A CONQUEST OF PASTS 165
(r82r-r890J. In 1842, a very young Burton was assigned to Sind as a regi-
mental interpreter, ending up as the personal attache of Charles Na-
pier. He produced three volumes on his time in Sind: Scinde, or the
Unhappy Valley (1851), Scinde, and the Races that Inhabit the Valley
of the Indus (r85rJ, and Falconry in the Valley of Indus (1853). Burton
relied on Postans's descriptions from Chachnama, but it is likely that
he was in possession of a full manuscript. In his construction, again,
Sind was a paradise before the Muslim arrival:
It is related by the chronicles of antiquity, that in days gone by, and
ages that have long fled, Scinde was a most lovely land situated in a
delightful climate, with large, flourishing, and populous cities; or-
chards producing every kind of tree and fruit. It was governed by a
powerful monarch who had mighty horses and impregnable forts,
whose counsellors were renowned for craft, and whose commanders
celebrated for conduct. And the boundaries of his dominions and
provinces extended as far as Kanoj and Cashmere, upon whose south-
western frontier one of the Rahis planted two towering cypresses.
During the caliphate of the Chief of True Believers, Umar son of
Khattab, it was resolved, with the permission of Allah, to subject the
sinners of Scinde to the scimitar of certain sturdy saints militant.^34
The project began by Alexander Dow would find no better exposi-
tion than Burton's depiction of this ill-fortuned land. Burton posited a
paradise of ancient Sind, destroyed by the fanaticism of the maraudihg
Muslims, resulting in the arrival of the long dark ages. The region
waited even longer than Bengal, for instance, for its emancipation. Bur-
ton's rewriting of Muslim history went further, emphasizing in tre-
mendous detail the ancient wartime atrocities allegedly committed by
Muslims against Hindus. In particular, Burton mixed various episodes
from Chachnama to give an account of the fall of the city of Daybul
to the Arab armies and to denote how Muslims dealt with the Hindus:
Thus was Dewal lost and won. For three days there was a general
massacre of the inhabitants. The victors then brought out the Moslem
prisonerl and captured immense property and treasures. Before
throwing down the pagoda, and substituting the mosque and the
minaret in its stead, Mahommed bin Kasim, ordering the atten-
dance of the Brahmans, entered the temple and bade them show him
the deity they adored. A well-formed figure of a man on horseback