UNDER THE ABSOLUTE AMIR

AMIR HABIBULLAH KHAN.

[Frontispiece.

UNDER
THE ABSOLUTE AMIR

BY
FRANK A. MARTIN
FOR EIGHT YEARS ENGINEER-IN-CHIEF SUCCESSIVELY TO THE AMIRS ABDUR
RAHMAN AND HABIBULLAH, AND FOR THE GREATER PART OF THAT
PERIOD THE ONLY ENGLISHMAN IN KABUL

Illustrated by the Author’s Drawings and Photographs,
and by other Photographs

LONDON and NEW YORK
HARPER & BROTHERS
45 ALBEMARLE STREET, W.
1907

CONTENTS

LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS

Transcriber’s Note: The final illustration was originally described as “The Serai at Ingdalak”, a place which does not exist. A few other minor typographical errors were also corrected.

UNDER THE ABSOLUTE AMIR

CHAPTER I
ON THE ROAD

Order of march—Soldiers and guards—Method of carrying goods by pack animals—Description of camps—Marches—Welcome given to Sirdar Nasrullah at villages and cities—Description of country passed through—Kandahar—Amir and the moullah who took refuge in the Kandahar Sanctuary.

In the summer of 1895 the Afghan prince, Shahzada Nasrullah Khan, was the guest of the English Government for three or four months, and he had been entertained and fêted and generally made much of while his visit lasted, and his return journey had been made pleasant by a stay in Paris, Rome, and Naples before going on by sea to Karachi and thence by rail to Chaman, the railway terminus close to the Afghan frontier on the Quetta side of Beloochistan.

The Shahzada was met and entertained at the railway terminus by General Sir J. Brown, commanding the Quetta district, with other officers and officials, and afterwards rode on to his camp across the border, where he was joined by a multitude of troops and followers, who had been sent by the Amir to accompany him on his further journey.

I had accompanied the Shahzada, as he was commonly called in England, on his return from London, and rode with him through Kandahar to Kabul, and when he set out from his camp early the following day I formed one of his retinue. It was near the end of October and late in the season, but the day we started was a very hot one, and grew hotter as we went on, and the multitude of horsemen who accompanied the prince caused clouds of dust to rise as they rode along and made it still more sultry and oppressive.

The country looked very desolate and inhospitable, for on all sides stretched a large undulating sandy plain, bare of vegetation, save a few tufts of coarse grass here and there, and rocks jutting out of the plain in places, while in the distance were bare foot-hills and barren rocky mountains, and over all the sun threw its burning rays until the sand and rocks seemed to give out as much heat as the sun itself. There is no made road from Chaman to Kandahar, nothing but a track worn into the earth by the passing of caravans from time immemorial, and at places on the side of the track were the bones of horses and camels whitening where they had fallen. The prince and his retinue, however, rode along cheerfully, for they had returned safely through all the dangers of foreign travel and had many tales of strange lands and stranger customs to tell their relations and friends when they got to Kabul, and had brought with them finely wrought produce of these lands to make presents of and to trade with and reap much profit.

In front of the Shahzada were two long lines, wide apart, of Usbeg Lancers. At an interval on either side of him, and following the Usbegs, were two other lines of the bodyguard, the Rissalah Shahi, armed with sword and carbine, and better uniformed than the others, and following these were troops of sowars who were roughly dressed and wild-looking, though not so wild-looking as the Usbegs with their sheepskin busbies, the hair of which falls about their faces and makes them look wilder than nature made them. The sowars’ mode of keeping line would, perhaps, have offended a military eye, but they nevertheless looked very serviceable in case of need.

Before all rode a man with a native drum strapped to the saddle in front of him, which he kept continuously tapping in time to his horse’s hoof beats; this is the custom used to signify the approach of a royal personage when travelling.

Beside the prince ran a man carrying a huge gold embroidered umbrella, as a protection from the scorching rays of the sun, and around him were syces and foot guards, while a little in front were other syces leading spare horses. Behind rode attendants and the Khans and chiefs who were accompanying him, and I rode with these and knew what it was like to ride in a cloud of dust which caked the perspiration on one’s face and was so dense that the horses stumbled over stones in the road they were unable to see.

Along the track, and stretching away into the distance, both before and behind, were strings of camels and pack-horses, each with its own dust-cloud and accompanied by their drivers, who were on foot. These carried the tents and baggage of this small army, and with each string of animals was a sowar, or trooper, whose duty it was to see that there was no undue delay on the road and to ensure the full load reaching the next camp, for most of the pack animals were the property of men who make a trade of carrying goods, and these men are not averse to making a little extra profit when opportunity offers.

It was with a feeling of thankfulness that I heard the prince order a halt for tea soon after midday, for my mouth was parched with heat and dust. We all dismounted by the side of a hillock, and seated ourselves on the stones and rocks round about while tea was prepared; excepting, of course, attendants and soldiers, who are not supposed to feel fatigue. After drinking tea the prince offered me a cigarette, and I may mention that he showed me many courtesies and kindnesses on the journey and ordered fur-lined overcoats to be made for me by his tailors, saying that English coats were unsuitable for the extreme cold we should afterwards experience, and I appreciated his thoughtfulness in this very thoroughly afterwards. The Shahzada was a different being in his own country, not at all like the Afghan Prince in London.

After a short rest the march was resumed and continued until camp was reached. The afternoon’s ride was more pleasant, for the heat was less, and, the track running over harder ground, the dust was not quite so much in evidence.

At all of the villages we passed the inhabitants were crowded outside the walls to see the Shahzada and his people, while the head men of the village stood in front of the others, and, as the prince came up, took off their turbans with both hands, and prayed for him and his safe journey. Outside most of the villages long poles were fixed in the ground on either side of the track, with a string stretching across from top to top, and from the centre of the string the Koran was suspended, wrapped in cloths. The prince and his followers, when passing under the Koran, stretched up their right hands and touched it, and then with that hand touched each of their eyes, their mouths, and hearts, saying a short prayer the while. After this the Shahzada would stop for a time and talk with the head men of the village, and then ride on. Two or three bands accompanied the party, and on the prince’s arrival at each camping-ground they played the royal salute as he rode in (this was also done when leaving). At each camp also a large shamiana was ready, and there he would hold durbar, which all the chief men of the country round about attended, either to salaam the prince or to receive payment for the provisions and forage supplied to the men sent on in advance to prepare everything against his coming.

At many of the places stopped at were men who had come to meet those friends or relations who had been to England, but it was at Chaman that the Afghans first got news of their relatives. When first meeting a friend they embrace three times, first to the right, then to the left, and then to the right again, after which streams of question and answer follow. It was touching to see the eager questions after the triple embrace, and to see some turn away crying, possibly at the news of the death of a relative, or it may have been that they were overcome at meeting with friend or relative.

While superintending the unloading of baggage from the goods train at the Chaman terminus, before crossing the frontier, I noticed the Kotwal, one of the prince’s staff who accompanied him on his visit to England, sitting on some boxes and looking very glum. He knew sufficient Urdu to carry on a conversation, and so I asked what troubled him. He sighed, and said that he had just heard that his brother in Kabul had been made prisoner, and now his own enemies—may their fathers be cursed!—had taken advantage of his brother’s downfall to poison the Amir’s mind against him, and he was told that if he returned to Kabul it was probable the Amir would kill him. So he had thought it over, and concluded that it was better he should go back to Karachi and stay there with some friends until he could return with safety, and he asked me to help him in getting away by the next train.

To help in the running away of one of the chief officials of Kabul would have been a bad introduction for me to the Amir, and it seemed hard not to help a man to escape death, as he said, and he knew the Amir’s ways; so, saying I would think it over and make inquiries about the trains, I left him, wondering how best to arrange the difficulty. I ascertained that there would be no train before nightfall, and at that time we were due at the Afghan camp across the frontier, so, as there was no necessity to take immediate steps in the matter, I went on with the work in hand.

At lunch time the English-speaking native, who had charge of the catering and other arrangements in connection with the prince’s reception at Chaman, came to tell me that the Kotwal had also approached him about running away, and what should he do? I recognized that there was no help at hand, and so I impressed on him that whatever was done nothing must be known that we were concerned in the man’s running away, pointing out the bad impression it would make on the Amir, and that the Government would no doubt institute inquiries and we should be blamed. So he went off, and came back with the Kotwal, and for a long time talked to him in Persian, of which I had little knowledge then, and, I believe, persuaded him that it was better that he should go away that day to the Afghan camp, and get back during the night, or the following day, and he would leave one of his men to see him to Karachi. However, when I rode away that evening the Kotwal rode with me, and we reached the Afghan camp together, and he was one of the prince’s retinue when we set out next day on the road to Kandahar.

Afterwards, although the prince received orders in Kandahar that he should be brought back to Kabul in chains, the Kotwal made his peace with the Amir, and continued for some time in the enjoyment of his position, which included torturing and killing people in horrible ways, and the acquisition of wealth by bribery and extortion, so that when he died of cholera some eight years later he was possessed of several lakhs of rupees. The day he died, I overheard some soldiers gloating over the fact that that night his soul would be roasting in hell, and I fancy some few thousand others derived consolation from the same thought, and knowing what I did of him myself, the fate the soldiers assigned him seemed not an improbable one.

According to the Afghan theory, the soul of a man is judged the night of the day he is buried, hence the delight of the soldiers over what would take place that night after the judgment had been pronounced.

THE SHAHZADA ON THE MARCH FROM KANDAHAR TO KABUL.

(From a drawing by the Author).

[To face p. 8.

The camp at each stopping-place looked rather imposing, and gave the impression of an immense gathering, as, besides the prince with his retinue and soldiers, were the men in charge of the baggage animals, who of themselves formed a rather large company, for the camels alone numbered half a thousand, so that the tents, horses, and camels covered a large tract of ground. After nightfall all the fires at which the men were cooking their food showed up clearly, and each fire had its quota of men busily superintending the pots and cooking arrangements generally, while others were standing or squatting round, watching and waiting the moment when, all being ready, they might fall to.

The noises of the camp at night were numerous, though there was never any rowdiness, for an Afghan crowd is the most orderly and quiet of any country, but there were the voices of officers giving orders, the squeals of horses fighting with one that had got loose (and there always seemed a loose horse about at night), the gurgling of the camels, the challenges of soldiers on guard in guttural Afghani, and the striking of gongs to announce the hour.

I remember one night, or rather early morning, when the guard over the gong had evidently been asleep and waked up suddenly, hearing sixteen strokes of the gong in rapid succession, although it was only half-past one. Whether this was the result of nightmare, or whether the man thought a little extra activity would better demonstrate his extreme wakefulness, I cannot say.

We were four days reaching Kandahar, for only on one day was the march at all a long one, the rest being what they term “King’s marches,” in contradistinction to “Caravan marches.” King’s marches being short ones on account of the number of men, etc., to move. The distance from one camp to another is usually expressed as so many hours’ journey. The horses on a journey go at a uniform pace, something between a quick walk and a jog-trot to which they are trained, and at which pace they can, when in condition, cover fifty to sixty miles in a day, though it is not customary to push them to that extent except in cases of necessity. Taking into consideration the mountainous description of country usually met with, the absence of proper roads, and the size of the horses (which average thirteen to fourteen hands), this is a fair distance.

They have a unit of distance in Afghanistan called a “kro,” which is said by some to be equivalent to one and a half English miles, but as there are no recognized number of “guz” (yards) to the “kro” it assumes varying dimensions, according to individual taste. I once received a firman from the Amir, through the prince, to make a perambulating instrument for measuring roads which was to show distances on the index in guz and kro, and I wrote the prince to let me know the number of guz in a kro that I might arrange the necessary clockwork. He replied that he had made inquiries, and the number given by different persons so varied that he had written the Amir to fix a standard; but the Amir fell ill just then, and the matter remained in abeyance, and the same indefiniteness still exists. The present Amir has distances measured in yards and miles.

Once when travelling from Kabul to Peshawar, and after being seven or eight hours in the saddle, I asked the sowars with me how far it was to the village by which we intended camping. One usually is rather interested in knowing how much farther one has to go after several hours’ riding. He told me that it was between one to two kro ahead, but we did not get to camp until after three hours’ further riding. So I henceforth made it a custom to inquire the distance in hours, and found it less disappointing.

On arriving within a few miles of Kandahar, the prince was met by the General commanding that district and the principal officers, who dismounted at a distance from him, and came up with heads uncovered. When they reached him they kissed his foot, and then, taking his hand between both of theirs, placed it on each eye in turn, and kissed it also; this being the Afghan custom when acknowledging their chief or swearing allegiance. Near the city the troops of the garrison were drawn up, together with the artillery, and the latter fired the royal salute as the prince rode up. The prince then inspected the troops, and addressed a few words to them, after which, followed by all the officers and officials, he repaired to the musjid for prayers, while I rode on to the city to find the quarters which had been allotted to me.

The road viâ Kandahar is not one which is often used when travelling from India to Kabul, the road from Peshawar through the Khyber Pass being the direct route, and the journey by that road occupies about eight days when travelling with little luggage and doing forced marches, while the route viâ Kandahar and Ghazni takes three or four weeks. There are no roads for wheeled traffic, nor are there any railways, and one must either ride or be carried in a sort of sedan chair, suspended from the backs of two horses. The Afghan rulers are greatly prejudiced against railways, and if one but mentions such a scheme ulterior designs are at once suspected. Yet a proper scheme of railways to open up the country would make it rich and prosperous, and do away with the present universal poverty and misery.

The Shahzada on leaving Kabul for England had been sent viâ Peshawar by the late Amir, and arrangements had been made for him to return viâ Kandahar, in order that he might see as much as possible of the country. Since he came from Russia, a little boy of nine, he had never been more than a few miles out of Kabul, for the Amir did not encourage the members of his family to travel unless of necessity. The Amir also wished him to stop in Kandahar on his return journey to inquire into matters concerning its government, because for many years there had been complaints from the people of the oppression of the governors and absence of justice.

