Page:The People of India — a series of photographic illustrations, with descriptive letterpress, of the races and tribes of Hindustan Vol 5.djvu/133

 MULLIK ENSAL. (254)

HE Yaga Kheyl, to which the subject of the Photograph belongs, is a clan of the Wuzeerees, a frontier tribe of the Derajat, a province lying south of Kohat. They are very numerous and powerful, and hold a very large tract of country both in the Sooliman mountains and in the plains of the Derajat. The lofty hills adjoining the south-west portion of the Kohat district belong to them, and includes the western part of the Meeranzye valley and the hills round Bahadoor Kheyl, as also the north-western border of the Dehra Ismael Ivlian district, with the valley of Bunnoo and the plains of Murwut and Tauk. These hills join the great Sooleemanee range, and near the point of their junction the Goomal hills project from the hills nearly opposite to Tauk. The valley of the Goomal forms the Golaree pass, through which a great portion of the traffic to and from Afghanistan and Central Asia is conducted from India, and is only inferior to the great Khyber or the Bolan pass in Sinde. The hills on each side of the Golaree pass are held by the Wuzeerees, and they possess also the western limit of the Joordak pass, which is in the line of communication between Kohat and Bunnoo. The importance of their position, which is rugged in the extreme, difficult of access, and easily defensible, may be inferred from the foregoing sketch.

The Wuzeerees are divided into many sections which need not be enumerated. The birthplace of the tribe in general appears to have been the snowy range which runs to the south-east of Jellahabad and Kabool, and thence they moved to the Derajat border, but at what period is not known. "They are noble savages"

(according to the official report), "of pure blood, pastoral habits, fierce disposition, and wild aspect." As soldiers, though ferocious, they are not esteemed the equals of other martial tribes; and though not much convulsed by internal feuds, are not capable of marching against an external foe. Some of them have been in the habit of cultivating lands in the plains during the winter, but on the approach of the hot season, and as soon as then crops ripen, they reap them, and return to their mountain pastures. Of late years, however, many have settled in the plains, and