Bolor

We read in the Tarikh-i-Rashidi of Mirza Haidar (Notes by Ney Elias; translated by E. D. Ross, 1895), p. 135, that Sultán Said Khán, son of Mansur Khán, sent the writer in the year 934 (1528), “with Rashid Sultán, to Balur, which is a country of infidels [Káfiristán], between Badakhshan and Kashmir, where we conducted successfully a holy war [ghazát], and returned victorious, loaded with booty and covered with glory.”

Mirza Haidar gives the following description of Bolor (pp. 384–5): “Balur is an infidel country [Káfiristán], and most of its inhabitants are mountaineers. Not one of them has a religion or a creed. Nor is there anything which they [consider it right to] abstain from or to avoid [as impure]; but they do whatever they list, and follow their desires without check or compunction. Baluristán is bounded on the east by the province of Káshgar and Yárkand; on the north by Badakhshán; on the west by Kábul and Lumghán; and on the south by the dependencies of Kashmir. It is four months’ journey in circumference. Its whole extent consists of mountains, valleys, and defiles, insomuch that one might almost say that in the whole of Baluristán, not one farsákh of level ground is to be met with. The population is numerous. No village is at peace with another, but there is constant hostility, and fights are continually occurring among them.”

From the note to this passage (p. 385) we note that “for some twenty years ago, Mr. E. B. Shaw found that the Kirghiz of the Pamirs called Chitrál by the name of Pálor. To all other inhabitants of the surrounding regions, however, the word appears now to be unknown....

“The Balur country would then include Hunza, Nagar, possibly Tásh Kurghán, Gilgit, Panyál, Yasin, Chitrál, and probably the tract now known as Kafiristan: while, also, some of the small states south of Gilgit, Yasin, etc., may have been regarded as part of Balur....

“The conclusions arrived at [by Sir H. Yule], are very nearly borne out by Mirza Haidar’s description. The only differences are (1) that, according to our author, Baltistán cannot have been included in Balur, as he always speaks of that country, later in his work, as a separate province with the name of Balti, and says that it bordered on Balur; and (2) that Balur was confined almost entirely, as far as I am able to judge from his description in this passage and elsewhere, to the southern slopes of the Eastern Hindu Kush, or Indus water-parting range; while Sir H. Yule’s map makes it embrace Sárigh-Kul and the greater part of the eastern Pamirs.”

XXXIII., p. 182. “The natives [of Cascar] are a wretched, niggardly set of people; they eat and drink in miserable fashion.”

The people of Kashgar seem to have enjoyed from early times a reputation for rough manners and deceit (Stein, Ancient Khotan, p. 49 n). Stein, p. 70, recalls Hiuan Tsang’s opinion: “The disposition of the men is fierce and impetuous, and they are mostly false and deceitful. They make light of decorum and politeness, and esteem learning but little.” Stein adds, p. 70, with regard to Polo’s statement: “Without being able to adduce from personal observation evidence as to the relative truth of the latter statement, I believe that the judgements recorded by both those great travellers may be taken as a fair reflex of the opinion in which the ‘Kāshgarliks’ are held to this day by the people of other Turkestān districts, especially by the Khotanese. And in the case of Hiuan Tsang at least, it seems probable from his long stay in, and manifest attachment to, Khotan that this neighbourly criticism might have left an impression upon him.”

XXXVI., p. 188.