HISTORIANS OF SIND.
respecting the communication between Arabia and Sind, which the translator did not think worthy of special notice. An air of truth pervades the whole, and though it reads more like a romance than a history, yet this is occasioned more by the intrinsic interest of the subject, than by any fictions proceeding from the imagination of the author. The two stories which appear the most fictitious, are the accusation of Jaisiya by the sister of Darohar, and the revenge of the two daughters of Dáhir upon Muhammad Kásim. The former is evidently manufactured on the model of Joseph and Potiphar’s wife, a story familiar throughout the East; but the latter is novel, and not beyond the bounds of probability, when we consider the blind obedience which at that time was paid to the mandates of the Prophet’s successor, of which, at a later period, we have so many instances in the history of the Assassins, all inspired by the same feeling, and executed in the same hope.
The narrative is unambitious, and tropes and figures are rarely indulged in, except in describing the approach of night and morning; [but the construction is often involved, and the language is occasionally ungrammatical. Besides these defects, the events recorded do not always appear to follow in their proper chronological sequence.]
The antiquity of the original Arabic work is manifest, not only from the internal evidence of the narrative, but from some omissions which are remarkable, such as the name of Mansúra, which must have been mentioned had it been in existence at
that time. Now Mansúra was built in the beginning of the reign of the Khalif Al Mansúr, who succeeded in 136 A.H. (A.D. 753). It is evident that the work must have been written before that time. Then, again, we have nowhere any mention of Maswahí, Manjábarí, Annarí, or Al-Baiza, all important towns noticed by Biládurí and Ibn Haukal, and other early writers on Sind, and the work must therefore have been composed before their time. Again, it is plain that the mass of the people were Buddhists, which no author, especially a foreign one, would have