I was told, while in Kandahar, that the Amir made the previous governors, when accepting office, sign a paper providing that, should they rob or oppress either rich or poor, they consented to be hanged, and it was significant that the last three or four governors had been hanged. The man who was governor when the prince arrived suddenly fell ill, and died a few days afterwards, and there were not wanting those who suggested self-destruction in order to escape worse happening.

Kandahar is situated in the middle of a fertile plain, or rather the plain would be fertile if irrigated and cultivated as it could be; but when I was there, there was little cultivation or signs of it, although the rivers carry plenty of water. On account of the small amount of rainfall in Afghanistan irrigation is necessary in order to make the land yield crops; and in some cases, to provide water for land which cannot be irrigated direct from the river, the people have sunk a series of wells leading from water-bearing strata to the land requiring irrigation, connecting the wells by underground ducts; the water from the last well being raised to the surface by means of a Persian wheel. This is a laborious process, and as the connecting ducts are not arched or protected in any way, the supply is frequently stopped by the earth falling in, and crops are ruined before the supply can be set going again.

I was asked to propose an irrigation scheme by which the whole of the surrounding land could be put under cultivation, and gave my opinion; but, although the work was feasible, it involved too great an outlay for the exchequer, and the matter was dropped.

The city is not a large one, and is surrounded by a high wall, which, together with most of the buildings, is built of mud and stone, or mud and sun-dried brick. The whole place is in a most tumble-down condition, having been partially destroyed several times during the wars of the past twenty years and not rebuilt. It gave one the idea that the inhabitants were in the utmost poverty, and although some of the better houses and musjids are built of small burnt bricks and lime, yet in all is the same appearance of dilapidation which made one think that the people were humbled and lacked the heart to put their city to rights. Some of the streets in the bazars are raised above the surrounding land, so that one looks down into the tumble-down shops, where copper, tin, leather, and other trades are carried on in a small way.

One thing that struck me particularly when riding through the bazars was the small size of the donkeys, which are little bigger than a large mastiff. They are employed in carrying loads, and I saw many with such huge piles of grass on them that only the donkey’s hoofs and a small portion of his head was visible. Ripe cases for the intervention of the Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals.

I was lodged in a small house, built in the form of a cross, and consisting of one room only, branching out on four sides, this form being, I believe, copied from Russia. It was situated in the garden adjoining the house occupied by the prince, and as the weather was getting cold at night it was a decided improvement on a tent, although the architect had forgotten to include a fireplace. From the roof of the house I got a good view over most of the city, and could also see the minarets of the musjid in which is a sanctuary where any man, whatsoever his crime, is safe when once inside. There used to be similar sanctuaries in some old English churches.

The late Amir once told me a story of a moullah in Kandahar who had dubbed him a “Kafir” (infidel) when inciting the people to rise against him. They had to make him out a “Kafir,” as otherwise it is against the religious law for the people to rise against the King, who is also their spiritual head. When the ensuing rebellion had been put down the Amir was told that this man had taken refuge in the sanctuary. Then the Amir, turning the tables on the man, said that the sanctuary was for Mussulmans only, not for such infidels as men who rose against their king; and, taking his sword, he went to the musjid and killed the man in the very place. It was little that stopped Abdur Rahman in the pursuit of vengeance.

CHAPTER II
ON THE ROAD—continued

Method of fishing in the rivers—Route through Khilat and Mukur to Ghazni and distance from Kandahar—Cold and snow on journey—Ghazni—Robberies and murders on roads before Amir Abdur Rahman’s time—Villages and cultivation en route—Arrival in Kabul and reception of Sirdar Nasrullah by Amir.

After spending a few days in the city of Kandahar the prince went out to a garden a few miles up the river to spend a couple of days in fishing. On the evening of our arrival the prince told his suite that the following day all must appear in Afghan costume, and that any one who came in English dress would be thrown into the adjoining river. The river was a shallow one, so it meant a ducking only. One of the men there suggested that I should be included, but was ruled out on the grounds that I wore the costume of my country. In order to afford amusement and please the prince, one or two men did go the next day in English dress, and were ducked, much to the merriment of all there.

About midday, the weather having cleared, the prince and the rest of us started up the river, walking along the banks, while horses were led by syces for fording branches of the river, or the river itself when required. Two fishermen, casting their circular nets as they went, waded up the river, the party on the banks keeping well behind them so as not to disturb the fish before the nets were thrown. The bed of the river was covered with shingle and stones, with boulders jutting out here and there, and the water did not seem to exceed more than four feet in depth at any place, and, being the time of low water, it was perfectly clear. There was a good catch of fish, which in appearance very much resembled trout, some of them being four to five pounds in weight, but the flavour of the fish had little to recommend it.

The circular nets used by the fishermen are similar to those used by natives in India. They are ten to fourteen feet in diameter, and weighted round the circumference at short intervals with leaden pellets, while between the pellets are pockets into which a fish swimming under the net in an endeavour to escape gets his head, and his body too if not a large one, and is so prevented from escaping. To the centre of the net a long cord is attached.

The method of using the net is this: the end of the cord is fastened round the right wrist by a slip knot and the rest of the cord gathered up in coils which are held in the right hand. The net is then held up by the cord so that it may hang in regular folds, and one half of these folds are arranged consecutively over the left arm and the rest over the right, both arms being held out to carry them, and care being taken to avoid one fold entangling with another. The hands grip the folds nearest them, and then, after one or two preliminary swings, the net is thrown forward, and outward, in such manner as to spread out and cover as large an area as the net is capable of before striking the water. On striking the water the weighted periphery sinks at once and encloses any fish within its area.

The principle of landing the fish netted may be explained by supposing a circular cloth with its circumference weighted at short intervals spread out on a table. If the centre of the cloth is taken and slowly lifted, the circumference of the cloth will drag in over the table towards the centre until it becomes massed together just before it is lifted clear. In the case of the net the weights round the circumference press against each other sufficiently to prevent fish falling through while it is lifted clear of the water on to the bank.

It is no easy matter to use this net without a good deal of practice, the gathering of the folds over the arms preliminary to throwing being particularly awkward, and seeming at first to require three hands at least. The Afghan fishermen are very expert in throwing it, and can make it assume circular, oblong, or triangular shapes, according to the requirements of the river or stream in which they are fishing and the rocks and other obstacles it is necessary the net should avoid when cast. But that is a refinement in throwing which requires some years’ experience.

In nets for catching large fish the weights are necessarily heavier than those intended for small ones, but a couple of hours’ fishing with a light net will be found sufficient exercise for one day for those not accustomed to them. Those who find it necessary to fish for the sake of the catch and not for sport will find these nets useful.

The prince, after spending a couple of days in the garden, returned to the city, but not liking the house he had occupied there he went the next day to stop at the Munzil Bagh, a new palace the Amir had built a year or so before just outside the city walls. I was given a tent pitched in the adjoining garden, because the rooms of the place were large and few, and sufficient only for the accommodation of the Shahzada and his personal attendants.

While here, I fell ill with fever and dysentery, and having no English medicines with me I might have fared rather badly. The prince, however, on hearing that I was ill, sent his own hakeem, or doctor, to attend me, and this man did his best, and gave me every attention. I was not quite as grateful at the time as I ought to have been, for three times a day he brought me medicine in a two-pint glass filled to the brim with some bitter concoction and sat there while I drank it, and as part of his treatment was also to starve me until the disease passed, I felt in rather a hurry to get better. Towards the end of my illness, however, I persuaded him to send the medicine to me and not to put himself to the trouble of bringing it, and then I found a convenient crack in the dry earth under my bed which absorbed the bulk of the liquid better than I could, and I am inclined to think that taking medicine in the Afghan manner is more or less an acquired habit. When I was convalescent, this hakeem selected all food that was to be cooked for me, and did so in such generous quantities that, after my enforced fast, I was in danger of getting ill in other ways. I really ought to have been more grateful, for he was very conscientious, and liberal too, and took the greatest interest in my case.

When I was well again I rode about the country around a good deal and found plenty of partridge and quail shooting, and I heard that deer could be got further away; but as it involved the trouble of camping out for a night or two I did not think it worth while to try my luck, and camping out with a small escort was hardly advisable.

One day I came across an abandoned gold mine, which I had previously heard the people speak of as yielding large quantities of gold in its time. A huge hole had been blasted out of the mountain-side, and heaps of débris were scattered about, in some parts entirely filling up previous excavations. The quartz veins had been mined in all directions, but the gold had evidently been in a “pocket,” and there was nothing further to be had. I had a great desire for an opportunity of thoroughly trying the place myself, and while I pottered about the sowar escort with me broke up lumps of quartz to see what they might find. Gold exercises a fascination over most people.

A sowar escort of seven men, with their duffedar (sergeant), had been appointed to attend me wherever I went from the day I crossed the frontier, and, as the penalty, should a fanatic attack and kill me, was death to themselves, they kept very close to me and left nothing whatever to chance.

The prince spent about a month in Kandahar and was getting rather gloomy at the thought of being kept there for the winter, for it was getting on towards the end of November, when one evening I went to pay my compliments, or salaam him, as they call it, and met him coming into the durbar room as I got there. I saw that he was very pleased and excited, and he called out, “How do you do?” (almost all the English he knew) when he saw me, and shook hands, which was a thing he seldom did, and then told me that the Amir’s firman had been received, and he was to go on at once to Kabul. I made a remark about it being rather cold weather for travelling, and he assured me pleasantly that on the march it would be twenty times colder than in Kandahar. As the water in my tent froze every night I saw nothing to congratulate myself upon; however, the prospect of being on the move again was exhilarating.

That evening the prince had some musicians brought in. They played upon instruments made of some sort of cane or bamboo, which rather resemble the flute, and although Afghan music is not usually soothing to the Western ear, I found the music these men played rather pleasant and lively. The instruments they used are peculiar to Kandahar, I was told, and the prince wanted one of the men to accompany him to Kabul; but the man was not attracted by the idea, and managed to evade the invitation.

The Shahzada left Kandahar the following week, the intervening time being taken up in preparations for the journey, although such preparation might easily have been completed in half the time; but it is not the habit of the people to rush things. Their custom is, instead, to put off all they can until to-morrow, or the day after, that for preference. The first day’s camp was only twelve miles or so out of Kandahar, for it is customary always to make the first day’s march a short one, in order to prepare the horses and pack animals for the ensuing journey, and it affords a means of testing the arrangements of the march generally.

The route to Kabul lay through Khilat, Mukur, and Ghazni. The road as far as Khilat, which took four days’ journey, runs in a north-easterly direction, and mostly alongside the river, which flows down towards Kandahar from the mountains beyond. The track rises gradually over a rather flat country, but there are mountain ranges at a little distance on both sides. Beyond that to Mukur, another four days’ journey, the road skirts the foot of some mountain ranges, and forms a fair road for travelling without any difficult passes to get over.

From Mukur to Ghazni it runs over a high table-land, with mountain ranges on either side, which, running in the same direction, give it the appearance of an immense roadway. It took four days to cross this and get to Ghazni, and it was by far the coldest part of the journey, for the wind was icy, and its keenness such that it pierced the thickest clothing I had. Although the sun was bright during the day it had no warmth, and the surrounding mountains were covered with snow, but it was not until the day before we reached Ghazni that snow fell, and made sleeping under canvas more unpleasant than it had been. It came on at night, and when I awoke in the morning I found it covering the boxes in my tent and my bed too, for the wind had blown the flap of the tent open and allowed the snow to drift in. It was chilly dressing before the sun was up, and as my clothes, which I had thrown over a chair, were also covered with snow, I had to get dry ones out of my boxes, the while being lightly clad in a night-suit and slippers.

That day’s march to Ghazni was a trying one. Before this the days had been bright and the air dry, but the moisture given out by the snow made the wind still more biting, and we had to dismount occasionally to bring some feeling into hands and feet, and to rub noses and ears to prevent frostbite. Many of the Afghans wore hoods shaped like Balaklava caps which left only the eyes exposed, and I thought them a very sensible protection against such severe weather, and wished I had one.

The snow made the ground very slippery, and many horses fell. The camels were worse off in that respect than the horses, for their broad flat feet, which slide in all directions on a wet road, are ill-adapted for travelling over snow, and, being also heavily laden, they sooner or later came down, some of them breaking their legs and having to be killed. As, however, camel flesh is an article of diet they were not a literal dead loss to their owners.

Outside Ghazni the Shahzada was met by the officers and officials there, who brought him presents of cloth, horses, and money, and when the city was reached the royal salute was fired by the artillery, which, with several horse regiments, was drawn up to receive him. He afterwards went into the city, where he held durbar for a couple of hours before coming on to the camp, which was pitched outside the walls.

Ghazni is situated in a small valley almost surrounded with low hills. It is a very small place, and is enclosed by a high wall, as all towns and villages in Afghanistan are. It has nothing about it to show that it was once the royal city and the home of emperors. There are no fine buildings, and its streets are very narrow and dirty, and the bazars far from good. It boasts a bala-hisar (high fort) which commands the surrounding land, but which itself could be commanded from the neighbouring heights with the guns of the present day.

SIRDAR MAHOMED OMAR KHAN AND STAFF.

[To face p. 24.

Up to Ghazni the march was forced in order to get over the worst part of the journey before the middle of December, when the heavy falls of snow usually commence, for the table-land which has to be crossed before reaching Ghazni is well known to those who travel that way, and many have been overtaken by snow and perished there. Consequently each day’s march was a fairly long one, and one day was close on forty miles, which for a Shahzada is looked upon as a good distance. I had been unused to riding for some months before, and at first was rather saddle-sore, but soon got hardened.

