The Kafirs of the Hindu-Kush
The present work is a record of journey of George Scott Robertson to Kafiristan during 1890-91. He was then a British agent at Gilgit. This work also describes the wild and interesting inhabitants that he encountered during his one-year journey in the Hindu-Kush.
This account of the Kafirs of Kafiristan, who still live in the Hindu-Kush mountains, remains a major source of information on pre-Muslim Kafiristan.
Book Description
A remote and mysterious ethnic group, today the Kafirs cast a spell similar to the one they cast on Robertson nine decades ago. The author combines the perception and approach of an anthropologist with the skills of a novelist. The volume comes with an introduction by Louis Dupree.
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From the preface: "In the year 1888, in company with Colonel Durand, C.B., then a young cavalry captain, I was travelling through the Astor Valley of Kashmir to Gilgit. On one memorable occasion we had made a double march. The track was extremely arduous, and the waning light found us tired and jaded, and still some distance from camp. Silent and slow-footed, we rounded the Doian spur in the gathering darkness, and had begun the descent to the village, when a strange sight to the north-west startled us into open-eyed wonder. And indeed a wonderful picture lay spread out before and beneath us. It was bounded and restricted below by the large spurs which guard the mouth of the Astor Valley. Above, the pure sky domed over all, while in front a filmy veil of cloud was suspended, which seemed to magnify and accentuate, instead of dimming, the noble outlines which lay behind. Through this mysterious curtain could be seen a bold curve of the Indus flanked by mighty mountains, and the light yellowish-grey shades of the Sai Valley, which increased the general appearance of dream-like unreality. Beyond this, again, were the dark mountain ranges of the gloomy Gilgit region, divided by equally sombre ravines, while the eternal snows of the lovely Rakhipushi, calm and brooding, with a single cloud pennon streaming from its solitary peak, completed a background of surpassing beauty. The whole scene was illuminated by a dying afterglow. Swiftly, almost instantaneously, the light failed, and the translucent veil deepened and darkened so rapidly, that the vision like picture was shut out almost as magically as it had flashed forth upon our senses.
"As we turned away silently, the fantastic thought arose in my mind that behind that transparency, that translucent cloud-film, a veritable faery country had been revealed to me, stretching far into the nothingness beyond; and an anxious doubt disturbed me lest I should never be permitted to enter that strange and enticing dreamland. I never revisit Doian, and look towards the Rakhipushi mountain, but the memory of that picture recurs to my mind; but now if I gave way to fantasy my reflections would fall upon the countries and people I had visited through the mysterious cloud-curtain." |
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