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They are freely bought
and sold, and are not infrequently bartered for rifles. Truth is unknown
among them. A single typical incident displays the standpoint from which
they regard an oath. In any dispute about a field boundary, it is
customary for both claimants to walk round the boundary he claims, with
a Koran in his hand, swearing that all the time he is walking on his own
land. To meet the difficulty of a false oath, while he is walking over
his neighbor's land, he puts a little dust from his own field into his
shoes. As both sides are acquainted with the trick, the dismal farce of
swearing is usually soon abandoned, in favor of an appeal to force.
All are held in the grip of miserable superstition. The power of the
ziarat, or sacred tomb, is wonderful. Sick children are carried on the
backs of buffaloes, sometimes sixty or seventy miles, to be deposited in
front of such a shrine, after which they are carried back--if they
survive the journey--in the same way. It is painful even to think of
what the wretched child suffers in being thus jolted over the cattle
tracks.


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