On some of the longer marches the prince rode most of the distance on camels, and on those occasions I went on ahead to escape the dust and discomfort of the extra pace, for a riding camel’s trot is very trying to keep up with on horseback. Being ahead, I was able to trot or canter over the best bits of road and walk the others, but the disadvantage of forcing the pace lay in having to wait three or four hours after reaching camp for the baggage animals to come in with tents and servants, and then another hour or so for food to be prepared. Usually, I got my lunch any time between four and nine o’clock in the evening, and I found that waiting about in a bitter wind for several hours without tent or food was very cold work, particularly when tired after a long ride. While riding, my feet were generally so numbed with cold that they had no feeling, and in camp in the evenings the coldness increased to such an extent that water thrown on the ground froze immediately, and my khansaman showed me that knives dipped in water came out with a thin film of ice on them, so that after nightfall when the wind was at its bitterest, as the temperature fell lower and lower, one was glad to get into bed as soon as possible to get warm.

One evening I had a hole dug in the floor of the tent and a fire made in it, but in less than two minutes I was outside, coughing, while my eyes were streaming, and I had to wait outside in the cold for some time until the wind had cleared the tent of smoke. After that I got a munkal, or iron dish that stands on four legs, and had a fire made in that outside the tent, and when the wood had burnt away until nothing but glowing cinders were left, I had it brought inside, and found that it made the place more comfortable. Before going to sleep, when nothing but hot ashes were left in the munkal, I used to put it under the bed, and found a material increase in warmth there, for I had no mattress, and slept on rezais (quilted coverlets), which were not altogether impervious to the icy wind which came in under the walls of the tent and played under the bed.

We passed several villages on the way, some perched halfway up a mountain and some in the valley below, but all surrounded by high walls for protection. Gardens and cultivated land lay outside the villages, and as we rode past, some of the big Afghan dogs, which rather resemble a St. Bernard, would come tearing out, barking, and looking savage enough and big enough to eat one. They are fierce brutes, and often try to pull a passing traveller out of the saddle; but they need be big and savage, for they are used principally as sheepdogs, and on occasion have to attack and kill wolves.

The people in the country are mostly robbers, and in the days before Amir Abdur Rahman took the country in hand, travellers fared badly, unless they kept together in bands of thirty or more, for even poor men travelling alone have been known to be killed for the sake of the clothes they wore.

There are many stories told of the treatment offered travellers by villagers in outlying districts, and one case was that of a poor man who was going along carrying a sack on his shoulders, and was seen by one of these robbers, who, thinking that the sack must contain something valuable, waited behind a rock until the man got within range, and then fired and killed him; but on the robber going over to his victim, and opening the bag, he found in it nothing but dried dung (used as fuel by the poor classes), whereupon, bewailing the waste of his cartridge, he kicked the body and strode off. I was told of another case where thirteen men who were travelling during the winter were stopped and robbed of all they possessed, the villagers even stripping them of the clothes they had on, and leaving them to perish in the cold.

The Amir’s method of putting this sort of robbery and murder down was simple and effective. If a man was robbed or killed, all villages within a radius of about ten miles of the place where the crime was perpetrated were fined from twenty to fifty thousand rupees, and if the people failed to pay up promptly, two or three regiments of soldiers were sent and quartered on them until payment was effected. When an Afghan soldier is quartered on any one, he takes the best of everything in the house, the best bed, best room, and best food, and if there are no fowl or sheep the man of the house must procure them at once, even if he has to sell all he has to get them. If he does not do this, then the butt end of a rifle is applied to the small of his back, or even worse befalls. The villager has no redress, because it is a Government soldier doing his duty. In this way the Government fines are paid in as quickly as possible, for each day’s delay means a great loss to each house in the village.

The effect of the Amir’s policy was to make each villager chary of allowing his neighbour to molest a traveller, as all suffered alike for the crime of one, and at the time I passed over the road, a single traveller might go all the way from Kandahar to Kabul without being unduly troubled. That is, provided he was not a foreigner, and Persians and Hindustanis come under that category, for such have no friends to make complaints to the Government and cause bothersome inquiries, and are, therefore, looked upon as fair sport.

The road from Khilat is fairly level until it nears Ghazni, when it falls down towards it, and then beyond Ghazni it rises again over the Darwaza Ghazni pass, and beyond that falls again towards Kabul.

Between Ghazni and Kabul, the country, being at a much lower altitude than that already passed over, the weather was much milder; but there was snow on the hills around, and the temperature at night was below freezing-point. We were five days travelling over this part of the road, and the country passed through was rather hilly; but it was well cultivated in the valleys, and there were many small villages about.

The road from Chaman to Kandahar, and thence to Kabul, could readily be made fit for wheeled traffic, and would offer no difficulties to the construction of a railway, and the fact that the two heavy siege guns, presented to the Amir by the Indian Government, were taken that way and drawn by traction engines shows sufficiently the ease with which a good road might be made.

When we arrived at Kila Durani we were only ten or twelve miles from Kabul as the crow flies, but had to go on round by the pass some twenty miles farther on. Close by this village we passed over one of the English battlefields with mounds of stones piled up over those who had fallen. Seated on one of these mounds of stones I noticed a very old man rocking his body backwards and forwards and muttering to himself, and when I had gone on a little distance I heard one of the soldiers behind shout, and turning round saw this old man following me with a huge stone, which he could hardly carry. The sowars with me laughingly told him that the Amir Sahib would imprison him if he tried to kill me; but the old man said that the English had killed his son and he would kill an Englishman in return. It was more pathetic than laughable to see this poor old man gone mad through losing his son some years before, and carrying a stone he was unable to throw to take vengeance. It, however, typifies the character of the people.

When we reached Kila Kazee, which is about eight miles from Kabul, we had to camp there for three days so that the prince might ride into Kabul on the Sunday following, that being an auspicious day according to the astrologers, who are always consulted on these matters.

The day we got into camp Sirdar Habibullah Khan (the present Amir) rode out to see his brother, and spent the night with him, returning to Kabul the following day. Sirdar Mahomed Omar also came to see him, and as he is the son of the Queen-Sultana, and was about ten years old at the time, the prince ordered a display of fireworks that night in order to please him. Sirdar is the title, equivalent to prince, conferred on the Amir’s sons only, although the people use it when addressing other members of the royal family, as a term of respect.

On the Sunday the prince and his suite rode into Kabul, dressed in the best they had for the occasion, and all cheerful at the thought of being home at last. About halfway a large shamiana was erected, and here the Shahzada’s son, a little child of two years, together with the sons of Sirdar Habibullah Khan, were waiting to meet him. The prince seemed a good deal affected on seeing his child, which rather surprised me, as I had always thought him very unemotional. We spent an hour or so sitting under the shamiana while tea and refreshments were served, and then rode on.

Outside the city of Kabul, on an open space close to the workshops, several regiments and two or three batteries of artillery were drawn up, and in front of the troops was Sirdar Habibullah, together with the General commanding the Kabul troops, and other officers, who were waiting to receive the prince and accompany him to the Salaam khana. On the Shahzada’s approach the guns fired the royal salute, and then, when the different officers had come up and saluted the prince, they all rode on together towards the city. Thousands of people lined the roads to watch the tamasha, and soldiers were stationed at intervals to keep the people back and leave a clear road for the princes and others to pass.

The Amir was holding a public durbar to receive his son, safely returned after travelling so far, and on arrival the prince dismounted at the gate and walked through the gardens to the Salaam khan, where, having been announced to the Amir, he walked up the durbar hall and, kneeling, took his father’s hand in both his and, placing it on each eye in turn, kissed it, while invoking blessings and giving the usual salutations. The Amir, raising the prince, told him to be seated, and then for the rest of the day there were rejoicings, and all officials and officers came in turn to the durbar to salaam the Amir and give thanks for the safe return of his son.

CHAPTER III
KABUL

The Mihman khana or Guest-house—Description of hamams (Turkish baths)—Description of people met with on roads and streets—Amir Abdul Rahman—Description of palace and audience chamber, and his reception of me—Situation of Kabul and description of country around—Kabul city, its bazars, streets, and filth—Water-supply and drainage systems—Sanitary arrangements—Pariah dogs and crows scavenging city.

On the morning after my arrival, I was walking in the garden when the court interpreter came to tell me that the Amir Sahib had ordered that I was to be favoured with an interview that afternoon. This was my second visit to Kabul, and I was no stranger to the Amir, who had the gift of not forgetting any one he once saw.

The Amir had given orders that I was to be treated with great honour and courtesy, and the house in which I had been given quarters was the new Mihman khana or Guest-house, in which the Amir himself had been stopping until a few days before. It is an extensive square building with large rooms, originally intended for one of the Amir’s summer palaces, and is situated on the outskirts of the new city. An extensive garden surrounds the house, and the whole is enclosed by a high wall, and in one of the walls is a covered gateway, on either side of which are rooms for the use of the outer guard. Outhouses are built on the inner side of the wall for the use of the servants, and at the end of the outhouses is the kitchen, and adjoining that the hamam (Turkish bath), without which, no large house in Kabul is considered complete. It was in this hamam that I had the day before enjoyed the first comfortable bath since leaving Kandahar.

The hamam consists of two rooms, one opening into the other, with domed roofs, the floors flagged with large stone slabs, and the ceilings and walls plastered with cement. The rooms are heated from a fireplace built outside, the flue from which branches out under the inner chamber, and up through the walls of the outer one. The wall at the fireplace end of the inner chamber is double, and the intervening space is occupied by two cisterns, the one for hot water being immediately over the fire, and the other for cold water alongside it, and pipes fitted with taps convey the water to the inner room. The inner chamber is the hot one, and is used for ablutions, while the outer one is for cooling down in and dressing. It is not advisable to spend too much time in these hamams, as the air, for want of proper ventilation, is rather foul, and also, as the stone flags are not too well jointed, the gases from the fire get in, so that a prolonged visit generally ends in a bad headache. They are, nevertheless, a great convenience in the cold weather, which is much more severe than the average English winter, but they take about two days’ firing to get properly heated, and must be fired every day if wanted for regular use. Once heated, however, it requires but little fuel to keep the temperature up.

Accompanied by the translator, I rode off soon after midday to keep the appointment made by the Amir, but about halfway to the palace we were met by a messenger bringing a note. It was from the Amir, saying, that as he had risen late, he would not be able to see me at the appointed time, and therefore told me to come an hour later. To have a letter putting off the appointment to a later hour is an extreme mark of honour, for usually when one is ordered to be present at an appointed time, one has to sit and wait if the Amir is not ready to receive.

I spent the intervening hour in riding about the streets and roads on the outskirts of the city, where the palaces of the Amir and princes are situated, and where the officials and courtiers and others have their houses and gardens. This part, which lies to the north-west of the old city, is generally called Deh Afghanan, from a small village of Afghan people which lies in that direction; and here the roads are broad and well laid out, but at that time they were not metalled, and after rain or snow, the horses’ feet sank inches deep in mud and slush, and pedestrians had to walk warily. At the present time the principal roads round Kabul are metalled, and riding or walking is not the mud-besplashing process it once was.

The people met with were unwashed and unkempt in appearance. Even those who were apparently high in rank, and came along the road on horseback, with five or six servants running beside them, looked as though they had washed their faces just before leaving the house, and had forgotten to wash their necks. The clean, fresh look of those who bathe regularly was missing, and, although I found afterwards that the better classes bathe but once a week or less, and the others once in a few months, it may, perhaps, be the dark sallow skin of the neck which gives the unwashed appearance. Also the dress of the people being part English and part Afghan, and their habit of putting on a clean shirt once a week only adds to the appearance of untidyness, and makes them look as though a good all-over scrubbing would do them good.

The Amir was stopping in the Boistan Serai, a small palace built outside the gardens which surround the fortified palace of Arak, and alongside the Queen-Sultana’s palace, which is called the Gulistan Serai. Boistan and Gulistan both signify garden, the translation of the former being “place of scents,” and the latter, “place of flowers.” Kabul itself might be termed “boistan” in another sense, which a ride through its bazars would indicate.

On my arrival, with the interpreter, at the gate of the palace, the captain of the guard there conducted us to an inner court, where we waited while the Amir was informed by the officer on duty that I was present; and on the Amir ordering that I was to be admitted, they conducted me into his presence.

On entering the audience chamber I saw the Amir seated on the side of the couch he used as a bed. He was dressed in an English grey tweed suit, and on his head was the Afghan silk fez, with the royal diamond star at the side of it. The Amir suffered a good deal from gout, and preferred the side of his bed for sitting on, as being more comfortable than a chair, and also, if not feeling well, he was able to stretch himself on the bed, and rest himself, without the trouble of first getting up from a chair.

In appearance the Amir looked about forty-five years of age, although nearer sixty, and this was due to his hair and beard being died black, making him look younger than he was. In person he was very stout and broad, with a rather long body, and short legs. His eyes were very dark, almost black, and looked out from under his heavy brows with quick, keen glances, while in complexion he was sallow, but his skin was not darker than the average Portuguese. The Amir had a full set of false teeth, and these he would take out at times and polish with his handkerchief, while continuing to speak, but the difference in his pronunciation made it difficult to follow him. He once handed his teeth to me to examine, and explained that one of his own men had made them for him, having learnt the art from an English dentist.

Around the Amir were slave boys ready to attend his least want, and in front of him, standing round about the room, were officers and officials, and at the door were two men of the royal bodyguard with bayonets fixed, while the captain of the guard, carrying an unsheathed sword, stood by them.

The audience chamber was a large one, and the floor was covered with fine Persian carpets, but it was bare of furniture, save the velvet-covered armchairs and small round-topped tables which were ranged at intervals along the wall round the room. On the walls were oil paintings representing landscapes only, for figure paintings are not allowed in a room where prayers are said, and this applies to all rooms, for Mussulmans say their prayers wherever they may happen to be, and the reason for this is, they say, that to pray before a pictured figure would give the appearance of idolatry.

