It is well known that when God created the earth He first fashioned this tangle of hill land, and set thereon a primitive Bada-Mawidi, the first of the clan, who was the ancestor, in the thousandth degree, of the excellent Fazir Khan, the present father of the tribe.
The houses clustered on the scarp and enclosed a piece of well-beaten ground and one huge cedar tree.

Sounds came from the near houses, but around the tree itself the more privileged sat in solemn conclave.

Food and wine were going the round, for the Maulai kohammedans have no taboos in eating and drinking.

Fazir Khan sat smoking next the tree trunk, a short, sinewy man with a square, Aryan face, clear-cut and cruel.

His chiefs were around him, all men of the same type, showing curiously fair skins against their oiled black hair.