Kutteji Kabar and Mausum Shah.

One of the highest peaks of the Baluch mountains along the frontier of the Larkana district is known as the Kutteji kabar. This is the tale they tell about it. Once upon a time a rich Brohi hillman owned a very faithful and obedient dog. The Brohi was at one time rich, but from one cause or another he lost his wealth and of all his riches nothing was left to him but his dog. One day when he had no money left, he mortgaged his dog for a hundred rupees to a bania of the neighbourhood. Before leaving it, he bade his hound serve its new master as faithfully as it had served him. The dog wagged its tail as if it fully understood what the hillman told him.

Several months passed by and the dog was as obedient to the bania as it had been to the Brohi. One night a band of fierce robbers broke into the house of the bania, over-powered the inmates and carried off the savings of the merchant’s life-time. After the robbers had left, the bania began to mourn and beat his breast. In an hour or so the dog came to him and tugged at his coat. The bania abused and beat it for not having [66]guarded him against the robbers. But the dog continued so to pull at his coat, that the neighbours advised him to go with the dog and see what it wanted. The dog led by the way for a mile or so until it came to a torrent bed, when it began to dig in the ground with its paws. The bania and his neighbours also began to dig; at last they came upon the bania’s safe with his money secure inside it. The dog seeing that it could not fight with success against a band of armed robbers, waited until they had left and then followed them until it saw them conceal their plunder. Then it went back to tell the bania. The latter was so touched at the dog’s fidelity and sense that he tied round its neck a letter to the Brohi. In it he told his debtor that he cancelled his debt and asked him to take his dog back free of incumbrances. Then he told the dog to go back to its master. Off it went wagging its tail and barking delightedly at the thought of seeing its old master.

Now it so chanced that the Brohi hillman had by working in the plains saved a sum sufficient to pay off his debt and he was returning to the hills to do so. On the way he met his hound. It rushed towards him in a transport of joy. But the hillman who knew nothing of the dog’s conduct and did not notice the letter round its neck, thought that it had disgraced him by running away from his creditor before he had paid his debt. A man of high honour, he grew very angry and holding out the fingers of his right hand made the bhundo sign in the dog’s face. This deadly and contemptuous insult was too much for the poor dog. It fell at its master’s feet and died on the spot. The Brohi tried in vain to bring it back to life. As he tried, he saw the bania’s letter round its neck and learnt too late how innocent the dead dog had been. In his grief, he bore the dog’s body to the highest peak of the neighbouring mountains and buried it there. For some time he remained by the tomb as its [67]majawar or guardian. Then he sickened and died also. But the peak is still known as Kutteji kabar.

Another love story of a different kind is told of the minaret of Mausum Shah, that looks down from a great height on the thriving town of Sukkur and the splendid river Indus, as it runs through its two limestone banks. A certain Musulman called Mausumshah fell in love with one of the bania girls of Sukkur, whose beauty is renowned through all Sind. But he was a Musulman and the lady was a Hindu. The lady would not join Islam and he could not, if he would, become a Hindu. Yet unless one or the other became a convert, marriage between them was impossible. The lady moreover had little liking for her Musulman wooer, although perhaps a little flattered by his pressing attentions. To be rid of his ardent importunities, she bade him build a minaret, two hundred feet high before he aspired to her hand. But she had not realised the passion of the unhappy Mausum Shah. He set to work, collected stones and coolies and before the Hindu lady was very much older, she saw to her horror a splendid minaret rising above the ground. In a few more months it was finished and Mausum Shah full of pride and love went to claim the hand of his beloved. But as Francis the First, an experienced judge of the fair sex, used to say “Souvent femme varie, fol qui s’y fie,” and the lady proved as untractable as ever. In spite of her former implied promise she still refused to wed a circumcised barbarian. “I did not say that I would marry you,” she said “when you had finished the minaret. I only wanted you to build it that you might throw yourself from the top!” Cruelty could go no further; and the broken-hearted lover ascending the minaret, took a last view of the splendid panorama unrolled before his eyes and plunged head first from the pinnacle. Legend, however, relates that he never struck the ground, nor was he dashed to [68]pieces. A divine hand caught him as he fell and put him safely on his feet. His love for the beautiful Hindu girl had died within him. He had seen the selfish heart that beat within her beautiful body. Giving up the things of this world, he became an anchorite and taught the precepts of Islam until death overtook him. He was buried at the foot of the tower from which he had once thrown himself. And to this day his tomb and those of his disciples may be seen there by the visitor to Sukkur.