I did not, however, in the style of architecture see anything that could lead one to suppose the buildings were of Greek origin. It is interesting to note that there is in Afghanistan a tribe called Zohàk, which is a division of the Ushturyani (the Stauri of Pliny), who formerly occupied the district west of Bamian. Zohàk is stated by Dr. Bellew to be the same as Zàk and Sàk, and stands for the ancient inhabitants of Sistàn and Makràn, Assyrian subjects of Nimrod, king of Babylon. We descended into the valley and camped not far from the red mountain, near the village of Topchi. It was the month of May, the sun shone brightly, and the fields around were green. Jan Mahomed had brought the musicians--but not the dancing girls--with him. We luxuriated after the bitter winds and sleet of the mountains, and the heat and weariness of the stony valleys. When lunch was over Jan Mahomed sent me some sweets and a bottle of champagne. I found that my servants, though Mahomedans, felt they were justified after their fatigues in finishing the bottle. The musicians sat playing in Jan Mahomed’s tent, and as I lay in mine reading a novel, the quaint music, softened by the distance, was more pleasing than I had supposed possible. For years afterwards the twang of the rubarb, the irregular thud of the drums, and the monotonous sound of the singing, brought back vividly to me that day in the Bamian valley, when I was a new comer in the country. The Bamian valley extends from Topchi nearly ten miles in a westerly direction, and is about eight thousand feet above the sea. It is interesting to know that Lady Sale, Lady MacNaughten, and six other English ladies, who were taken prisoners in the first Afghan war in 1837, were conducted over the road we traversed to this very valley. Lady Sale, relating their adventures, says that though they suffered hardship, privation, and much anxiety concerning their future fate, they were treated with kindness and consideration by the villagers on the way. The order was that they were to be conducted to Khulum, a hundred and twenty miles further on among the mountains toward Turkestan, there to be delivered over to the Governor. This would have meant to them a hopeless captivity. Happily, Sir Robert Sale, after the defeat of the Afghans by Pollock, hurried on, and was able to rescue the party in Bamian. Lady MacNaughten, less happy than Lady Sale, had seen her husband, diplomatist and Oriental scholar, murdered before her eyes in Kabul. While we were in this valley Jan Mahomed went some miles out of the road to show me a petrified dragon, or as my interpreter put it, “a stone cow.” Akbar Mahomed had slain this dragon in single combat, and Allah had changed it into stone. “Why _cow_?” I asked the Armenian, some time afterwards. “It is a snake or a dragon.”