“The word Karnas, I was told by a learned Goklan Mullah, means Tirandaz, or Shikari (i.e.  Archer or Hunter), and was applied to this tribe of Moghuls on account of their professional skill in shooting, which apparently secured them an important place in the army.  In Turki the word Karnas means Shikamparast—­literally, ‘belly worshippers,’ which implies avarice.  This term is in use at present, and I was told, by a Kazi of Bujnurd, that it is sometimes used by way of reproach....  The Karnas people in Mana and Gurgan say it is the name of their tribe, and they can give no other explanation.”

XVIII., pp. 98, 102, 165.  “The King of these scoundrels is called NOGODAR.”

Sir Aurel Stein has the following regarding the route taken by this Chief in Serindia, I., pp. 11-12:—­

“To revert to an earlier period it is noteworthy that the route in Marco Polo’s account, by which the Mongol partisan leader Nigudar, ’with a great body of horsemen, cruel unscrupulous fellows,’ made his way from Badakhshan ’through another province called PASHAI-DIR, and then through another called ARIORA-KESHEMUR’ to India, must have led down the Bashgol Valley.  The name of Pashai clearly refers to the Kafirs among whom this tribal designation exists to this day, while the mention of Dir indicates the direction which this remarkable inroad had taken.  That its further progress must have lain through Swat is made probable by the name which, in Marco Polo’s account, precedes that of ‘Keshemur’ or Kashmir; for in the hitherto unexplained Ariora can be recognized, I believe, the present Agror, the name of the well-known hill-tract on the Hazara border which faces Buner from the left bank of the Indus.  It is easy to see from any accurate map of these regions, that for a mobile column of horsemen forcing its way from Badakhshan to Kashmir, the route leading through the Bashgol Valley, Dir, Talash, Swat, Buner, Agror, and up the Jhelam Valley, would form at the present day, too, the most direct and practicable line of invasion.”

In a paper on Marco Polo’s Account of a Mongol inroad into Kashmir (Geog.  Jour., August, 1919), Sir Aurel Stein reverts again to the same subject.  “These [Mongol] inroads appear to have commenced from about 1260 A.D., and to have continued right through the reign of Ghiasuddin, Sultan of Delhi (1266-1286), whose identity with Marco’s Asedin Soldan is certain.  It appears very probable that Marco’s story of Nogodar, the nephew of Chaghatai, relates to one of the earliest of these incursions which was recent history when the Poli passed through Persia about 1272-73 A.D.”

Stein thinks, with Marsden and Yule, that Dilivar (pp. 99, 105) is really a misunderstanding of “Citta di Livar” for Lahawar or Lahore.

Dir has been dealt with by Yule and Pauthier, and we know that it is “the mountain tract at the head of the western branch of the Panjkora River, through which leads the most frequented route from Peshawar and the lower Swat valley to Chitral” (Stein, l.c.).  Now with regard to the situation of Pashai (p. 104):