Walking up the durbar room I stood before the Amir, and bowed; and he asked, according to the usual greeting, if I was well, and took off his glove to shake hands (the gout in his right hand necessitated his wearing a glove in cold weather), saying that it was not etiquette among the English to shake hands with gloves on, and then, after the many salutations usual in Persian, he told me to be seated, and thereafter talked to me for several hours, and told me anecdotes of his career and life in Russia, and generally showed me honour in the gracious courtly manner he could so well assume when it pleased him.

After sitting down, a small table was placed near me, and tea, fruit, and cigarettes were brought in. My tea was served in a Russian cup, which consisted of a glass tumbler fixed in a gold holder with handle, and carried on a gold saucer, a fashion the Amir had adopted from the Russians.

When with the Amir on an occasion like this, it was unnecessary to talk one’s self. The Amir did all the talking, and all he required of one was to listen and answer shortly, except when some matter required full explanation, and then he would listen very attentively. In relating anything humorous he would laugh very heartily, sometimes rolling on his bed, but, whether serious or laughing, the Amir was always the king, and there was that about him which forbade any one taking advantage of his humour. When roused to anger his face became drawn, and his teeth would show until he looked wolfish, and then he hissed words rather than spoke them, and there were few of those before him who did not tremble when he was in that mood, for it was then that the least fault involved some horrible punishment. It was also in these moods that the Amir would remember the former offences of those whom he had marked down for punishment, and he would take advantage of any trifling neglect of duty or other small offence to inflict a heavy punishment, so that the feelings of those present on these occasions may be imagined, for none knew what the Amir had in his mind against them on account of former misdemeanours.

When in the Amir’s presence no one ever ventured to speak unless asked a question, or else they caught his eye and received an inquiring look and the upward nod of interrogation characteristic of him. The page-boys moved about quietly and noiselessly in the execution of their duty, coming in and going out as they wished, but always careful that several of their number remained near the Amir.

While I was with the Amir, Sirdar Nasrullah Khan, whom I had accompanied from London, came in, and, after salaaming his father, was told to take a chair. A chair was always offered to either of his elder sons when they came to visit him, as they did most days if only for a short time, excepting on those occasions when they were in disgrace or the Amir in a bad humour, and then they were not asked to take a seat, and had to remain standing. When the younger princes visited him they would stand behind his chair or couch and act as the ordinary page-boys did, handing him anything he wanted, and waiting on him generally. When the princes wanted to go away they would again salaam their father and walk out, no permission being asked or required.

AMIR ABDUR RAHMAN IN EVERYDAY DURBAR. SIRDAR HABIBULLAH (PRESENT AMIR) SITTING WITH HIM.

(From a drawing by the Author.)

[To face p. 40.

To be allowed to sit in the Amir’s presence is a sign of great favour and an honour accorded to few, and chiefs and high officials when asked to sit down, would do so on the floor, sitting with their backs against the wall, and if many were present they would sit in a line along the wall on either side of the Amir, those highest in rank or favour being nearest him.

After spending some hours with the Amir, I asked permission to leave, and as I stood up to go he told me I was to come to him the next day, and very often after that, for he wished to see much of me. His asking me to come often was another mark of extreme honour, and showed that I enjoyed great favour, and there is nothing an ambitious man in that country covets so much as being allowed often in the Amir’s presence, and there is a good deal of scheming done to be able to do so. For one thing, it is a sign of the highest favour and confidence, and for another all men regard that man as one to be fawned on and flattered; and although he may be hated by the envious, he is also feared, and becomes a man of consequence.

The next two months or so I spent in the Mihman khana (Guest-house), occupying myself in preparing a scheme for the development of the resources of the country, which the Amir had asked me to write. He was good enough to give me very high praise for it, but very few of the proposals embodied in the scheme were carried out. I also rode a good deal about the surrounding country, and through the bazars of the city, for there is little else to do as a means of recreation.

Kabul is situated in the midst of a large valley, surrounded with mountains at distances varying from fifteen to twenty miles. The small ranges of hills, which rise up out of the plain here and there, give a broken-up appearance to the country, so that the whole of the valley is not discernible except from a height. One of these ranges, the Sher Darwaza (Lion of the gate), is immediately south of the city, and on the west rise the Asman Heights. Between the two the Kabul river flows, coming from the south-west. Along the crest of the heights is an old wall, mostly in ruins, and built in the usual way of mud and stone. It follows the undulations of the summits, and running down to the pass through which the river flows, it rises up again and winds along the heights on the opposite side. Formerly, the wall crossed the river by means of a brick bridge, but there is nothing to be seen of the bridge now except the ruined abutments. This wall was built many years ago as a protection against the raids of the wild tribes inhabiting the country south-west of Kabul, who frequently fell upon the city in great numbers, putting the people to the sword and carrying off all the loot they could get, including women and cattle, both of which are looked upon in much the same light in Afghanistan.

The country round Kabul is well cultivated, and as there is little rainfall irrigation is resorted to for watering the crops. Trees have of late years been planted along most of the roads leading from the city, and some are to be seen in the walled-in gardens which dot the plain here and there, but on the hills round about the absence of trees and vegetation makes them look very bare and desolate by contrast.

The city contains some hundred and fifty to a hundred and sixty thousand inhabitants, and, like all other cities in the country, is walled-in. On the north-west side the city has overgrown itself, and here the palaces of the Amir and princes and houses of the officials and well-to-do people are built. Deh Afghanan, which gives its name to the new portion of the city, also lies on this side, and is yearly growing larger, for all who can leave the old portion of the city do so, and build houses and live in the fashionable quarter.

The streets of the city are narrow and winding, and are mostly paved with round cobble stones of varying sizes and badly laid, and in the interstices between the stones a horse sometimes gets its hoof and lames itself. The roadways are sloped from the houses on either side towards the centre for the purpose of drainage, and refuse is thrown out into the street from the houses, and lies where it falls and rots, so that the stench on occasions when there is little wind is particularly trying.

The houses and shops are built of sun-dried brick and clay, with flat roofs formed of timbers stretching from wall to wall which are covered with grass mats, over which a thick layer of clay is laid. The floors of the rooms are of the same materials, and the houses are small and packed close together. The upper stories of the houses in the wider bazars jut out over the streets, the ends of the overhanging beams being supported by wooden struts. In the narrower streets the upper stories cover the road entirely, forming dark crooked passages of unpleasant odour through which it is best to pick one’s way with a light. The widest bazars are about fifteen feet in width, and the narrowest about four feet, and as pack horses and camels carrying loads are to be met with all over the city, it is often a matter of difficulty to avoid being swept out of the saddle when riding past them. The strings of loaded camels are worse than the pack-horses in this respect, for the camel has no thought for others, and sticks to the middle of the street, its load projecting far on either side, and necessitating a horseman stretching himself flat along the back of his horse to get past, and it is in the narrowest part of a bazar that one meets these obstructions more often than not.

Streams of water led from a higher level up the river run alongside the street through most of the bazars for the use of the inhabitants. The water is good enough where it enters the city, but as it goes on it gathers impurities of all sorts. Refuse and filth from the houses find their way into it, people sit and wash themselves in it, and dead bodies, too, are washed in the same stream without thought of the disease which caused death. By the time the water reaches the Bala Hisar side of the city its quality may be imagined, and yet this is the water the inhabitants have to use for drinking and cooking purposes. In cholera and other epidemics it is in that portion of the city which the water reaches last where the disease rages most, and no doubt it is the washing of the bodies of people dead of the disease in the same water used by others for drinking which accounts for a good deal of the spread and long stay of those epidemics which visit Kabul periodically and carry off so many thousands of its inhabitants.

Shortly before Amir Abdur Rahman’s death he instituted a system of latrines in the city with donkeys to carry away the soil, selling the latter to those cultivators who required it. This did much to sweeten the city, but as all private houses could not be included in the scheme because only the larger houses have refuse-shoots built up against the outside wall whence the soil could be carried away, and no strange man may enter a house where women are, there was still a good deal left to be desired. The present Amir, during the cholera epidemic of 1903, had all the streets of the city swept and cleaned daily by an army of sweepers, and this was a step in the right direction, but with the necessity for cleanliness removed orientals soon fall back into their happy-go-lucky habits.

With the quantity of refuse thrown out of some thirty thousand houses daily the city of Kabul would soon become impossible to live in, but for the scavenging work done by the dogs and crows, who are the unconscious remedy of the evil, and prevent the city becoming uninhabitable. I was told that one of the former Amirs had all bazar dogs killed, and the occasion was remembered, because soon afterwards a bad epidemic of cholera visited the city. The present Amir also gave orders for all bazar dogs to be killed, and the bulk of them were despatched, and then a few months later the cholera epidemic of 1903 broke out and was noted for its virulence.

CHAPTER IV
KABUL—continued

How streets are governed—City magistrate—Robberies and murders—Bazar shops—Style of palaces and better-class houses—Climate of Kabul.

Each kochee or bazar in Kabul (streets with or without shops are called bazars) has a kilantar or headman whose duty it is to report to the Kotwal (city magistrate) all births and deaths in his street, keep order among the inhabitants, see that the street is kept clean, and to govern it generally; and he is held responsible for any lawlessness that occurs.

Soon after the death of the late Amir there were many robberies in different parts of the city, and all efforts to trace the thieves were unavailing. In some cases a man who shut up his shop and house and spent the night with a friend would return home in the morning to find the whole contents of the shop looted. So many similar cases occurring it was evident that the thieves were well informed of the movements of the householder they intended robbing. In other cases the owners were awakened by the noise made, and in an endeavour to protect their property were wounded or killed by the thieves, and, at last, the inhabitants were in a state of terror, while in the bazars nothing was talked of but the robberies and murders. The Amir was petitioned, and he offered a large reward to any one giving information of the robbers, but without result.

Eventually, a shopkeeper who was sleeping, as is usual at night in fine weather, on the roof together with one of his relatives, both with swords on account of the fear prevailing, was awakened by two of the robbers stumbling over him after climbing up to the roof from the outside. He sprang up and raised an outcry, and his relative jumping up too, they made at the robbers with their swords; but the latter, firing their pistols at them, ran off. The shopkeeper, although wounded, ran after them and managed to cut one of the men across the arm with his sword and then seized him, and in the struggle that ensued continued to call for help, until at length some neighbours hurried in and helped him to secure the thief. The relative, however, lay dead, shot through the heart. In the morning the robber was taken to the Kotwal who, by the Amir’s order, applied different tortures in order to make him confess the names of his confederates. Some thirty names were so obtained, and the men were caught and made prisoners, and among them was a kilantar (headman) and one or two Kotwali sepoys (police). The latter, by giving the password of each night to the gang, had enabled them to pass the street guards without question, and made it easy for the robbers to visit any house they desired, and get back to their own houses before daybreak.

THE MIHMAN KHANA (GUEST-HOUSE), KABUL.

PORTION OF GARDEN ATTACHED TO MY HOUSE—SAINT’S GRAVE IN THE CORNER OF GARDEN.

[To face p. 48.

The houses where the stolen goods were stored were also made known, and a large quantity of jewellery, carpets, shawls, copper utensils, and other articles were obtained, from which any of the persons robbed were allowed to take those articles belonging to them on giving proof of ownership. Of the robbers, five were blown from the gun, some were blinded, and the others were imprisoned for life.

In Kabul a bugle sounds the “wardi” between eight and nine o’clock every night from each police station, and it is sounded again in the morning at sunrise. Between those hours no person is allowed to go about the streets without giving the password for the night, and should any one be found who is unable to do so, he is detained in the guard-room until morning, when he is taken before the Kotwal, who fines or releases him according to the quality of the excuse given.

The bazar shops are very small, the greater number of them being about a huckster’s stall in size. The front of the shop is open, and at night it is shuttered and padlocked. There are no glass doors or windows, for glass is too rare and costly except for the Amir’s palaces. The plinth of the wall projects in front of the shop into the street, and on this the shopkeeper sits, with his goods ranged on the floor and shelves of the room behind him. The goods offered for sale are principally grain, fruit, vegetables, sugar, and other provisions, cloth and cotton goods, shawls, boots, and articles of apparel, leather goods, copper, tin, and iron utensils, etc. There are tea shops where a man can get a small pot of tea for less than a halfpenny, but if he takes sugar with it he has to pay about a farthing extra.

In the bazars are also letter-writers, for the use of those who cannot write themselves, who charge a halfpenny to a penny for each letter written, the stamp, of course, being extra. The principal bazars are named after the article mostly sold there; such as Gandam Farosh (wheat bazar), Zaghal Farosh (charcoal), Kunah Farosh (old curios), etc. Revolver and rifle cartridges can be obtained also, but are expensive, ranging from two to four cartridges for a shilling, according to size and demand.

The better-class houses are usually built of sun-dried brick and mud; there is a good deal of wood-work about them, and sometimes the whole front of a house is built up of wood. There are two parts to each house. The inner part is the harem serai, where the women are quartered, and here the rooms are built in such form as to surround and look out upon an inner courtyard; and an outer small house, which is built over the gate of the harem and overlooks the street, for the use of the man, and where male visitors are received and entertained by him. The largest houses have also a garden attached to them, which is surrounded by a high wall to insure privacy when the women walk in it, for no woman must allow her face to be seen by any man excepting only her nearest relations. The door leading to the women’s quarters in all houses has a kopchee or door-keeper, and no one is allowed to enter any house until its master has given permission, and no woman is allowed to leave the house unless the kopchee has been told by the master to permit it.

