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mián, in Vimiyán. Bakhtra, of which Balkh was the capital, is the native cognomen which the Greeks modified into the more liquid sound Bactria or Bactriana. Bakhtar* is applied to Kábul to this day, and occurs in the histories of those countries; but if this proves any thing, it is that the Greeks retained the appellation, and did not bestow it. Peshawer is known as a district of Baigram, which was a province of Bakhtar; in short, a philologist coming into those regions would find synonymes at every step, and could not fail to elucidate etymologies, which we at present receive as vitiated beyond the limits of analysis, and inaccessible by synchronotic induction. In this view, the Afghan or Pashtú language may furnish us with many idioms, and especially the local dialects of districts which have resisted Muhammedan conquest, and are comparatively in a state of primitive simplicity. The vernacular dialects of the Tajiks (simply crowned heads or descended of kings,) the aborigines of the country, may be expected to elucidate something; for it is there we can hope to find traces of far antiquity; and if sepulchres alone are the result, they may at least enable us to connect local affinities, and fix the situs of some monarchs whom we already know to have been extant, but of whose reigns and institutions no vestiges have hitherto been discovered; and though the inference is, that they perished by the sword of the Khalifs, which swept away almost every written memorial of a prior epoch, it would be an extreme conclusion that some annals of the dynasties which followed the Grecian empire, if not those of the original settlers in Balkh, may not exist. The period of 1200 or 1500 years is far from incompatible with the expectation of finding inscribed legends either in stone or metal. Coins, the representatives of nations, are already in our possession, and obnoxious as they are to Islamism, as the types of idolatry, they have survived both the ravage of time, and the intolerance of bigotry, and still mock the prejudices of religious zeal; we may therefore-expect to find remains that will afford local illustrations the more interesting to anticipate from the very obscurity of the subject, the total absence of research at any former period, and the barrenness of history and tradition concerning such events.

The topes or tombs which appear in the environs of Kabul are planted along the skirt of the mountain ridges, which support that elevated plain, and this peculiarity is common to almost all of them : the adjacent level has obviously been the basin of a lake or sheet of standing water, till drained away by the course of rivers, and it still continues more or less a quaggy marsh. The first settlers seem to have * I don't know if it occurs in BABER'S Memoirs, but I think it does in the Timúr Nama.

chosen the rising ground at the roots of the hills for their locations, the ancient city of Kabul (still visible in the remains of mounds or heaps) also occupying that basal line.

The position of the monuments, if not influenced by natural causes, or selected from motives of religious veneration, is rather fanciful; those which I have seen being either situate close under the cliff of the mountains, or secluded within recesses, wherever a running stream had its course; and it would appear that a rill of water nourishing a few trees or patches of cultivation and verdure was a conjunctive feature of every spot. The most usual site of those structures is an isolated rising ground, washed by a perennial current. Trophies of such magnitude, serving merely as receptacles for the dead, and often devoid of any traces either of them or of the living, sequestered and almost shut out from sight, will not be sufficiently intelligible to our ideas, except by comparing them with edifices in other regions of the world, the object of which is known :-if they had been smaller they must have fallen to ruin in a few centuries. The masses of Manikyála in the Khyber Pass and at Peshawer almost forbid the idea of identifying them as tombs, except some more decided proofs are forthcoming than have yet appeared, though we are not without analogies in the size of some of the Muhammedan cemeteries, not to speak of the pyramids of Egypt themselves, while the absence of any inscriptions to denote another purpose, leaves us in the former belief.

Of the sepulchres excavated by M. MARTIN HONIGBERGER, amounting to more than thirty, the greater part have their sites at Jelálábád and the adjacent territories, and it is this spot particularly that commands our notice, since it may be assumed to have formed the seat of one of the Bactrian sovereignties, as Balkh did another; the more readily as it would seem to answer in its locale and conformation to the spot which ALEXANDER Consecrated with Bacchanalian revels; and it is certainly from physical position fully eligible for the capital of a kingdom, uniting, as if by a band, the temperature and even some of the productions of an intertropical climate, with zones chilled by perpetual frost, having a considerable expanse of level, and a soil irrigated by perennial streams. Here we behold the tombs of a long race of kings (as I suppose them to be) which have survived in obscurity the lapse of many centuries: a large proportion of them, indeed the majority, have crumbled into mere tumuli; but, except those opened by Mr. HONIGBERGER they appear to have been hitherto untouched by the hand of

man.

