It is against such possibilities that the maintenance of “masterly inactivity,” qualified by the moral and, if need be, pecuniary or other material support of the Anglo-Indian Government is needed. This is the object of this paper, before I enter into the more agreeable task of describing the languages, customs, and country of perhaps the most interesting races that inhabit the globe.
_The Times_ of the 30th November publishes a map of the Pamirs and an account of the questions connected with them that, like many other statements in its articles on “Indian affairs,” are incorrect and misleading. Having been on a special mission by the Panjab Government, in 1866, when I discovered the races and languages of “Dardistan,” and gave the country that name, and again having been on special duty with the Foreign Department of the Government of India in 1886 in connection with the Boorishki language and race of Hunza, Nagyr, and a part of Yasin, regarding which I have recently completed Part I. of a large work, I may claim to speak with some authority as regards these districts, even if I had no other claim. The point which I wish to specially contradict at present, is the one relating to the Russians bringing themselves into almost direct contact with “the Hunza and other tribes subject to Kashmîr and, as such, entitled to British protection and under British control.”
[Illustration: DR. LEITNER AS A BUKHARA MAULVI, WHEN CROSSING THE FRONTIER IN 1866 DURING THE KASHMÎR WAR WITH THE DARD TRIBES.]
When I crossed the then Kashmîr frontier in 1866, in the disguise of a Bokhara Maulvi, armed with a testimonial of Muhammadan theological learning, I found that the tribes of Hunza, Nagyr, Dareyl, Yasin, and Chitrál had united under the leadership of the last-named to expel the Kashmîr invaders from the Gilgit Fort. My mission was a purely linguistic one; but the sight of dying and dead men along the road, that of heads stuck up along the march of the Kashmîr troops, and the attempts made on my life by our feudatory, the late Maharaja of Kashmîr, compelled me to pay attention to other matters besides the languages, legends, songs, and fables of the interesting races with whom I now came in contact under circumstances that might not seem to be favourable to the accomplishment of my task. I had been warned by the then Lieutenant-Governor of the Panjab, Sir Donald McLeod, whose like we have not seen again, not to cross the frontier, as the tribes beyond were supposed to be cannibals; but as I could not get the information of which I was in search within our frontier, I had to cross it. My followers were frightened off by all sorts of wild stories, till our party was reduced from some fifty to three, including myself. The reason for all this was, that the Maharaja was afraid that I should find out and report his breach of the Treaty by which we sold Kashmîr to him in 1846, and in which the Indus is laid down as his boundary on the west. In 1866, therefore, at any rate, even the tenure of Gilgit, which is on the other side of the Indus, was contested and illegal, whilst the still more distant Hunza and Nagyr had more than once inflicted serious punishment on the Kashmîr troops that sought to invade districts that have preserved their autonomy during the last fourteen centuries, as was admitted by _The Times_ of the 2nd November, 1891, before its present change with the times, if an unintentional pun may be permitted.