The palaces of the Amir and princes are the only well-built houses in Kabul. The Amir’s principal palace is Arak. Arak signifies “fort” in Turki, and “palace” in Persian. It is a large fortified place, some five hundred yards square, and is surrounded by a deep and wide moat. The surrounding walls are double and very thick. The outer walls are loop-holed for cannon and Maxims, while an earthen embankment, carried on arches connecting the two walls, is sloped up from above the embrasures to the inner wall, the top of which is slotted for riflemen. Under this embankment are the rooms where the guns are worked. Inside the fort offices and storerooms are built up against the inner walls, together with rooms for the men of the garrison who form the Amir’s bodyguard, and are specially selected and highly paid. In the Arak fort are also the public and private treasuries, and all the modern rifles and cartridges, of which there are many thousands, are kept in the storerooms there. The Amir’s palace inside Arak, and the harem serai for his women, are both surrounded by a high wall, which forms an inner defence when so required, and besides these are other rooms for the Amir’s use, which have lately been built alongside the north tower, and at other places inside the fort. The inner area of the fort is laid out as a garden, and at one end of the garden is a large glass-covered hothouse where the Amir sits very often in winter, surrounded by shrubs and flowers, and with bulbuls and other singing birds in cages suspended from the roof.

Outside Arak are situated the Boistan and Gulistan palaces. While of the summer palaces, Shahrara (city’s adornment) lies about a mile to the north-west of the city, and a couple of miles further on lies Baghibala (high garden), which was the late Amir’s favourite summer palace and where he died. More to the west, and about eighteen miles out of the city, is the summer palace at Paghman, a green spot at the foot of the Hindu Kush mountains. South of Kabul, and about one and a half miles from the city, is Baber, where another summer residence has been built beside the tomb of Baber Shah, the first of the Moghul emperors, who was buried there in 1530. Six miles out in the same direction is Hindeki, where the present Amir has a summer palace, which he used before coming to the throne. A little to the south-west of Hindeki lies Kila Asham Khan, where the summer palace of the Queen-Sultana of the late Amir is situated.

In the gardens outside Arak are two large salaam khana (audience chambers) which were built by the late Amir to afford room for large public durbars. These, in addition to the audience chambers proper, have smaller rooms attached to them, and the late Amir was in the habit of spending several days together in the new salaam khana, which is a handsome building.

The Kabul climate is a good one, and very bracing. Situated as it is some seven thousand feet above sea level, the air is rare, and it is, of course, much colder than other places on the same latitude. At first, one experiences a little difficulty in breathing when walking uphill, and is inclined to doubt the efficiency of one’s lungs, but this wears off afterwards. I once climbed up the Hindu Kush to the limit of the snow in summer, and found the air very exhilarating and fresh; but I had to stop frequently to recover breath, and the air I breathed seemed altogether insufficient and not satisfying, like that at a lower altitude.

Although there is usually very little rainfall, during two of the summers I spent in Kabul, thunder storms, with heavy downfalls of rain, were frequent. In these storms the flashes of lightning were almost continuous and the peals of thunder were deafening, and without cessation; but the electricity was expended on the heights close to the city, and there are very few cases on record of a house being struck.

In the winter heavy falls of snow are common, and when the wind drifts it, the smaller houses are sometimes covered. After a fall of snow, hazara and other labourers are called in with their wooden shovels to clear it off the roofs, as it would otherwise melt when the sun came out, and, percolating the mud covering, make the rooms below uninhabitable, and the added weight of snow is often the cause of a roof falling in. The snow is shovelled off the roofs into the streets below, where it piles up and takes months to melt, and keeps the roadway near by in a muddy condition; but the Afghan cares nothing for a little extra mud or dirt, and no one takes the trouble to clear away snow which will melt away itself in time—that would indeed be wasted labour. Latterly, arrangements have been made for carting it away from the principal thoroughfares, and in time the people may see the advantage of clearing all thoroughfares alike.

When the summer is dry, dust storms are of almost daily occurrence, and are very unpleasant when one is out walking or riding, and in the house it is also unpleasant, for all doors and windows have to be kept shut, and the rooms become very hot, and everything one touches has a gritty feel. In hot weather the air is usually still until about three in the afternoon, and then a wind rises, blowing from the north, and, coming in gusts and eddies downwards, lifts up columns of dust so effectively that in a short time it is difficult to see, and this wind continues to increase in violence until about an hour after sundown, when it gradually dies away, and then, in the stillness that follows, the noises of the night sound very loud.

The winter of 1901-02 was an exceptional one, for no snow fell the whole of the winter. I was told of a similar winter about twelve years before, which had been followed by cholera, and in this case history repeated itself, for in the spring the rivers and streams from the mountains dried up, the crops failed for want of water, and famine set in, and in the summer following, when food was scarcest, cholera broke out and raged for three months, and owing to the impoverished bodies of the people, the mortality was exceptionally high.

During the winter the days are mostly bright, and the sun shines brilliantly on the snow, causing it to thaw. In the evenings it freezes again, and then the roads are like polished glass, and men, horses, and camels fall and are injured, the animals often breaking their legs and having to be destroyed. The sun, shining on the snow, also causes a good deal of snow blindness. But the most trying time in winter is when the skies are overcast, and a great wind rises which nothing will shut out of the house. Then at sundown the temperature falls below zero, and continues to fall as the night advances, and even with a huge fire burning in the room, one is warm only on the side nearest the fire, the other side of the body being chilled with the continuous draught which comes in at every crevice as the wind surges against the house in seeming heavy waves. Those outside who have to bear the brunt of this wind, suffer considerably, and often lose feet, hands, or nose with frostbite, and soldiers on guard frequently die of cold, for they are very insufficiently clad to stand such weather. At this time, too, wolves come down at night from the mountains, driven by hunger from their natural fastnesses to seek food near the city, and attack and kill men whom they find helpless with cold and fatigue, and carry off children, sheep, and goats when they can get them.

One peculiarity about the climate is the quantity of electricity in all things. If one walks across a room in the dark, dragging the feet along the carpet, sparks of electricity follow the feet; also, if one strokes a dog smartly down the back, the same thing is noticeable. When undressing, the shirt, as it is pulled over the head, causes a crackle of electricity as it drags over the hair, and women, when brushing their long tresses, find each hair electrified and standing out straight from one another as the brush leaves it.

The clear, rare air makes distances very deceptive to the eye, and mountains at a considerable distance appear quite close. Once, when riding one of the longest day’s journeys I have done in the country, I was told in the morning that we should camp under a conically-shaped mountain in the distance, which could be seen rising between the dip of two ranges of mountains, and, looking at it, I put the distance down at twenty to twenty-five miles, and looked forward to early lunch that day; but evening was well advanced before we reached our camping-ground, and we travelled at a steady pace the whole of the day.

The clear atmosphere also makes the moonlight very brilliant, and the effect of the sleeping city bathed in the white light of the moon as seen from the roof of the house at night, the harsh outlines of houses and mountains toned down, and the domes of palaces and tombs rising above the other buildings is very beautiful. Day dispels the illusion, for the clear atmosphere and absence of vapour makes the colouring of the landscape very dull, and the brilliant green of the trees here and there appears objectionable as out of keeping with the rest of the colour scheme.

CHAPTER V
MANNERS AND CUSTOMS

Belief in the supernatural—Dress of men—Complexion—Character of people—Description of various tribes—Languages and schools—Feuds between families—How holidays are spent by the people—Singing and musical instruments—Games and amusements.

Speaking generally, there is much in the daily life and customs of the Afghans that reminds one of England some three hundred years ago as depicted in books and histories, such as their superstitions, their treatment of sick persons by barber surgeons and leech wives, their belief in ghosts, devils, and fairies, in fortune-tellers, in people with the evil eye, in the astrologers who cast their horoscopes, and their fervent belief generally in the supernatural. In many other particulars also they resemble the old English, but in character they differ considerably.

The dress of the country is of course the Afghan costume, which consists of tombons or loose pyjama trousers made of many yards of cotton material which hang in folds from the hips, round which they are tied with a pyjama string, a plain shirt which is worn outside the tombons, and over the shirt an armless coat (very much like a waistcoat) which is usually worn unbuttoned; a large sheet of calico is worn loosely round the neck like a shawl with one end carelessly thrown over the shoulder. The turban is the conical fez, with lungi wrapped tightly round it over the head, and the shoes more resemble slippers in shape, they are very heavy and studded with nails while the toes curl up over the foot. Stockings or socks are only worn by the well-to-do people.

Officials and those attached to the court, together with officers of the army, wear the English style of clothes, those attached to the court having long frock-coats similar to the Turkish, and wear fez of black cloth which are straight, instead of sloping up to the crown like the ordinary Turkish fez. Officers of the army wear uniforms fashioned after the style of the English army with flat peaked caps of the German pattern.

The soldiers are dressed variously, some wearing the Afghan tombons and others English trousers, or white cotton pants cut in the same style, but all have English pattern tunics or coats, and a leather belt carrying pouches strapped round the body. For head-dress, some wear the usual turban and some flat peaked caps. Soldiers may, in fact, dress as they like or can, except on review days, when their uniform (they have but one) must be worn. The soldiers of the Amir’s bodyguard have uniforms for everyday wear, and all are dressed and armed in the same style.

Most of the people who possess a horse wear long Russian boots with high heels, which give a perched up appearance to the legs; but whatever style of dress may be worn there is always a leather belt strapped round the body, in which knives and revolvers are carried, provided the man is fortunate enough to possess a revolver. Merchants who travel up and down between Kabul and India buy up stocks of old uniforms; these are much prized by the poorer Kabulis, for they wear well and are cheap, so that one sees all sorts of British regimental tunics, besides those of the police and railways, and it looks strange to see a man walking along the street with the letters “S. E. Ry,” or those of another railway company on his collar, so many miles away from the place where it was first worn. Generally the Kabuli wears clothes made after the English fashion, and those who cannot afford a good sort of material for their dress do the best they can, and are to be seen with the tombons and shoes of the Afghan, and an English coat, or a suit cut in the English style, and Afghan shoes, and no socks or stockings. When I speak of the English coat or trousers, I do not mean that the clothes are English made, for the bazar tailors are clever enough to imitate the English style sufficiently well to satisfy their patrons, and the tailor who can cut clothes to fit well is in great demand, and soon becomes a well-to-do person.

In complexion the people vary considerably, some being very dark skinned, and others as fair as Europeans. Those with dark skins are, as a rule, Kabulis who have no objection to marrying the women of southern nations, but the true Afghans from the hills are very fair, and often with light-coloured hair, and as they despise women of other nations they seldom marry any but those of their own people. In many of the Afghans red cheeks give a greater impression of fairness. Usually the hair is black, and hangs straight and lank, and men whose hair and beard go grey from old age or other reasons, but who feel young enough to take other wives to themselves—for they marry as many as they can support—dye their hair and beard a deep black, but as the dye is not permanent it has to be frequently renewed; otherwise it fades, and the hair and beard become a dirty red and look very unprepossessing. This is often seen in men whose continued duty, or journey to some distant place, prevents them seeking the services of their hairdresser, who is usually one of the women of the household. It is only very old men indeed who are seen in Kabul with grey hair and beards, for personal vanity is one of the leading characteristics of the Afghan, and this influences him to spend more than he ought on dress in order to appear well, the food for himself and family being of diminished quantity in consequence, very often, indeed, near to starvation point. I have known well-dressed men who lived chiefly on dry bread, and not too much of that, in order to save the bulk of their income for new clothes.

It has been said that the Afghans are the Lost Tribes of Israel, and there is much in the appearance of the true Afghan to support this theory, and in character and name also. The hooked nose, deep-sunk piercing eyes, and general features are distinctly Jewish, while those who have had business relations with the Afghans will vouch for the character, and then the names, Suleiman, Yakoob, Yusef, Daood (Solomon, Jacob, Joseph, David), etc., are common names. Some mountains in the country also have Jewish names, such as the Koh-i-Suleiman, so that one is inclined to think that if they are not the Lost Tribes, they must be of Jewish origin.

The Kabulis are hybrid creatures, compounded of many races, and generally having the worst characteristics of each. In complexion they vary considerably, but, as a whole, are fair as compared with the Hindustanis, and some have grey and blue eyes and light hair. Among them are those of villainous countenance, and others just as handsome, both in face and form. They are generally short of stature, as compared with the Afghans, who are tall and well-built men; but the conditions of life among the hillmen are such that the weakly die young, and it is a case of the survival of the fittest, which, so far as the physical effect on the race is concerned, is worthy of emulation by other races.

The Kandaharis are also a good type of Afghan, and are mostly strong well-built men. Grey and blue eyes are common amongst them, as with the Kabulis; but whether this is natural to them or the result of the English occupation of the country on two occasions many years ago, is problematical.

The people of Turkestan and the Usbegs are rather Mongolian in feature, the type being in some more pronounced than others. The Hazaras, whom Amir Abdur Rahman brought into subjection, are decidedly Mongolian in feature, and are mostly short, squat, strongly built people.

Another race the late Amir subjugated, the Kafris, are entirely distinct from the other races of the country. They are generally very fair complexioned, and have light-coloured eyes. They are not tall, and are slimly yet symmetrically built. In many cases their features are Grecian in type, and it is quite conceivable that they are, as has been suggested, the descendants of the garrisons Alexander the Great left in the country on his historic march to India. They were idolators until the Amir took them in hand and converted them by fire and sword, and they have little love for their new masters. They are quick and intelligent, and make good workmen.

The language of the country is Pushtoo, which is general among the people from Peshawar to Kandahar. The Turkestanis use the Turki language, and the Kafris have a language of their own, which latter might form an interesting study for those who are acquainted with the old Greek language. All people of any consequence speak Persian, which is the court language, and the language used in Kabul itself, for very few of the Kabulis are able to speak Pushtoo, and with a knowledge of Persian one can get on anywhere in the country, but it is less common among the frontier tribes than elsewhere.

