HISTORIANS OF SIND.
“When the Almighty makes a man great he renders all his
enterprises easy and gives him all his desires.”
Every place to which he went fell into his possession. At last he reached the fort of Shákalhá, an elevated place which is called Kumba[1] on the borders of Kashmír, and stopped there for one month. He punished some of the chiefs of the surrounding places, and collected an army under his command. Then he made firm treaties with the chiefs and rulers of that part of the country, and securely established his dominion. He sent for two trees, one of which was a maisír, that is white poplar, and the other a deodár, that is a fir.[2] He planted them both on the the boundary of Kashmír, upon the banks of a stream, which is called the five waters,[3] and near the Kashmír hills, from which numerous fountains flow. He stayed there till the branches of each of the trees ran into those of the other. Then he marked them, and said it was the boundary mark between him and the Ráí of Kashmír, and beyond it he would not go.
Return of Chach after fixing his boundary with Kashmír.
The narrator of this conquest has thus said, that when the boundary towards Kashmír was defined, Chach returned to the capital city Alor. He stopped there a year to take rest from the fatigues of the journey; and his chiefs got ready the provisions and materials of war. He then said, “O minister! I have no fear from the east, now I must take care of the west and the south.” The minister replied, “Indeed, it is most praiseworthy for kings to be acquainted with the affairs of their countries. It is also to be apprehended that from your absence in the upper provinces the nobles and the governors of the different parts may have presumed
- ↑ [
(B. 
) 
]
- ↑ This implies considerable altitude.
- ↑ The word in the original is Arabic (
) not the Persian Panjáb. The upper course of the Jailam, just after it debouches into the plains, seems to be alluded to here. A curious coincidence of expression is used by a late traveller with reference to the same locality. “We passed five branches of this beautiful river Jelam which at this place forms a little Panjáb of its own.° Serjeant-Major Brixham’s Raid to the Khyber, p. 43.
