considered most honourable in India. The
cow is a sacred beast. His service is acceptable to the Gods and men.
Princes glory in the name--though they do not usually carry their
enthusiasm further. "Guicowar" translated literally means "cowherd."
From such employment the future Ahkund received his inspiration. He sat
for many years by the banks of the Indus, and meditated. Thus he became
a saint. The longer his riparian reflections were continued, the greater
his sanctity became. The fame of his holiness spread throughout all the
region. The Swatis besought him to come and live in their valley. After
dignified and diplomatic reluctance, he consented to exchange the banks
of the Indus for those of the Swat. For some years, he lived in the
green valley, and enjoyed the reverence of its people. At the time of
the great mutiny, Said Akbar, the King of Swat, died, and the saint
succeeded to the temporal as well as the spiritual authority. In 1863
he preached the Jehad against the British, and headed the Swatis
and Bunerwals in the Ambeyla campaign. The power which the Sirkar so
extravagantly displayed to bring the war to an end, evidently impressed
the old man, for at its close he made friends with the Government and
received from them many tokens of respect.

Before he died in 1870, he summoned his people around him and declared
to them that one day their valley would be the scene of a struggle
between the Russians and the British. When that came to pass he charged
them to fight on our side. The saying is firmly fixed in the hearts of
the tribesmen, and is associated with the memory of their famous priest,
known to English minds chiefly through the medium of the "Bab Ballads."

His two sons are dead, but his two grandsons, [the Mianguls of Swat]
both quite young, live on in the valley, and are the owners of the
Ahkund's freeholds, which are in every section of the Swat country. They
have very little political influence; but their persons and property
are respected by the people and by the British for the sake of their
grandfather, who sleeps in an odour of sanctity at Saidu, near Mingaora.

From the Malakand the signal tower of Chakdara can be seen eight miles
away to the eastward. Thither the broad graded road runs like a ribbon
across the plain. Seven miles from the Kotal Camp, it crosses the
Amandara Pass, a gap in a considerable underfeature, which juts from the
southern mountains. After this it turns more to the north