Note 80 — LEGENDS RELATING TO ANIMALS.[77]

Almost every third man I met had, at some time or other, been kidnapped and dragged off either to Chilás, Chitrál, Badakhshán or Bukhárá. The surveillance, however, which is exercised over prisoners, as they are being moved by goat-paths over mountains, cannot be a very effective one and, therefore, many of them escape. Some of the Kashmir Maharajah’s Sepoys, who had invaded Dardistan, had been captured and had escaped. They narrated many stories of the ferocity of these mountaineers; e.g., that they used their captives as fireworks, etc., etc., in order to enliven public gatherings. Even if this be true, there can be no doubt that the Sepoys retaliated in the fiercest manner whenever they had an opportunity, and the only acts of barbarism that came under my observation, during the war with the tribes in 1866, were committed by the Kashmir invaders.