History of the Parsis : including their manners, customs, religion and present position : with coloured and other illustrations : in two volumes

94 HISTORY OF THE PARSTS. [CHAP. III.

imagine that the Syud, seeing the flourishing condition of your noble race in Bombay, thought that, by ministering to human vanity, he might draw on your purses. The country of Khoten is by no means the ferra incognita this man represents. I have seen several men who have been there. It is a dependency of China, and chiefly inhabited by Mahomedans subject to that empire, the only Chinese in it being the garrison and governor. In the accounts given to me of Khoten and the adjoining countries, the only difficulties which I experience are in finding out who the Christian merchants are who frequent these marts. They may be Russians, but I rather suspect Nestorian Christians.”

Nor can any weight be attached to the report that the tribe of the Shiaposh Kafirs inhabiting the country to the north-east of Kabul are descendants of the same race. They worship idols, and their language and traditions have little resemblance to

those of the ancient Zoroastrian race.?

1 Sir Alexander Burnes, in his interesting narrative of a journey to Kabul, 1842, says :—

“But by far the most singular of all the visitors to the Kafir country of whom I have heard was an individual who went into it from Kabul about the year 1829. He arrived from Kandahar, and gave himself out to be a Guebre, or fire-worshipper, and an Ibrahumi, or follower of Abraham, from Persia, who had come to examine the Kafir country, where he expected to find traces of his ancestors. He associated, whilst in Kabul, with the Armenians, and called himself Sheryar, which is a name current among the Parsis of these days. His host used every argument to dissuade him from going on such a dangerous journey, but in vain; and he proceeded to Jalalabad and Lughman, where he left his property, and entered the Kafir country as a mendicant by way of Nujjeet, and was absent for some months, On his return, after quitting Kafiristan, he was barbarously murdered by the neighbouring Huzaras of the Ali Purast tribe, whose Malik, Usman, was so incensed at his countrymen’s conduct, that he exacted a fine of 2000 rupees as the price of his blood. All these facts were communicated to me by the Armenians in Kabul ; but whether poor