Persian is the language taught in the schools, which the children attend from early morning until about ten o’clock, and again in the late afternoon for a couple of hours. In these schools the master, usually a moullah, sits on a carpet in the centre of the room with the children in a circle round him, sitting cross-legged, with their books on their knees, and reading aloud in a sing-song manner, while rocking their bodies backwards and forwards. This rocking the body to and fro while reading becomes such a habit that in after life very few men can read anything without doing it, and their voices take on the sing-song intonation of the school. For the chastisement of the unruly and stupid, the master has a pliable rod by him. There is no sparing the rod and spoiling the child, and when the master wishes to punish one of them, the small offender is held on his back, with his legs up in the air, and receives so many cuts on the soles of his feet, and while the punishment lasts he howls piteously. Sometimes in passing by a school I have stopped, thinking a child was surely being murdered, until I saw the reason why the boy was howling, and my standing to watch generally had the effect of stopping the child’s noise, for the “Feringhee” is one of the names used to frighten children with. One end of the room in which school is held has no wall, and is open on the side facing the road, so there is nothing to prevent one watching the school children at work.

Children are also taught in the school to read the old Arabic, in order that they may read the Koran, but while there are many men who can read Arabic, there are few who understand it, and fewer still, if any, who can speak it as a language. Many can recite passages from the Koran as a parrot would do, and some, who are thereby called Hafiz, can recite it from memory from beginning to end.

In character the people are idle, luxurious, and sensual, which characteristics become prominent as soon as a man possesses power or money (almost synonymous terms in Afghanistan). They are capricious and ungrateful, and turn easily in their likes and dislikes, and are readily led to turn against those to whom they owe gratitude. Usually, when they want anything, they want it at once, and should their desire be delayed for any time, they no longer want it. They are lying, treacherous, and vengeful, and one who has a grudge or enmity against another will not show it openly, but conceals his feelings and feigns friendship, while waiting the opportunity for vengeance, and in the execution of their vengeance they are capable of unheard-of cruelties. They are readily ruled by fear, but are apt to brood over small grievances until they convince themselves that they are most cruelly treated, and then their feelings may result in a fit of Berserk rage, under the influence of which they lose control of themselves and take vengeance violently, often stabbing and hacking at their victim long after life is extinct. They are cruel and insensible to the pain of others, often laughing at it, and, except in the case of a relative, will seldom go out of their way to relieve suffering.

Towards their children they are too kind, and spoil them while they are young, denying them nothing which it is possible to give them, and dressing them in gaudy clothes while they themselves go ragged. They make no attempt to correct them for any wrong-doing, laughing at it rather as a sign of precociousness, and among the Kabulis it is a common thing for a little child to be able to curse fluently, and their curses are often directed at their parents. This neglect in training the young properly accounts for much that is objectionable in the character of the people. It is not until children are seven or eight years old that they begin to correct them, but a good deal of the character of a child is at that age already formed.

The Afghans are for ever scheming one against another, family against family, official against official, farmer against farmer, workman against workman, and wife against wife—the latter being, naturally, one of the evils which arise from the custom of plurality of wives. The result of all this scheming is often a quarrel which ends in a fight, in which one or other of the parties may be killed; they do not always use knife or bullet for the purpose, they have other ways too of ridding themselves of an enemy.

In the cities, when a man commits murder, he is taken charge of and judged by the authorities, but in the country it often results in a feud between the two families, which is carried on for generations, the murderer being waited for by the relatives of the man whom he killed, and killed in turn; the slayer in this case also being eventually slain by a member of the opposite party, and so the feud goes on for many years.

Illustrating the vengeful character of the people, I may mention the case of a man who killed another and escaped to his own house or fort, as it is called by them, each house being in the nature of a stronghold. Here he stayed for some thirty years, without venturing to put his foot outside the house; but at the end of that time, supposing the watchfulness of his enemies had slackened, he went out one day, and was carried back dead. The vengeance of the relatives of the man he had killed had not slumbered, neither had their watchfulness. It is said that revenge is sweet, but it seems to have an added sweetness to these people.

There is a law among the people that a man who has been apprehended by the authorities for murder, may be claimed by the murdered man’s relatives to execute or forgive as they wish. The relatives may then accept so much blood-money as compensation, or may kill the man in any way they like. Sometimes the haggling among the relatives about accepting the blood-money offered by the murderer and his friends, some being in favour of accepting the money, and others in favour of death, is continued even under the scaffold, where the condemned one stands ready pinioned, and with the rope round his neck, and after, perhaps, an hour or so of wrangling, it ends in the decision that the man must suffer death, and then the rope is seized and the man hauled up. The feelings of the man during the altercation in such cases must be unenviable.

Another case which further shows the vengeful character of the people is that of a man who murdered a boy, and was handed over to the relatives for execution or forgiveness. The mother of the boy resisted those in favour of blood-money, and insisted on the man’s throat being cut, as he cut her son’s, and when this was done, she, in the frenzy of her vengeance, actually drank the blood as it flowed from the man’s throat.

The amusements of the people are simple, and would lead one to suppose them rather simple-minded, if one did not know them. For instance, in the early evening, when work is over, the people will flock in summer-time to the public garden, where plots are laid out with flowers, each plot having one kind of flower only, carrying with them their singing-birds in cages, and will sit round these plots until nightfall, contentedly enjoying the scent of the flowers and the cool evening breeze. They sit there quietly, and for the most part silently, and there is no noise beyond the pit-pat of the slippers of those going and coming on the garden paths. At one or two corners of the garden walks are tea-sellers, with a little crowd of people squatting round drinking tea out of the small handleless cups commonly used, and taking a pull at the chillum (pipe similar to a hookah) now and then.

On Fridays (the Sundays of the Mussulmans), and on holidays, many people go off walking or on horse or donkey, when, in many cases, they ride two together on one animal, and sometimes three, to the gardens in the country, taking food and cooking-pots with them; and there they will wander round the gardens until midday, content to be amongst the trees and flowers. Then they cook their food, and after eating that, they lie about and chat, or doze the afternoon away, and when evening begins to gather, they get their belongings together, and start off home again, having had a glorious day’s outing, according to their own statement. They are easy to please in this way, and anything which brings them fresh air, sunlight, flowers, and grass or trees, and no worry or duty, and, if possible, a little to eat and drink while enjoying it all, is a day’s tamasha to be talked over and retailed to others, and dreamt about until the next opportunity comes.

When other means of amusement fail, they sit together on the roof of the house, or in some quiet spot near by, where there may be a tree to shade them, and one of them plays the rubarb, which is something like a mandoline, and sings Persian love-songs. Out of half a dozen men there is usually one who can play and sing, and their songs sound best at a little distance, for if close by the nasal intonation is not prepossessing, while the contortions of the mouth and face in bringing out the tremulous and prolonged high notes rather fascinate one, and the song is forgotten in watching them and waiting for the breakdown, which seems momentarily imminent. There are others of their stringed instruments which resemble the banjo in shape, but all are called “rubarb.” The music has little change about it, and differs from ours in not being composed of different airs, but in being of bars of four to six beats, which are repeated over and over again. It sounds very monotonous, and is a little trying, until one gets used to it, and then, on a still summer evening, the rubarb in the distance has rather a soothing sound in its monotony, if one happens to be reclining in an easy-chair, smoking and resting after dinner. But if one is busy writing, or is absorbed in calculations, or anything of that sort, the monotony of the sound is very trying, and produces a desire to make a change at any cost, even if a shot-gun is necessary to effect it.

The people are like the rest of the Orientals, and do not look upon exercise in any form as an amusement, and therefore, are not in the habit of dancing as a means of recreation and pleasure, but they have, instead, properly trained dancing-girls to do so before them. The services of the dancing-girls are requisitioned only on festivals and weddings, or when some wealthy man gives an entertainment to his friends on the occasion of a visit from one of the princes or some high official person.

The dancing-girls are accompanied by men with musical instruments who form the orchestra, and among the instruments is the inevitable tom-tom or drum, which is played by being struck with the fingers or the hand, and not with drumsticks. The life of the dancing-girl is a hard one, for the dancing they practice is exhausting, and induces a good deal of perspiration, and the girl is clad in light flimsy muslin, while the nights even in summer are chill, and all doors and windows are open to the breeze. Consequently, she catches cold and gets fever and continues to get it, for she must practice her profession whenever called upon, so that it is not a matter for surprise that these girls mostly die of consumption. The dancing-girls in Kabul are Hindustanis, from the Peshawar and Delhi districts, while some are the offspring of former dancing-girls and the men of the country. Although much has been said about the Oriental dancing-girls’ poetry of motion, and I have seen many others in different parts of India, their action during the dance appears very studied and wanting in grace, even with the best of them, and none that I have seen are to be compared with our own principal ballet-dancers for grace of movement.

Among wild Afghan tribes, such as the Jidrani and others, knife-dances are indulged in. About fifty men arrange themselves in a circle with four or five more in the centre, who beat tom-toms and tambourines, and play on stringed instruments. The dance commences by the men springing forward towards the centre of the circle and back again, flashing their knives about over their heads, and singing in time to the music in a low tone, but gradually the music, singing, and dancing become louder and quicker, belts and turbans are thrown off to allow of greater freedom of movement, and the knives flash more rapidly, until at last the men seem in a very frenzy, and the dancing becomes a series of wild leaps in the air, knives are thrown up and caught again, and the singing changes to a chorus of wild yells. When the dance has reached its most frenzied point, it suddenly ceases, and then there is a loud clapping of hands by the dancers, and all is over.

They have another wild dance which resembles some strange rite of worshippers round a fetish. Two or three men with tom-toms sit together, and the dancers arrange themselves in a large circle round them, but instead of facing towards the centre of the circle as in the former dance, each man faces the one in front of him. When the tom-toms begin, they spring forward a step and stop momentarily, then spring forward again on the other foot, and so continue, but during each spring they turn violently half round to right or left as each foot advances, and the sudden twist they give their bodies sends their turbans or caps flying after the first few steps. In a little while, when they begin to warm up to the dance, they do a whole turn in the air during each spring forward, and, as this is continued, the dancers become more and more energetic, until their hair, which is worn long and cut straight round the shoulders, stands out like a mop being wrung out as they spin round. Their arms, being also extended at the same time, the whole effect, as they spin round more rapidly and violently and the tom-toms beat quicker, is exceedingly quaint.

Some of the people, mostly soldiers, go in for swordstick combats. The swordsticks are similar to the English ones, with basket guards, but the combatants carry small round leather shields in addition, which are held in the left hand, and not partly on the forearm, as is usual with larger shields. Some of the men are very expert in this exercise, but they do very little guarding by means of the swordstick, and catch most of the blows on the shield, for this allows of a quicker return stroke. They are also much in favour of leaping back to avoid a leg-cut, leaning forward as they do so to get in a down-stroke at their adversary’s head.

In the late spring of each year, the “Jubah” takes place. The jubah is a fair combined with sports, and is held on a level strip of plain under the Asman heights south-west of the city. Here they have horse races, but the races are arranged on the spur of the moment between one man and another, and are not agreed on beforehand to determine the best of several horses over a fixed course. Food and toy-stalls are erected along the slopes of the hill, and all Kabul and its children turn out for the three days the fair is held. On these occasions the people put on their best clothes, and the children are particularly gaudy in their coloured velvet coats and caps. The children’s toys are very quaint in appearance. The dolls are made of stuffed rag, and are dressed in Afghan fashion, and represent both men and women, not children, while others represent demons. Then there are small windmills fixed on the end of a stick, and wooden whistles, and many other curiously shaped articles, all gorgeously coloured, which children love. There is also a Turkestani tight-rope walker dressed in a gaily coloured fantastic costume, who fits up two long poles with a rope between, both poles and rope being very solidly made and very firmly fixed, and gives displays thereon.

The jubah is also made the occasion for deciding the wrestling contests between the chief “pulwans” (athletes) of the city. These wrestling matches are usually conducted before the Amir and the princes, for whom tents are erected on the hillside, and the Amir awards money prizes to the victors. The keenest interest is taken in the wrestling by all people, and among the competitors defeat is in some cases so taken to heart that the man will never wrestle again, and others have been known to become so depressed through being beaten as to commit suicide.

There is no course kept open for those who are racing their horses, and the riders have to dodge in and out amongst the people and other horses and donkeys as best they can, and often man and horse come to grief, chiefly over a donkey which gets out of the way of no one, unless under compulsion. On one occasion two men were racing their horses from opposite ends of the plain, and met midway, and as neither would give way to the other in passing they collided, and the result was that one man and horse were killed on the spot, and the other two died the following day.

Story-tellers are in great favour among the people, and a good raconteur may be sure of an attentive audience. The bazar story-teller takes up his stand in a busy thoroughfare, and begins telling his story. In a short time he is surrounded by a large crowd, eagerly drinking in the various episodes related, while people riding or walking past have difficulty in squeezing their way through the crowd, if they themselves do not stop to swell it; but nothing is said or done by the passers-by to disturb the story-teller in his recital of the adventures of the prince or princess among the various jinn, fairies, or “deoo” (demons) of old time. Story-tellers are also attached to the retinues of the Amir and the princes, and others of high standing. All their attendants and officials are story-tellers in a way; but those mentioned are special men, whose chief duty it is to tell stories to their masters while the latter lie on their beds at night and listen until they fall asleep.

In Kabul, when a guest is invited to dinner, the invitation means that he is expected to stop the night in the house of his host, and on these occasions, when the dinner has been despatched, the guests gather round the host, squatting or lying on carpets while they smoke the chillum, and each one takes his turn at telling a story. The interest in the stories related is so great that they often sit listening to one another far into the night, and are unfit for work the following day.

