KURRAL.
(243)
THE official description of the Kurrals is as follows:—"They are a tribe inferior to their neighbours, the Dhoonds, both in number and physique, but not very dissimilar in disposition, character, and complexion. They are all Mussulmans (Soonnee), many Wahabees, superstitious fanatics, influenced by intriguing priests, and, perhaps, less trustworthy than any tribe in Hazara. They claim to come from Roum, and to be descended from Alexander the Great; common report, however, says they, with three other tribes, are descended from a castaway wife of the Booddhist Rajah Hodee, by a man of the lowest caste. They have always acknowledged the authority of chiefs, who have still much influence, and from whom of old they held their land by feudal tenure. They live on the spurs of a ridge in Hazara, some of their villages being 5,000 feet above the sea level. They are agriculturists, and live chiefly on unleavened bread and buttermilk."
In the Photograph, the figure wears an overcoat of white cotton, lined with black fur; in addition to turban, coat, and trousers, of white cotton, and a loongee, or scarf, of dark blue with ends of crimson silk.
It was fortunate, during the campaign of 1863, that the efforts of the political officers of the north-west frontier were attended with very considerable success. Towards the end of the Umbeyla campaign, the coalition of mountain tribes became weakened under the persevering efforts of Major James, the Commissioner of Peshawur, aided by spirited attacks on the enemy's positions of Laloo and Umbeyla, in which the tribes lost upwards of GOO men killed, beside wounded; and tribe after tribe detached itself from the general confederacy. After the attack on Umbeyla, the Bonair tribes not only submitted, but offered to act against other insurgents; and the expedition to, and burning of, the fanatic stronghold of Mulka was the consequence. The Akhoond of Swat dispersed his followers, and, for the time, the war was at an end; but we had lost 847 men in killed and wounded, and the expenditure of the army, and the march and equipment of supports caused an unusual and very heavy expenditure.