Muhammedan bigotry, which swept away all the traces of written knowledge within its reach, and defaced the memorials of whole nations,

has spared these cemeteries: yet this does not surprise us when the Bhúts of Bamián, such gigantic types of idolatry, remain trophies of cotemporary or even prior ages. These wonderful images are mentioned in the Koran, and if we admit the authority of the Mahábhárat, and the sitll more fabulous history of the Pándu dynasty, their antiquity will approach to a period co-existent with the fall of the Grecian kingdom, which is perhaps somewhat repugnant to conjectural analysis; yet we must either assign that date, or an epoch antecedent to ALEXANDER'S conquest, for the construction of those wonderful idols.

But, to return to Jelálábád. The topes are here very thickly planted on both banks of the river, which washes the northern limit of the valley; the declivity of the soil being from the snowy ridge of Sufféd koh, has thrown the stream quite to their base; and here the tombs appear, black with age, extending from Bálá Bágh to the conflux of the Kábul river at Dronta, about 10 miles downward and four from Jelálábád. As we passed along, several were noticed, which did not appear to be delapsed; but they had no doubt been excavated at their base, since it is in this immediate vicinity that recent discoveries have been chiefly directed. In the plain were seen the ruins of others which had subsided into mere heaps like cairns : these were standing in the midst of green fields, but this is rare; and upon a shelf of conglomerate rock, and diluvial accretions continuous from the roots of Sufféd koh, and here forming the cultivable limit of the valley on the south, extends a long line of tumuli or ruined sepulchres, insulated upon natural eminences; though often upon raised platforms, a dozen of these may be recognised, not as mere visible heaps, but mounds of great size, and which until very recently had been undisturbed by man*. Several having been opened by Mr. MARTIN HONIGBERGER with sufficient recompense. Their position is strange enough, upon a bare rugged surface of attrited stones, furrowed by the intersections of water-courses, the cliff of which formed of agglutinated pebbles, or pudding stone, is hollowed into recesses which were represented to me as the caves of the Káfirs, or unbelievers:" they are still inhabited by the pastoral tribes, who migrate with their flocks, according to the seasons of the year, and take up their winter quarters in these Troglodite abodes. The site of the topes commands the whole landscape, which is limited to a narrow slip of luxuriant cultivation, sloping to the cavity of the valley; the interval southward, of ten or twelve miles, being a high plain of gravel, pebbles, and rolled stones, all sterile and arid to the foot of Sufféd koh, where again villages and

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* There is one immense edifice, but now crumbled into a mere heap, near Jelálábád, which serves the Nawab as a prospect point: he often repairs to it and seats himself upon its summit for hours to enjoy the fresh atmosphere.

horticultural productions abound, ramifying within the flexures of the mountains, or rising upon the acclivities, till checked by the rigor of climate. It must have been in this neighborhood that ALEXANDER revelled in imitation of Bacchus, and there is actually a spot upon the flanks of the snowy ridge that would seem to correspond with the locale of that event, the summer residence of the Nuwab of Jelálábád, which is described as affording the most delicious transition from the heat of the valley, embowered in the most redundant ever-green verdure. This portion of territory acknowledging but a capricious allegiance to the Nuwab, and a less certain attachment to his authority, is seldom frequented and little known; and though it is affirmed that there are no monuments beyond the line above alluded to, I cannot doubt that research would be repaid, and that along the skirts of a magnificent range, crowned with eternal snow, tombs will be discovered: the situation almost warrants the belief, if that has been selected from a regard to natural concomitants, and in Kábul the choice has evidently been influenced by such circumstances, for we cannot otherwise account for a position that connects its objects with the surrounding gloom. There, in one of the recesses or glens deeply locked within the mountains, stands a Grecian pillar called Surkh Minár, from its red colour. The site is isolated upon a natural eminence, showing a steep acclivity, lofty and almost mural cliffs rear on all sides. Another Grecian monument or minar, appears perched upon the crest of the ridge, at a great elevation; neither of these bear inscriptions nor any kind of device, but I am informed there is no doubt about their origin.