Boys and children amuse themselves in much the same way as English children. The chief game among boys is “toop bazee,” which is played with a flat piece of wood and a ball, and is very much like rounders. They also go in for wrestling, and fencing with sticks, and throwing arrows with a piece of string, at which they are rather expert. Some of the elder boys shoot sparrows and small birds with clay pellets from a long blow-pipe, and in order to get the birds at close range the boy takes his stand beneath a tree and uses a call which imitates a number of sparrows chirruping and fighting together, and this induces the sparrows to come and investigate the cause of trouble, when they offer a good target from below.

Smaller children play with balls, knuckle bones, marbles, and walnuts. The walnuts are used as in a game of marbles, and any knocked out of the ring, in which each player places a certain number, are the property of the player who knocks them out.

Only very little girls are to be seen in the streets, as at about eight years of age they become “purdah,” i.e. no longer to be seen by men other than their relatives, and are confined to the women’s quarters of the house, and cannot go outside unless wearing the “bukra,” or cotton overdress, which covers them from head to foot, and has a slit covered with fine lace in front of the eyes for them to see through. Little girls may be seen sometimes on the house-top playing at a game similar to ring-of-roses, or playing with their dolls, and keeping house, or keeping shop, and other games of make-believe, which their sex delight in. Their greatest delight is to have an English doll with English clothes, for their own dolls are made of rag and dressed like themselves.

CHAPTER VI
MANNERS AND CUSTOMS—continued

Superstitions, fairies, and devils—A curious legend—Astrologers—Children singing prayers on roofs to avert calamity—Different foods in use—Smoking and tobacco—The Amir’s chief physician—Snuff—Method of keeping warm in winter—How time is kept—Weddings of different classes—Funerals.

The people are very superstitious, and firmly believe in ghosts, spirits, fairies, and devils, and most of their stories are about these good and evil spirits, as they term them, while their belief in them is such that even men are chary of going about alone at night. If a man is met at night walking alone one generally first hears him and then sees him, for he makes a good deal of noise as he walks, and also whistles or sings as he goes along.

When I was stopping at the Mihman khana, I came in late one night, having been for several hours with the Amir, and while walking up to the house from the gate, I noticed one of the syces (grooms) coming from the house towards me, and making a prodigious noise, whistling. He stopped whistling when he saw me, and I wondered why he was so noisy, such being unusual, but when I got to my rooms I found the reason to be a nervous shock he had had. It appeared that one of my Hindustani servants, while in a facetious mood, had blacked his face, or rather made it more black with burnt cork, and whitened his lips and made white circles round his eyes. Then, taking two sheepskin coats, he had reversed them so that the hair was outside, and putting his legs through the sleeves of one and his arms through the sleeves of the other, had fastened both round his waist, and then put on a sheepskin cap with long hair. He dressed up afterwards to show me, and his appearance was not prepossessing. A guard of seven men was stationed in the vestibule outside the door of my rooms, and to these he came on hands and knees until quite close, and then he started bounding towards them with huge roars. Thinking that a real deoo (demon) was on them, every man flung away rifle and sheepskin coat, which is a heavy one, and fled wildly to the guard-room at the outer gate; but one man, who was asleep when the rest fled, woke up with the noise and rose to a sitting position, staring round-eyed at the apparition and booing, until he regained enough consciousness to get up and fly. The demon then went to the small room adjoining the verandah, where the chaeedar’s quarters were (the man who makes the tea). The chaeedar was sitting alone in deep thought, on a small carpet with his back to the window, which was open, but when this apparition came through the door, he rose up and sprang backwards through the window, regardless of possible injury to himself or anything else, save that he left the room immediately. The next people visited were those of the Amir’s servants, who were appointed to look after my comforts, and were always in my sitting-room when on duty, and his appearance at one door was the signal for their wild flight through the other, chairs and tables being upset in the hurry to get out. He then visited the other servants in their quarters with great success, and it was soon after it was over, and all had gathered together again to relate their impressions and experience, that I came in and the tale was told to me. All those who had been frightened looked very sheepish, and each man was trying to prove that he ran because the other one did. However, the infection of fear spread even to the apparition, and for several nights after no one would go out, not even across the garden to their own quarters, unless some one was with them.

Fairies are generally supposed to inhabit the lonely mountains around, and although they are believed to be, on the whole, a good sort, the people are more inclined to give them a wide berth than risk too much by loitering about those places the fairies are supposed to haunt. They are described as twelve to eighteen inches high, very fantastically dressed, and going about in a follow-my-leader manner, dancing and skipping as they go. They are believed to be afraid of men, and to hide themselves from them, and so are only seen by those who are in hiding or sleeping in out-of-the-way places. Of children they are said to have no fear, but it is unwise to let a child stray near their haunts, as it may be put under a spell, or perhaps changed for one of their own children, who is made to take the face and form of the stolen child, and then the changeling will bring all sorts of bad luck upon its foster-parents.

GROUP OF AFGHAN GUARDS AND SERVANTS—TAKEN IN COMPOUND OF MY HOUSE—KITCHEN AT THE BACK.

[To face p. 80.

The supernatural being the people dread most, and to whom they put down much that happens which cannot be satisfactorily explained, is the shaitan. Shaitans are demons who take many forms according to the fear or gift of exaggeration of the individual who thinks he has seen one. These beings they imagine may be behind any bush or boulder after sundown, and they also believe them capable of coming into the sleeping-room at night to frighten them into fits by their very ugliness, if nothing worse befalls, so the people sleep with head as well as body covered with blanket or rezai. They never sleep alone in a room, but several together, and many have been astonished when I told them that in my country each person has a separate room, if possible, and that children are put to sleep alone at night. They say it is not that they really fear a shaitan, for God is good, but they are not accustomed to sleeping alone, and, besides, it is unwise to be alone at night should a spirit happen to come in.

One of my servants solemnly assured me one morning that the night before his charpoy (bedstead) was lifted from the floor and swung round the room with him on it until he felt giddy, and at the same time he heard the most strange noises. He, however, admitted, on being questioned, that he kept his eyes firmly shut and saw nothing, and no doubt his head was wrapped close in the bedclothes. However, he wanted another room to sleep in, and refused to occupy that room again, and whether the other servants played him a trick or whether it was a bad attack of indigestion that troubled him I could not discover, but the room he slept in was afterwards used as a store-room by the other servants, and the name it acquired was sufficient to deter the servants who came after him from sleeping in it.

Another time the ceiling-cloth of one of my office-rooms came down during the night. It is a common occurrence, because the earth that falls through between the rafters from the mud roofs brings a gradually increasing weight to bear on the ceiling-cloth, and it sags until the cloth, sooner or later, rips at the edges and comes down. When I went to see the damage done the men with me said that it was assuredly the work of a shaitan, for who else could do it with the windows bolted and the door locked? To argue against logic like this was useless.

Another story told me by an Afghan about shaitans was that one evening after visiting some friends, he had some distance to walk before getting home, and the road lay through a burial-ground (burial-grounds have no walls round them as in England). It was late when he got among the graves, and the thought of walking alone there made his flesh creep, but he kept on until he was nearly through, and then he saw little flames rise from the ground in front of him and flicker about. This terrified him, and he put on an extra spurt to get clear of the graves, when the figure of a man appeared in front. The sight of another man calmed him until, on coming closer to the figure, he saw that a shawl was wrapped round the head (shawls are commonly worn so at night when the air is chill), and the eyes in the face shone like two stars, while the nearer he got to the figure the taller it grew, until it loomed high above him, and then he turned and ran back. But the house he had left was much further away from where he then was than his own home, so after running for a time he determined to face the graveyard again. But the same thing happened, only now, being in a frenzy to get out of it all, he made a dash to get past the figure, and, while doing so, he lost consciousness, and did not recover it until the early morning, when he found himself lying on the road, but just clear of the graves, and to that he attributed his salvation.

Another Afghan told me that he was sleeping one night in the serai at Gundamak, when he awoke without knowing the reason of his waking, and sat up. Then one wall of the room he was in disappeared, and there on the ground beyond he saw a regiment of Gorawallahs (English soldiers) march past, but without making any noise, and their faces were white in the moonlight, and wore an awful look. This man, too, lost consciousness until the morning, or rather, he said he did.

The people have a curious legend about sponges. They say the English people take very large earthen jars, and set them on the highest peaks of the mountains, and conceal the pots by piling stones round them, so that only the mouth shows. They then hide themselves in the crevices of the rocks, and wait until the clouds settle on the mountain-top, and come slowly down to the jars. Then, when a small cloud is seen to enter the jar, one of the men comes cautiously from his hiding-place, and quickly puts the lid on, and fastens it there. The jar is allowed to remain closed for about three days, by which time the cloud is dead, after which the vessel is broken and the dead cloud is cut into pieces, and taken out and sold as sponge. The Persian name for “sponge” is the same as for “cloud,” and perhaps this accounts for the legend.

Astrologers do a good business among the people, and their forecasts as to the lucky days on which to commence a journey or some new work are implicitly believed. The Amir and the members of the royal family have their own astrologers, who are consulted as to the auspicious day on which to commence any matter of importance, besides being asked to read what the future contains, but their verdicts, or such of them that I have heard, are ambiguous, and capable of being read in more than one way—a very necessary art for those who read the riddle of the future for the Amir. The astrologers have also to interpret dreams, for dreams are looked upon as signs given to warn or guide people, and it was due to a dream that the present Amir divorced all his wives but the four allowed by the Koran. It is not all people who consider themselves capable of predicting the future who are treated with honour and amass wealth, as witness the case of three men from a distant part of the country, who were brought before the Amir for predicting that a great calamity was to visit the country on a certain date, some few months ahead, and who expected much from their voicing of the prophecy. The Amir’s mood, which is always an uncertain quality, at the time the men were brought before him, was not inclined towards signs of evil portent, and he gave an order that the prophets be kept in prison until the date fixed by them for the happening of the calamity, and then, he said, they shall be rewarded if their words are shown to be true, but in the other event, death. The prophecy was not fulfilled, but the Amir’s sentence was.

The astrologers cast horoscopes, and tell fortunes with cards, and use other implements of the black art, for forecasting future events, and very rapidly make name and fortune, when once one of their prognostications is fulfilled, for then all their utterances are treated as truth itself, and should at any time any of their further prognostications prove contrary to actual happenings, the people do not blame the fortune-teller, but themselves instead, for the predictions being always more or less ambiguous, the people consider it their own misconstruction of his words which prevented them knowing what was about to happen. This sort of sophistry does not pertain to the credulous among Afghans alone.

The superstitious and religious beliefs mingle, as they do in other countries, and should any one praise a child for any attribute of mind or body at once, “nam i Khuda” (God’s name) must be said to avert the evil which open praise will beget. The evil eye is also supposed to be possessed by some persons, and God’s name must be spoken to avert its calamitous effect. Curiously enough, those credited with the evil eye are not blamed for its possession, but are said to be unlucky. In like manner, those who are skilful in curing and healing the sick and maimed, are said to have a lucky hand.

They have one custom which will commend itself to many, and that is, to collect the children on the roofs of the different houses, and there sing prayers in unison, for the averting of cholera, earthquakes, or other calamity, because the children, being more innocent than their elders, their prayers are supposed to be more readily listened to. The roofs of the houses are all close together, and it is pleasant to see the groups of children standing in lines on the different roofs, and listen to them singing the prayers with their clear young voices, and when the calamity to be averted is cholera, one rather hopes their prayers may be listened to, for cholera makes a several months’ stay when it visits Kabul, and is a trying time for all concerned.

The food of the majority of the people in Kabul is of a simple description, consisting, as it does, of dry bread, which is made into cakes, oval in shape, and about twelve inches long, by half an inch thick. Those who can afford it, take curds and cheese with the bread, and sometimes meat and vegetables made into a stew. The Chinese green tea is almost always taken with food and it is a very poor man who will not expend three pice (a halfpenny) on a pot of tea, even if cheese must be omitted from the bill of fare to afford it. In the summer-time fruit is plentiful and cheap; vegetables too, and lettuce is grown in large quantities. Two pice (little more than a farthing) will procure enough fruit to make a good meal for a man, and in the season most of the people met with on the streets are to be seen eating fruit, lettuce, or rhubarb, which latter grows wild in the mountains.

Very poor people live mostly on mulberries, which they also dry for winter consumption. Many of the Hazaras, who are a saving people, live on nothing else during the summer months, and cases of broken limbs through falling from the trees while gathering mulberries, are common. A diet of mulberries induces fever, particularly in those persons not accustomed to them, and the fever is of a serious nature, and many die of it.

The Koochee people, a sort of gipsy race who have no fixed home, but constantly travel about the country with their cattle and camels, and do a trade carrying goods and merchandise from place to place, and who are a most hardy race, live on corn bread, sheep and goat milk, cheese, and grass, eating the latter uncooked. Spinach, which grows wild, is also largely eaten by them, as well as by the other people of the country.

The food of the Afghans of the villages is principally soup and bread with curds, sour milk, butter-milk, and fruit. Butter-milk is a particular favourite with them, and an Afghan can drink a very fair quantity of it at a sitting.

If a camel, cow, or other esculent animal is sick, and it is certain that it is dying, the throat is cut, and the customary prayer said to make it halal (lawful eating), and the meat is then sold or eaten by the owners. I once saw a dying camel, that looked all skin and bone, being goaded along the bank of the river to the city that he might be killed close to the market for the better disposal of the meat, and it seemed as though the poor animal might topple over and die at any moment and cheat his master. There is little compassion in the bowels of an Afghan.

MARRIAGE PARTY OF THE “UPPER TEN.” BRIDE AND WAITING-WOMEN CARRIED IN LITTERS.

(From a drawing by the Author.)

[To face p. 88.

