The Karnas
people in Mana and Gurgan say it is the name of their tribe, and they can
give no other explanation."
XVIII., pp. 98, 102, 165. "The King of these scoundrels is called
NOGODAR."
Sir Aurel Stein has the following regarding the route taken by this Chief
in Serindia, I., pp. 11-12: -
"To revert to an earlier period it is noteworthy that the route in Marco
Polo's account, by which the Mongol partisan leader Nigudar, 'with a great
body of horsemen, cruel unscrupulous fellows,' made his way from
Badakhshan 'through another province called PASHAI-DIR, and then through
another called ARIORA-KESHEMUR' to India, must have led down the Bashgol
Valley. The name of Pashai clearly refers to the Kafirs among whom this
tribal designation exists to this day, while the mention of Dir indicates
the direction which this remarkable inroad had taken. That its further
progress must have lain through Swat is made probable by the name which,
in Marco Polo's account, precedes that of 'Keshemur' or Kashmir; for in
the hitherto unexplained Ariora can be recognized, I believe, the
present Agror, the name of the well-known hill-tract on the Hazara border
which faces Buner from the left bank of the Indus. It is easy to see from
any accurate map of these regions, that for a mobile column of horsemen
forcing its way from Badakhshan to Kashmir, the route leading through the
Bashgol Valley, Dir, Talash, Swat, Buner, Agror, and up the Jhelam Valley,
would form at the present day, too, the most direct and practicable line
of invasion."
In a paper on Marco Polo's Account of a Mongol inroad into Kashmir
(Geog.
