Publisher's Synopsis
This historic book may have numerous typos and missing text. Purchasers can usually download a free scanned copy of the original book (without typos) from the publisher. Not indexed. Not illustrated. 1841 edition. Excerpt: ...fish in them, which are fed, and were quite tame: they are considered sacred, and never caught. At Islamabad are three hundred shops of shawl-weavers, and a coarse kind of chintz, and a considerable number of gabbas, or flowered patchwork cloths of the coloured woollens of the country, are fabricated. It was as filthy a place as can well be imagined, and swarmed with beggars, some of whom were idle vagabonds, but the greater number were in real distress. On quitting Islamabad we crossed the several eastern branches of the Behut, and proceeded along the right bank of the Viranag river, at a short distance from it, to where the valley contracted to a breadth not exceeding a thousand paces, where stood the village or town of Shahabad. This is the residence of a Malik or chief, whose ancestors were persons of some consideration, being charged with the military protection of the road to Hindustan, by the pass of Bannahal, until they incurred the displeasure of their Durani governors, and were reduced to comparative insignificance. The superintendence of the police, however, and the collection of the revenue, are still held by the present Malik, and he is said to exercise his authority more for his own benefit than that of the district. We were lodged in one of his houses; the upper part was enclosed by a lattice-work, the interstices of which scarcely admitted a finger, and which, whilst allowing access to light and air, effectually screened the rooms from inspection from without. Shahabad had a bazar and a few shops, at which provisions, coarse cloth, and remarkably fine honey, were the chief articles for sale. We found a Sikh sirdar and some armed men here, who had come to enforce the payment of arrears of revenue due by the Malik. It was...
