EUSUFZAI, an Afghan tribe svhose territory is bounded on the S. by tho Indus, N. and E. by 1.1 Ithe Swat mountains, and W. by the Kabul river ,and the Mehra or desert plateau between it and 111ushtutiggur. The tract is intersected on the E. ,Isy offshoma from the Swat mountains, but in other 'parts it is a perfect plain. The inhabitants are )roud, warlike, and extremely sensitive in all matters connected with family custom. In the Peshawur district the Eusufzai are of political itnportance. As soldiers, they are not inferior to any of the independent tribes. They are tho most martial of all the British subjects on that frontier, and the history of many generations attests their military exploits. Participators in every war that has convulsed the Peshaw ur valley, and always the recuszint subjects of the Sikhs, they have 710W literally turned their swords into ploughshares, and are right good subjects of the British. Their customs have been respected, the allowances of tho chief and their village headmen have been con firmed. Though constantly tampered with by the Swat government to rebel, they only once yielded to temptation. At the brittle of Teree, which gave the sovereignty of Peshawur to the Sikh, the Eusufzai formed the strength of the Mahomedan army, which, numbering 30,000 men, withstood a Sikh force of equal numbers, supported by guns and headed by Ranjit Singh himself. The Eusuf zai are democratic and in small communities, with patriarchal government. They are agricultural, lying in warm and fertile valleys, touching the Indus on one side and the l'unjkora on the other, extending on the south to Kabul, occupying the northern part of the plain of Peshawur, liuuir, Swat, Punjkora, and Chumla. The Swat, Bunir, Punjkora, and the Eusufzai part of the Kabul valley, are the lands of the Akkozai, the Mullezai, and the Lawezai. The clans of the Eusufzai and Mahmudzai have a system of peri odical interchange of lands, called Wrtish. The numbers of the Eusufzai are estimated at from 700,000 to 900,000 souls, and are of Afghan, Indian, and Kashmir blood, with the old occupants of the land, the Dehkani and Swati. Many Ettsufzai have fair complexions, grey eyes, and red beards ; are stout and brave, quarrelsotne and proud, and those in the plai»s are very immoral.
The Eusufzai were expelled from Garra and Nusliky about the end of the 13th or beginning of the 14th century of the Christian era, and soon after settled in the neighbourhood of Kabul.
Ulugh Beg, whose power was at that time strengthened by the accession of many Moghuls, to rid himself of his troublesome allies, began by fomenting dissensions between the Eusufzai and Guggeeani (for the Khukkai had now broken into independent clans), and he soon after attacked them at the head of that tribo aud his own army. He was defeated at first, but, having cut off all the chiefs of the tribe at n banquet, during an iusidious peace which he had the art to conclude with them, he plundered the Eusufzai of all their possessions, and drove them out of Kabul. The Eusufzai, reduced to extreme distress, took the way to the neighbourhood of Yeshawur. That country was then in a very different state from that in which it is at present. The tribes who now possess it were then in Khorasan ; and the plain of Peshawur, with /wrens] of the neighbouring countries, was occupied by tribes which have since either entirely disappeared, or have changed their seats. Lughmaun wan in the hands of the Turku lani, svho are now in Bajour ; the tribea of Khaibar and the Bungush had already occupied their prement lands, but all the lower part of the valley of Kabul, all the Olin of Pesbawur, with part of Bajour, Chuch, Iluzarelt, and the countries east of them as far as the Ilydaspes, belonged to the Afghan tribe of Dilank, which is now almost extirpated. The country between tho Dilazak and the range of the Hindu Kush, on both sides of the Indus, formed the kingdom of Swat, which WU inhabited by a distinct nation, and ruled by sult.sn Oveiss, whose ancestors had long reigned over that country. On the first arrival of the Eusufzai, they threw them selves on the generosity of the Dilazak, who assigned them the Doabeh for their residence.
Living atnong a conquered people, like Spartans among Helots, and enjoying, entire independence on all around, every Eusufzai is filled with the idea. of his own dignity and importance. Their pride appears in the gravity of their manners, and in the high terms in which. they speak of them selves and their tribe, not shelving even the Daurani to be their equals.—E/ph. Cabou/; Rec.
Gort. Ind., No, Parl. Pap. E. I., Cabool and :VA.