The decay and most commonly total wreck of all the edifices planted upon the southern margin of the dell at Jelalábád is easily explained in the nature of the materials that have composed them, which are pebbles of vast size, or blocks of stone, attrited by water to smoothness, conjoined by a cement of mud. They have consequently been easily delapsed, and have crumbled away into mere heaps, like gigantic mole-hills. Where these have been excavated at their base, a small hollow square or cavity is disclosed, formed of hewn stones*, wherein was deposited whatever remains were designed. These topes differ very materially from that of Manikyála, and Usmán Khatir, where the square is continued from the top in the form of a shaft. In none of those which I have seen, or which have been opened by Mr. HONIGBERGER, does this conformation occur, and we may at once note it as a distinguishing feature in these fabrics, which has no doubt a local import. There are indeed few exactly similar; for they vary in size, in external decorations, or in their structure; though the contour has *Then the carré of Gen. VENTURA, about which a doubt was expressed in the foregoing paper, was a hollow, and not a solid, square.-ED.

a generic type, as we should expect, if the mausolea represented the offspring of a single and original dynasty; however much its character might be altered by the interchange of successive generations, deriving new ties of consanguinity, in the same manner as ALEXANDER did, intermarrying with the conquered, which he considered a link of union in a government, that was to become dependent upon its natural resources, though perhaps the only apology that he could offer for the sudden transport of love which wedded him to ROXANA.

The contents of the thirty or more topes excavated by Mr. HONIGBERGER are of the highest interest. Many of them were indeed unproductive of any insignia by which we can identify their original design, or connect them with their founders: a circumstance the less remarkable, when we consider the surreptitious interests of the workmen often employed remote from any control, but even where control embraced the entire operations the labour often ended in inanity. Many of the sepulchres (perhaps most of them) are comparatively small*; from 30 to 45 or 50 feet high, with a circumference of 80 to 110 feet; and not one of them presented the structure of Manikyála, or a hollow shaft penetrating from the top, filled up however with the materials of the building, and discovering deposits of coins at various intervals, which continued beyond the limit of the shaft or 25 feet, to the base where the excavated stone reservoir was found, that proved so fruitful of reliquiæ. Nothing answering to the above has accrued to Mr. HONIGBERGER, if we except a single gold coin, I believe of SOTER EAGUST, which was found in one tope lodged within a silver cup, but a similar cup yet unopened, would seem to argue the prototype of that acquired by General VENTURA. The exterior is a hard metal, containing a fluid which is perhaps inclosed within a golden casket like that of Manikyála; on perceiving which Mr. HONIGBERGER with provisionary care cemented the whole cylinder, till he should lay it before his countrymen at Vienna. With the above solitary exception, I do not think any coins were elicited from the tombs, nor any other device indicative of the object of their erection, though it would be an extreme supposition to entertain, that such fabrics should be raised as mementos to posterity without a single trait

* In the gorge of the Khybar Pass which penetrates the country from Pesháwer, stands a most magnificent edifice, equal to or exceeding that of Manikyála, and if I am not mistaken, there are others. Mr. HONIGBERGER sent a servant to explore the antiquities of this district, habited as a faqír or mendicant, his best or only passport among people who live by pillage. He tempted the Khyberís to dig by the prospect of treasure, but they would do nothing without pay, and the object was thus (fortunately) abandoned.

+ Soter-megas, see Mr. MASSON's Memoir, page 168.-ED.

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