How strangely intelligent all hill people are, and how they are urged by an insatiable love of money.  I never expected any thing to be brought in, judging of the kafirs as I have learnt to do of Affghans and Indians, and here they have in one day, without even a lesson, brought in excellent specimens, including mosses, etc.  I went out to-day to the end of Meer Alum’s territory, this boundary being about one and a quarter miles beyond Shingan.  The valley up to this is beautifully cultivated, and begins to look green.  Saw and shot another Myophonus, a Saxicola and an Alcedo, the common one of India; this species has strengthening splints, as it were on both mandibles:  and the feet, etc. have no scales, being very different from those of the generality of birds.

Myophonus I take to be the large beautiful metallic-blue blackbird, with obscure and elegant white markings.  I have observed common to all hills I have seen, and is always found in damp wet places, this bird is very wary, and in carriage much like the English blackbird, on alighting from its short flight, flirting its tail about, etc.  This bird leads me to remark how widely the river chats are distributed.  The beautiful white-crowned black and red species, and the grey, with a red tail, are found about all hill streams in the north-eastern parts of India; the latter is a curious bird, radiating its tail out constantly.  Enicurus is also widely distributed.

I also got to-day a beautiful male Lophophorus, the plumage of which surpasses description; it is a heavy bird, with brown irides, and a brownish-chesnut tail; it came from Daiwag.

I met with five kafirs, when out to-day, only one would come to me; he was a very tall man, with a savage face, light keen eyes, returning from a forage on the Safis:  he was an Arunsha man, and a Tor kafir, who are represented as very different from the Espheen or white ones, who are found in the mountains adjacent to Balk, etc.  Arunsha is three days journey from this, and has a lame, or one-legged chief, Dheemoo; my friend’s name was Bazaar, he was armed with a matchlock taller than himself, and the usual dagger.  How they compete with the Mussulmans I cannot imagine, as they can only fight in close quarters, and for which they have daggers about six inches long in the blade.

The Kafir names of the plants brought in are as follows:—­

* Praitsoo,           Hedera.
Akrumah,            Iris.
* Kreemapotak,        Melanthium.
Daisoo,             Urtica urens?
* Joh,                Laricoides.
Wheeree,            Ephedroides.
* Amarr,              Rhamnea.
Whishtur,           Juniperus.
* Traih,              Quercus.
* Unzoomal,           Spireaea.
Gutsuttur,          Viola.

Of these, those marked with an asterisk have no affinity