Page:Folk-lore - A Quarterly Review. Volume 8, 1897.djvu/102

80 wild Baloch tribes, who were swarming down in the commencement of the sixteenth century from the uplands of what is now called Balochistan (here spoken of as Khorāsān) into the valley of the Indus, and the Mughal Emperors Bābar and Hamāyūn and their following from Central Asia, who were founding the Mughal Empire of India at the same period. They are popularly and correctly spoken of as Turks. Another body of Mughals, or Turks, the Arghūn family, who founded a short-lived dynasty in Kandahar and Northern Sindh, also came into collision with the Baloches at the same period. Harrand is an ancient fort which at that time was held by a Mughal garrison to keep the Hill Baloches in check. It commands the entrance to the Chachar Pass, one of the easiest routes from the Indus valley into the hill country near the point where the Indus is joined by the united five rivers of the Punjab. Here the story is localised, and the names mentioned in the narrative of the flight through the pass are still borne by various spots in the Chāchar Gorge.]

There was once a Rind named Dostèn, and he was betrothed to Shīrèn, a daughter of Lāl Khan. The two learned to read and write the Persian language together. But it happened that one day the Turks made a raid on the Rind village and slew several men and seized Dosten and carried him away with another boy as prisoners, and brought them to Harrand, where they passed many years in captivity. After this Shīrèn's father and mother betrothed her to another Rind, and he too was called Dostèn.

Then Shīrèn made a poem and wrote it on paper, and sent it to Dostèn; a faqīr brought it and delivered it to him.

Now as time went on, the Turk who ruled at Harrand as representative of Humāū (Humāyūn) made Dostèn a groom to look after his horses; and as he worked well, the head-groom became friendly to him, and entrusted him with two fillies, saying: "Train these, train them very carefully." When the mares were four years old they saddled them, and Dostèn and the other Rind, his companion, used to ride them about to train them. But before taking off their fetters the Turk made them give their word not to escape secretly; and Dostèn said: "I will not go off secretly; I will not go till I have your leave." And so they rode and trained the mares until the day of the 'Id' arrived, when the Turk had horse-races: and he said to Dostèn: "You two have leave to take out the mares and race them." And Dostèn said: "Have we your leave