Bar Daurani is a name sometimesapplied to the Pathan tribes enclosed between the range of the Hindu Kush, the Indus, the Salt Range, and the Suliman range. It was applied to them by Ahmad Shah, and includes the Yusufzai, Utman Khel, Turkolani, Molimand, Afridi, Orakzai, and Shinwari, also the tribes of the plains of Peshawur and those of Bangash and Khutak.
Povindah.—A great part of the inhabitants of Arabia, Persia, Asiatic Turkey, Afghanistan, and Baluchistan consist of nomade pastoral races, who are continually on the move to and from their winter and summer quarters. But from the most ancient times there have been travelling mer chants traversing these regions, carrying the pro ducts of the varied climates from one nation to another. The prophet Ezekiel, who lived B.C. 574, tells us in the 27th chapter, that the Ashurites made benches of the ivory brought from the Chittim islands ; that the men of Tarshish traded with Tyre in silver, iron, tin, and lead ; Javan, Tubal, and Meahech brought slaves and brass vessels ; horses and mules were brought by the house of Togarmah ; the men of Dedan trafficked in ivory, ebony, and precious clothes for chariots ; and precious stones, spices, and gold were the products sold in Tyre by the people of Sheba and Raanuth. At the present day, the great trailing race of Central Asia are the Povindah. They conduct all the traffic between British India and the Amu Darya valley. They are a pastoral race, but portions of their tribes and some of their clans carry goods to Dehli, Cawnpur, Benares, and even to Calcutta, Bombay, and the Dekhan, and return with the spices and produce of the East to Ghazni, Kalat-i-Ghilzae, Kabul, Kandahar, and Herat. Their chief clans are the Lohani, Nasir, Niazi, Kharoti, with subdivisions Daotani, Mian Khel, Miani, Kundi, and smaller clans, Miti, Suliman Khel, and Mashuni.
They bring to India dried fruits, drugs, spices, silks, woollens, pashminas, felts, horses, cattle, camels, and carry away British and Indian manu factures of every kind. Camels are their ordinary means of carriage. The imports and exports at the Indus ferries of the Debra Ismail Khan district are valued at 59 lakhs, or half a million sterling.
They are wealthy, have fine horses, and can muster about 14,000 fighting men. In a region so full of wars, the perseverance with which they continue their successful enterprise merits all praise. Between Kabul and Katiawaz, the Kafila can travel separately, but from Katiawaz to British territory they have to move for mutual protection in one great body. They are in truth soldier merchants, moving in bodies 5000 to 10,000 strong, heavily armed, under an elected chief with the title of khan, marching like an army, with advanced guard and rear guard, and flanking parties, in some parts with daily skirmishes, occasionally pitched battles, and when halting at night, posting sentries and throwing out pickets.
Major Edwardes says he hardly ever saw a Povindah who had not one or more wounds on his body; and the loss of an eye, broken noses, scarred skulls, lame legs, and mutilated arms are almost as common as freckles in England.
The Kharoti section to the W. and N.W. of the Waziri have 1500 tents. Their climate iu winter is very severe. Many of them are quite fair. In spring they live on milk, ghi, kooroot, and cheese.
Only militant merchants of this description could ever have made a profit out of a commerce which had to traverse difficult mountain ranges, through savage robber tribes, and the countries between them seamed with the customs lines of greedy, short-sighted chiefs. Besides the demands of the governments, they are subjected to the exaction of the officials and petty chiefs at every stage of their route, and the black mail of the various tribes through which they pass,—the Turkoman on the Oxus, the Uzbak robbers of Mum. Sharif, the Tartars of the Dasht-i-Safed, the Hamra of Syghan and Bisut, the Wurdak between Kabul and Ghazni, the Hotuk between Ghazni and Katiawaz, the Suli man Khel of Katiawaz, and. the Waziri between them and the Indus valley. Sorely harassed, at every step losing men, horses, camels, bales of merchandise, bribing, cajoling, bullying, defying, and fighting, twice every year the caravans of these martial trrul ere, seeking their precarious gains, battle their desolate way through the deserts of Bokhara, the defiles of the I'aropamisus, the Ghilzae plateau, and the passes of the Stillman range, across the Indus to the Panjab. Their Kalila have to pass the Suliman mountains in one great company for mutual protection. Every year they lose a hundred or more men, and at least two per cent. of their camels, besides some hundred loads of goods. If the routes were made safe, they might make four trips annually. They leave their families at the foot of the hills, and enter British India in October, the largest body moving by Multan, and the smaller by Bahawalpur and Sirsa to Dehli, Benares, and Calcutta. They bring the wool of Kerman to Amritsar and Ludhiana, raw silks, gold and silver wire, fruits ; and carry back cotton and woollen fabrics, scarfs, the gold thread of Dehli, the brocades of Benares, drugs, indigo, etc. The passes from which they emerge are the Gomal, Manjhi, Shekh Haidar, and Zarkani. They undertake the safe custody of the passes on the border of the Dehra Ismail district south of Tank limits for six months in the year, without any special considerations being granted them by the Indian Government.