For the subject of the following Essay, I am indebted to the kindness of Colonel Herbert Edwardes, C.B., late Commissioner of Peshawar. When I was stationed at Peshawar (1859), I heard that Major Lumsden, at Mardān (in the country of the Yusufzies), was trying to collect a corps of Kāfirs, and that he had already succeeded in getting three men of this remarkable race. I lost, therefore, no time in soliciting Colonel Edwardes to beg Major Lumsden to send these Kafirs to Peshawar for a few days, in order that I might have an opportunity to examine them personally. Colonel Edwardes kindly responded to my request, and, in a few days after, I had the pleasure to see the representatives of a race, which has excited so much curiosity in travellers and Oriental scholars.