--- title: The Makli Hill. — Folk tales of Sind and Guzarat · full text with trees · page 2 description: The Makli Hill., «Folk tales of Sind and Guzarat» by C. A. Kincaid: the whole chapter, every sentence with its dependency tree and pragmatics. It begins: Most English visitors to Tatta go there for the shooting only and I should be the last to blame them. --- [Mova](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/) · [this page in HTML](https://mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg76982/13/page/2/) [home](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/) / [corpora](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/) / [tales](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/) / [Folk tales of Sind and Guzarat](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg76982/) / The Makli Hill. # The Makli Hill. · page 2 [1](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg76982/13/) **2** The Moghul emperors thereafter ruled Sind through governors appointed directly from Delhi.[90](../../90/ "tree and pragmatics") The Tomb of Diwan Shurfa Khan, the minister of one of these governors, Amirkhan by name, is one of the best preserved on Makli Hill.[91](../../91/ "tree and pragmatics") Another less well preserved, but even more imposing tomb, that of Nawab Isa Khan, dates from the same period A.D.[92](../../92/ "tree and pragmatics") 1628–1644.[93](../../93/ "tree and pragmatics") It has an upper storey to which leads a flight of stairs.[94](../../94/ "tree and pragmatics") To the east of Isa Khan’s tomb are the graves of the ladies of his ample Zanana.[95](../../95/ "tree and pragmatics") To the south of Isakhan’s tomb is quite a small one, that of Mirza Tural Beg.[96](../../96/ "tree and pragmatics") It appears that he misused his position by artificially forcing up the price of grain and then selling his stock at a large profit.[97](../../97/ "tree and pragmatics") He was so hated in his life-time that he took the precaution to build his own tomb.[98](../../98/ "tree and pragmatics") But even so he did not escape infamy.[99](../../99/ "tree and pragmatics") He was nicknamed the “Dukario” or “Famine Man” and every one who passed his grave used regularly to heave a stone at it.[100](../../100/ "tree and pragmatics") In time the stones were piled up right to the stone canopy above it.[101](../../101/ "tree and pragmatics") Fortunately for the “Famine Man” the Public Works Department have taken charge of his tomb and have removed the stones.[102](../../102/ "tree and pragmatics") But his memory is still detested and his present address is believed to be somewhere in the very centre of the flaming halls of Iblis.[103](../../103/ "tree and pragmatics") LARKANA.[104](../../104/ "tree and pragmatics") A few miles from Larkana at a place called Fatehpur is a handsome mosque.[105](../../105/ "tree and pragmatics") In its courtyard hang innumerable bells.[106](../../106/ "tree and pragmatics") I long tried in vain to learn its history but at last I obtained from Mr. Bherumal, Inspector of Excise, the following legend.[107](../../107/ "tree and pragmatics") The town of Larkana derives its name from the tribe of Larak and was probably at one time called Larakanjo got or the village of the Larak tribesmen.[108](../../108/ "tree and pragmatics") They were followers of a family known to history as the Kalhoras, whose family name Abbassi lent strength to their claim that they were sprung from the loins of Abbas, the uncle of the holy Prophet.[109](../../109/ "tree and pragmatics") After the conquest of Sind by Akbar, it became a province of the Moghul empire; but with the decline of the imperial power, authority relaxed and disorder grew.[110](../../110/ "tree and pragmatics") Of this disorder the Kalhoras took advantage.[111](../../111/ "tree and pragmatics") The first great Kalhoro was Adam Shah, who “drank the sherbet of martyrdom at Multan” or in simpler language was killed in an obscure fight with the Moghul governor of that city.[112](../../112/ "tree and pragmatics") Adam Shah’s grandson Shahlal Mahomed was the famous saint, whose memory still lives in the Fatehpur mosque.[113](../../113/ "tree and pragmatics") His first and perhaps greatest—certainly his most useful—miracle was the digging of the Ghar canal that runs past Larkana town.[114](../../114/ "tree and pragmatics") He did not dig it with a spade.[115](../../115/ "tree and pragmatics") His methods were simpler and more efficient.[116](../../116/ "tree and pragmatics") He mounted a Kando or thorn tree.[117](../../117/ "tree and pragmatics") Once firmly seated in its upper branches, he made the wretched vegetable drag its roots from Larkana to Kambar, a distance of twelve miles.