Geographical Journal (Journal of the Royal Geographical Society): Volume VIII, No. 5 [‎62r] (126/154)

CORRESPONDENCE.
525
unfairly long communication I cannot ask for the space that would be requisite
it I were to state the grounds of my new conclusion, which must await some
other, time and some different channel of publication, but I shall be happy to
submit them privately to Colonel Holdich if he would care to know them He
would, I feel sure, be satisfied with them.
To put the result summarily, Fahraj near Bampur is the place locally called
Fahra in the middle ages. Then the Basurjan of Ibnu Khurdadhbeh, the Masurian
of Idrisi, and the Masakan of Istakhri, are one and the same place. This, in all
probability, occupied the site of the present Sarbaz. It is stated to have been
-4 farsakhs from hahra, while Sarbaz (according to Sir F. Goldsmid’s route) is
+ A Sta a\ fr0m that Pkce - In Ibnu Khurdadhbeh’s time it was the chief
town of the Schismatics ” (for his Medinetu 7 Kharun read Medinetu 7 Khuruj)
and these people we know from the later Arab writers, were settled alon* the
course of the Sarbaz river. Subsequently Bask became their capital. This place
lower down the river and 40 miles from Sarbaz, is not mentioned by Ibnu Khur
dadhbeh, but I would identify it with his “village of Yahya bin Amr,” 10 farsakhs
rom Basurjan {Sarbaz), and would suppose that Yahya was then the headman of
the place, or that he was, perhaps, its founder. From Eask onwards to Pan>ur I
must confess I can make nothing of the route, nor can I identify a single one
of the ten intervening stations. According to the later Arab geographers°, there
was a route from Kask through the present Bampusht district to Dizak, and
thence to Panjgur, the entire distance from the first place to the last beino-
G stages, while modern itineraries and maps would make it about 230 miles!
How, then, can jve account for Ibnu Khurdadhbeh’s 93 farsakhs, or say 336
miles perhaps 370 miles t The route cannot have proceeded from Eask through
the Kej valley, otherwise Kej, the capital and probably the most ancient place
m the valley, would surely have appeared among the stations; but it does not,
nor does any other place east or west of Kej shown in published maps. There I
must leave the difficulty. Perhaps Colonel Holdich, with the far greater advan
tages he possesses, can solve it. Allowing it its full weight, it does not, in my
opinion, counterbalance the evidence in favour of the identifications above , stated,
though in present circumstances I can only offer these for provisional acceptance. ’
M. E. Haig.
The Discovery of the very Important Lundai Sin, or Swat Biver.
October 12, 1896.
In the Geographical Journal for this present month there is a letter on the subject
of “Makran,” by Lieut.-Colonel Holdich, r.e., on which subject I have nothing to
say at present; but, in the last paragraph of the letter, referring to the sertous
mistakes made with respect to that part of the Kafiristan, which has caused some
trouble, and more discussion, he says, “ We found that the river flowing through
Kafiristan from the west into the Chitral or Kumar [sic] river, and correctly called
Arnawai, . . . was also called ‘ Ba^hgol ’ and ‘ Lundai Sin; ’ ” and that he has “ dis
covered one other very important Lundai Sin, which is also called the Swat river."
It is to this last “ discovery ” I have more particularly to refer. Any small or
minor river may be, and is, called Landaey Sin—not “Lundai”—by the Afghan
people and others dwelling near them. Land is the Pushto adjective for “ small ”
“ little,” “ short,” etc., and the diminutive form of that adjective is landaey for
the masculine singular, landa'i for the feminine, and landi for the plural, both
masculine and feminine. Sin, or Sind, a corruption of Sanskrit sindhu, means a
No. Y.—November, 1896.] 2 n