard the name of the place; but as my principal man, and the one who possessed most influence and authority in the army, had urged our marching against Kohat, and had even called in evidence to fortify his opinion, I gave up my plan of crossing the river and invading Hindustān; and therefore, marching off from Jām, and crossing the Bāreh,* advanced up to Muhammed Pekh and Abāni, and encamped not far from them.
At this time the Gagiāni Afghans were in Peshāwar, and, from dread of my army, they had all drawn off to the skirts of the mountains. At this encampment, Khosrou Gagiāni, one of the chief men of the Gagiānis, came and paid me his respects. I took him to accompany Pekhi, in order to have the benefit of their advice regarding the roads and the country.
and plun-Marching from this station about midnight, and passing Muhammed Pekh at sunrise, we fell upon and plundered Kohat* about luncheon-time,* and found a great many bullocks and buffaloes. We also made a great many Afghans prisoners; but the whole of these I sought out and released. In their houses immense quantities of grain were found. Our plundering parties pushed on as far as the river Sind, on the banks of which they stayed all night, and next day came and rejoined me. The army, however, found none of the riches which Bāki Cheghāniāni had led us to expect; and Bāki was greatly ashamed of his expedition.
Having tarried two days and two nights in Kohat, and called in our plundering detachments, we held a council to consider whither we should now bend our course; and it was determined that we should ravage the lands of the Afghans in Bannu and Bangash, and then return back by way of Naghz* and Fermūl. Yār Hussain, the son of Daryā Khan, who had come and joined me in Kābul, and tendered his allegiance, requested that instructions might be issued to the Dilāzāks, the Yūsuf-zais, and Gagiānis,* to act under his orders, pledging himself that he would carry my power beyond the Sind. I granted him the authority which he required, and he took leave of me at Kohat.
Taking our departure from Kohat, we marched up*
towards
Marches by
Bangash.
Bangash, by the route of Hangu. Between Kohat and
Hangu there lies a valley, with a high mountain on each
side, through which the road passes. When in the course of
our march we had reached this glen, the Afghans of Kohat
and that quarter having collected, occupied the hills that
overhang the glen on both sides, raised the war-shout, and
made a loud clamour. Malik Bu-saīd Kamari, who was
well acquainted with the whole of Afghanistān, was our
guide. He told us that, a little farther on, there was a small
hill on the right of the road, and that, if the Afghans should
pass from their mountain to that hill, which was detached,
we might then surround them on all sides, and get hold
of them. Almighty God accomplished our wishes. The
Afghans having descended upon us, came and occupied
that detached hill. I instantly dispatched a party of my
men to take possession of the neck of ground between the
mountain and the hill. I ordered the rest of the army to
attack the hill on both sides, and, moving regularly forward,
to punish them for their temerity. The moment my troops
advanced upon them, the Afghans found that they could
not stand their ground, and in an instant a hundred or
a hundred and fifty of them were brought down; of these
some were brought in alive, but only the heads of the greater
part of them. The Afghans, when they are reduced to
extremities in war, come into the presence of their enemy
with grass between their teeth; being as much as to say
‘I am your ox’. This custom*
I first observed on the
present occasion; for the Afghans, when they could not
maintain the contest, approached us with grass in their
teeth. Orders were given for beheading such of them as
had been brought in alive, and a minaret*
was erected of
their heads at our next halting-place.
On the morrow I marched on and encamped at Hangu. The Afghans of that quarter had fortified a hill, or made it a sanger. I first heard the word sanger* on coming to Kābul. They called a detached piece of a hill strongly fortified a sanger. The troops, immediately on coming up to the sanger, stormed and took it, and cut off a hundred or two hundred heads of the refractory Afghans, which they brought down along with them. Here also we erected a minaret of heads.
Marching from Hangu, the second stage brought us to a place called Til,* at the bottom of the upper Bangash. The soldiers set out to plunder the Afghans of the neighbourhood. Some of them, who had made an attack on a sanger, returned without success.*
ReachesMarching from thence, and proceeding in a direction in which there was no road, we halted one night, and on the day after reached a very precipitous declivity, where we were obliged to dismount, and descended by a long and steep defile, after which we encamped in Bannu.* The soldiers, as well as the camels and horses, suffered extremely in the steep descent and the narrow defile; and the greater part of the bullocks, which we had brought away as plunder in the course of this expedition, dropped down by the way. The common road was only a kos or two to our right; and the road by which we were conducted was not a horse-road. As the herds and shepherds sometimes drove their flocks of sheep and mares down this descent and by the defile, it was for that reason termed Gosfend-liār, or the Sheep-road, liār signifying a road in the Afghan language. Our chief guide was Malik Bu-saīd Kamari; and the soldiers in general attributed the taking of this left-hand road to some design in him.
Immediately on descending from the hills of Bangash and Naghz, Bannu appeared in sight. It has the appearance of a flat and level champaign. On the north are the hills* of Bangash and Naghz. The Bangash river* runs through the Bannu territory, and by means of it chiefly is the country cultivated. On the south are Choupāreh and the river Sind; on the east is Dīnkōt, and on the west is Dasht, which is also called Bāzār and Tāk.* Of the Afghan tribes, the Kerāni, the Kivi, the Sūr, the Īsakhail, and Niāzai cultivate the ground in this country. On ascending into the Bannu territory, I received information that the tribes inhabiting the plain had erected a sanger in the hills to the north. I therefore dispatched against them a body of troops under Jehāngīr Mīrza. The sanger against which he went was that of the Kivi tribe. It was taken in an instant, a general massacre ensued, and a number of heads were cut off and brought back to the camp. A great quantity of cloth was taken on this occasion by the army. Of the heads a pile of skulls was formed in the Bannu country. After the taking of this sanger, one of the chiefs of the Kivis, named Shādi Khan, came to me with grass in his mouth, and made his submission. I spared and gave up to him all the prisoners who had been taken alive.