[118](../../118/ "tree and pragmatics") In the deep hollow caused by the progress of the Kando tree, flowed the obedient water.[119](../../119/ "tree and pragmatics") The stream so created came to be known as the Shahlal Wah or the canal of Shahlal Mahomed.[120](../../120/ "tree and pragmatics") Many years later Mian Nur Mahomed Kalhoro widened the Shahlal Wah and changed its name to Ghar canal, i.e., the canal broken by the tree driven by the Saint’s superhuman powers.[121](../../121/ "tree and pragmatics") The Ghar canal bears this name to the present day and the tree which Shahlal Mahomed used as his humble instrument is still pointed out on the bank of the Chilo canal in the Kambar taluka.[122](../../122/ "tree and pragmatics") The miracle of the Ghar canal was followed by so many others that the imperial governor became alarmed at the Saint’s growing fame and power.[123](../../123/ "tree and pragmatics") He reported the facts to Aurangzeb and obtained that emperor’s leave to shorten Shahlal Mahomed’s stature by a head.[124](../../124/ "tree and pragmatics") After a mighty resistance the Saint was taken captive and executed.[125](../../125/ "tree and pragmatics") The governor put his head in a wooden box and sealing it sent it in charge of a police guard to the emperor’s camp.[126](../../126/ "tree and pragmatics") When the police guard reached Lahore they out of curiosity opened the box, in order to see what the head looked like.[127](../../127/ "tree and pragmatics") The lid was no sooner lifted than the head flew out and made its way through the air to Shahlal Mahomed’s favourite village of Fatehpur, wherein the Saint’s body lay buried.[128](../../128/ "tree and pragmatics") The police guard were so alarmed at the strange behaviour of the head that they dared neither return to Larkana nor go on to Delhi.[129](../../129/ "tree and pragmatics") They buried the empty box in Lahore and building a shrine over it, appointed themselves its guardians.[130](../../130/ "tree and pragmatics") The emperor, however, who was eagerly expecting the sealed box, got disturbed at its delay.[131](../../131/ "tree and pragmatics") He sent a body of troops to Lahore to find out what had happened to it.[132](../../132/ "tree and pragmatics") At first they could find out nothing.[133](../../133/ "tree and pragmatics") At last hearing of the new shrine, they went there and extorted from its guardians the whole truth.[134](../../134/ "tree and pragmatics") They then dug up the ground and unearthed the box.[135](../../135/ "tree and pragmatics") Opening it they found it, not only to their own amazement but to that of the quondam police guard, by no means empty.[136](../../136/ "tree and pragmatics") It contained another head of Shahlal Mahomed exactly similar to the one that had flown away.[137](../../137/ "tree and pragmatics") The troops carried away box and head and showed them to Aurangzeb.[138](../../138/ "tree and pragmatics") Convinced of the miracle, the devout emperor felt sure that he had killed a Saint.[139](../../139/ "tree and pragmatics") To show his repentance of his cruel deed, he had a tomb built at Delhi over the box and the head.[140](../../140/ "tree and pragmatics") In the meantime, the Larak tribe and the other countless disciples of Shahlal Mahomed had built the mosque at Fatehpur over the holy man’s body and true head, once more in union.[141](../../141/ "tree and pragmatics") Thus the great saint is honoured by no less than three tombs, one at Fatehpur, where lie his real head and body, a second at Lahore where the empty box was buried and disinterred, and a third at Delhi where the second head lies.[142](../../142/ "tree and pragmatics") The descendants of Shahlal Mahomed were the famous Kalhoro Mirs who ruled Sind until overthrown by the Talpurs.[143](../../143/ "tree and pragmatics") Their capital was Haidarabad but they always loved Larkana for the sake of their ancestor; and the fame of its prosperity and wealth under the Kalhoros is still preserved in the well-known couplet[144](../../144/ "tree and pragmatics") Hujie Nano Ta gumh Larkano[145](../../145/ "tree and pragmatics") If you have money (to spend) then go to Larkana.[146](../../146/ "tree and pragmatics") [1](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg76982/13/) **2** - ← previous: [page 1](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg76982/13/) - next →: [Kutteji Kabar and Mausum Shah.](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg76982/14/) - ↑ back to [Folk tales of Sind and 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