The better classes and well-to-do people eat of many savoury dishes, of which the principal are pilau and kabob; the latter being meat well peppered and salted, and roasted on a skewer over a fire (a roast leg of mutton is also a kabob). The pilau are of different sorts, and are composed of rice, spices, and meat; the rice and meat being stewed separately and mixed together on a dish. Preserves, pickles, sweetmeats, fruit, bread, are also eaten, and the ever present tea is taken to wind the meal up with, and with the tea the chillum is handed round, that tobacco may put the crowning touch on all. Large quantities of tea are consumed daily by the Kabulis, who drink it as often as they can afford it.

Women smoke the chillum as well as men. It is shaped like the hookah, but has a straight stem instead of a flexible one. The tobacco is of country growth, and is very rank smelling, more resembling a burning oil rag than anything else.

The Afghans call any large, fat man a strong one, and as fatness is considered a sign of both health and prosperity, all people who can afford to do so, eat until gorged, and in consequence many of them, both men and women, are grossly fat. The late Amir’s chief physician was so fat he could not walk, and had to be carried. Another man was so fat that he could do nothing for himself, and had to be washed and dressed by his slave girls, much as a baby is. Of this man I was told that he once noticed a very objectionable smell about his body, and in spite of all that was done to better it, the smell at last got so bad that he told the slave girls to carry him to the hamam and bath him, and while washing him, as ordered, the girls discovered the cause of the nuisance to be a dead frog hidden in one of the folds of fat. It had no doubt got in when the man was having his last tub, and been crushed to death.

Snuff-taking is also commonly indulged in by the better-class people. The poorer people, however, use the native tobacco, roughly crushed, and put it in their mouths, and there are some who can afford the snuff brought up from India who do the same in preference to sniffing it up the nose.

It is only in the large houses that there are fire-places, but there are few people who are wealthy enough to afford the cost of the large quantity of wood required during the winter months in order to keep the rooms warm enough to sit in, for the doors and windows of all houses are so badly fitted that the draughts of wind make the rooms unbearably cold even with a large fire going, and one has to sit in furs to be comfortable. So, to reduce the cost of fuel to a minimum and yet keep themselves warm day and night, the people have the “sandalee.” This is formed of a square wooden stool placed in the centre of the room and under the stool a small perforated iron box standing on legs, in which charcoal is burnt, and over all is spread a large rezai or quilt which covers the stool and fire-box, and extends on all sides over most of the floor of the room. The stool is used in order to keep the rezai away from the fire-box. Charcoal is lighted in the iron box, and when it is burning brightly the box is placed under the centre stool, whence the heat from the fire spreads under the whole of the rezai and keeps it very warm, and under such a cover the charcoal burns very slowly and the fire lasts for hours. Thin mattresses and pillows placed under the outer portion of the rezai are used to sleep on, or sit on in the daytime. Under this the whole of the family, father, mother, sons and their wives, daughters, children, aunts, and other relations, sleep at night, all being kept warm on the coldest night at the cost of a few pice for charcoal. The drawback is that at times with a newly lighted fire, the charcoal fumes are excessive, and produce nausea and headache, and sometimes suffocation, and also when a person is in the habit of using it during the day while having occasionally to go out into the frosty air, he often gets rheumatism, or other complaint. Another drawback is the moral effect on a whole family of men and women sleeping together in a small space under the rezai, and many call the sandalee “the devil’s playground.” In the guardrooms the soldiers use these sandalees too, the men sitting with their legs tucked under the rezai, while they have sheepskin coats covering the head and body, and in this way they can defy the bitterest wind. It is the one standing outside on guard who gets frozen to death at times.

In Kabul and the principal cities time is kept by means of a sundial, but though there are tables printed in Persian of the daily difference between solar and mean time, the time given by them is only approximate, for the dials have been constructed for other latitudes, and they are fixed in the direction of the magnetic north instead of the true one. One day, after ascertaining the true time, I informed the Amir that the midday gun was twenty minutes fast; but he said it was better so, for then they would not be late for midday prayers. Daily at midday a gun is fired to announce the time to the people, and those who have clocks and watches set them accordingly. Comparatively few, however, of the people are able to tell the time from a clock, and many have the most hazy idea of the length of time expressed by an hour or half an hour. This ignorance extends also to numbers, the people generally being able to count up to twenty, and any number above that is expressed as so many “taman” (score) together with the odd figure to make up the number. Some of the people do not even know the days of the week, and have to be told that a certain day is so many days after the present one.

Courtship and marriage in Afghanistan differ in many respects from those interesting episodes in European countries, but in no respect more than in the man not seeing the girl until they are married, and she is his wife. Men in Afghanistan are not prone to talk about their wives, or the women of their family, and to ask after a man’s wife is akin to an insult, as evincing some degree of familiarity with her. Under these circumstances a man’s feelings while he is waiting to see what sort of girl he has married are not ascertainable by direct question, but one would suppose that there must be an anxiety bordering on the intense to know what manner of woman it is that must hereafter be called “wife,” for the women vary in face and form as much as the men, and the “pig in the poke” may be as beautiful as a houri, or as ugly as sin, if not uglier in the opinion of some sinners.

Excepting in the case of boy and girl betrothals among people of high rank, which are arranged by the heads of the families, or when a young man’s relations arrange which woman he shall marry, it is usual for a man when he desires another wife to make known his wishes to his friends and his intention soon becomes public property. He then receives overtures from men with marriageable daughters, and the discussions with one and another are no light matter, for the prospective father-in-law expects money or kind in exchange for his daughter, and the beauty and qualities of the said daughter being an unknown quantity, the man is not inclined to be either liberal or rash. However, when the proceedings have at length assumed so much headway that the man is satisfied with the standing of the family the girl belongs to, and the family’s future prospects, and considers that the father of the girl has reduced his demands to the lowest fraction, he then sends his female relatives to inspect the cause of the trouble, and on their verdict, other things being satisfactory, concludes the bargain. When all the bargaining is over the ceremony of betrothal takes place, followed sooner or later by the marriage ceremony.

The marriage ceremony depends for splendour and feasting upon the wealth and standing of the families of the contracting parties. With members of the royal family and people of high rank, it means a three days’ tamasha, with the feasting of a great number of relatives and friends, and expenditure of further money in dancing-girls, bands, and other things. Although the expenditure varies according to the wealth of the persons concerned, in all cases the greatest splendour consistent with the rank of the contracting parties is aimed at, even if money must be borrowed to give a good show off, and in this they do not differ much from people nearer London. When the marriage ceremony is completed, the bride is carried in a sort of sedan chair to the bridegroom’s house, and the bridegroom, together with many of his relations and friends riding on horseback, accompany her, carrying guns, which they fire as they go along, while in front of them goes a drum and fife band with men dancing and pirouetting in front of it. The shooting of guns is a relic of older times when a man with the aid of his friends had to obtain his bride by force of arms or some stratagem, and then carry her away in front of his saddle while her relatives pursued them.

The weddings of the poor people have no display such as this, and the bride and bridegroom have perforce to walk before and after the ceremony, for they cannot afford a moullah, or priest, to come to the house, and so have to go to his place to be married. They may be seen in the street, the bridegroom walking first and the bride after him (no woman must walk in front of or even abreast a man); and after her is a girl friend or relative, carrying her clothes in a bundle on her head. In front of them walks a man with a tom-tom (native drum), and another with a tin whistle, both doing their best to enliven the proceedings by making the most noise possible with the instruments at their disposal, and so they wend their way to the bridegroom’s poor house.

I was told in Kabul that there is an old Afghan marriage custom among some of the tribes which differs from the above. With them, a man who wishes to marry a girl is allowed to live for some time in her father’s house, using the girl as his wife, and when after a reasonable time has elapsed, there is evidence that the girl is going to become a mother, he marries her. Should this not happen, the man is at liberty to marry her, or depart, and elsewhere seek a wife who is capable of continuing his family. The wish for a son is very strong among the Afghans, and whereas the birth of a boy is accompanied with great rejoicing, the birth of a girl passes unnoticed, the father showing his displeasure to the extent of, at times, refusing to see the mother until his anger has cooled with the passing of time.

The treatment of the body of a dead person before burial is much the same as among Europeans, except that the body is buried the day death occurs, and should a person die at night, the body is buried the next morning. When a man dies, the moullahs (priests) are sent for, and they wash the body (this is usually done at the side of the nearest stream), lay it out, and wrap it in the burial-sheet ready for interment. The burial-sheet is called “kafn,” which is a word similar to our “coffin.” No coffin is used. After preparing the body for burial, the moullahs say the prayers for the dead over it, in which they are joined by all the relatives and others present, the relations are sent for as soon as it is seen that a person is dying, and then the body is placed on a charpoy (wooden bedstead) and carried to the nearest musjid on the road to the graveyard, where the prayers for the dead are again said, after which the body is carried on to the burial-ground. Here the grave has been prepared beforehand, dug down some three feet, but recessed on one side at the bottom to receive the corpse, and as the earth must not fall on the body when filling the grave up, slabs of stone are placed against the recess. The body is laid on its side in the recess, with the face looking in the direction of Mecca, so that it may more easily see the beginning of the resurrection on the last day, and the grave is then filled up. According to Mussulmans, the resurrection on the last day begins at Mecca. A slab of stone about three feet by one foot, is placed at the head of the grave, but the stone is rough and uncut, and any stone which is lying about is used, provided the shape is suitable. In the case of very important personages, a properly cut stone, setting forth the name of the person buried there, is placed at the head of the grave, and this used to be commonly done to mark the resting-places of other people, but the stones were taken by the late Amir for buildings, as they were of a good quality, and nice white colour, and so the practice fell into disuse.

MARRIAGE PARTY OF POORER CLASS—BRIDEGROOM AND BRIDE FOLLOWED BY GIRL CARRYING THE BRIDE’S CLOTHES.

(From a drawing by the Author.)

[To face p. 96.

After the burial, the relatives and friends gather in the house of the deceased person, and here they are entertained by the family, tea and food being provided for all who call to offer condolences, and to say the “fateah” or prayers for the dead, which it is customary to say on coming into the house. The expenses for these entertainments, and also those connected with marriages were so great, and brought so many into poverty, on account of all trying to do as well as, or better than their neighbours, whether they could afford it or not, that the present Amir made it a law that all such entertainments should cease, and instead of being in a way public affairs, should be made private, and guests include relatives only.

It sometimes happens that a person dies so poor that there is not enough money even to buy the “kafn” (burial-sheet), which is only a shilling or so, and his relatives have to go through the bazars begging for one, or money to buy one. This happens now more often than it used to, for the people are yearly getting poorer.

CHAPTER VII
AMIR ABDUR RAHMAN

Form of Government—Abuse of authority—Amir’s food and drinking water and taster—Soldiers and horses always ready for flight—Amir’s habits—Amir’s amusements, attendants, etc.—Amir’s feelings towards England—Amir’s views on Afridi rising and Boer war—Amir’s stratagem.

Absolute monarchy is the system of government in Afghanistan. Fortunately there are few parts of the earth where such a form of government exists, for it is not one which is likely to produce the greatest good for the greatest number.

In Afghanistan no one but the Amir can order the death penalty; no important question concerning the internal government of the country or its political relations with other countries can be dealt with or settled except by him; all matters of import emanating from the various State departments and offices must be referred to him for final judgment; all officers and officials required for the Government service in different parts of the country must be selected and appointed by him, and all prisoners accused of any crime of a serious nature must be tried and sentenced by him. Besides these duties there are innumerable other matters which require his attention, of which the mere reading of the private reports from spies occupies several hours each day. From this it will be seen that the man who can carry out all these duties and give each question the consideration due to it without neglecting some matter or another of importance to the interests of the country, is one who requires a quickness in grasping the essential points of a question, and a capacity for work which are unequalled.

Amir Abdur Rahman was an exceptionally able man, and one who willingly gave the whole of his time and attention to the work required of him, working from the time he rose from his bed until he lay down again; but even so he was unable to see to all things himself, and the absence of responsible officials duly authorized to investigate and settle those matters which were not of sufficient moment to be taken before him for judgment, wasted much of the time which ought to have been devoted to important questions on which the welfare of the country depended. However, it is not surprising that the Amir was chary of putting too much authority in the hands of his officials, for those who had authority to judge minor cases invariably abused the authority given them, and the people who suffered through such abuse of authority, feared the enmity of the official too much to appeal to the Amir, and generally they were given cause to do so. As a case in point, I may mention that of a camel-owner who was brought before the city magistrate concerning the non-payment of some Government duty. In this case the man was forced to pay the duty, besides having two of his camels confiscated, for the magistrate did a transport business with camels himself. The camel-owner was naturally incensed at the injustice of the whole proceeding, and wrote the particulars to the Amir, bribing an official to give in his application. Bribery must be resorted to in those cases where an official is the intermediary. All this was timely reported to the magistrate, who at once betook himself to durbar, and laid the case in his own way before the Amir, making out that the man was an old offender, and, to prevent him running away before his highness had judged his punishment, he had kept two of his camels as security. The letter the man had written was brought in just then and handed to the Amir; but the Amir’s mind was prejudiced, and he saw in the man’s statement—and an Afghan always overstates the case—an endeavour to injure the character of the magistrate in revenge for the latter doing his duty. The man was therefore put in prison, and the whole of his property was confiscated, so that he lost all he had instead of getting back the two camels first taken.

With the Amir it is always the man who gets in his story or complaint first who wins, for the Afghan mind is readily prejudiced and chary of relinquishing first impressions, no matter how much truth lies in what is said by the man who speaks last. It is such cases as these, and more often than not an appeal to the higher power results in disaster to the applicant, which make the people chary of disputing the actions of the officials, and they therefore have to put up with as much justice as they can get, either by intrigue or bribery, and keep quiet, while the officials grow fat and rich, and become arrogant with continued prosperity, until one day they fly at game too high for them, and then come to grief and lose all, ending their days in prison or at the hands of the executioner. The late Amir one day told me that he trusted no one, and was so suspicious that he did not let his right hand know what the left one did; and with such men round him it is not surprising that he should have felt so.

Another thing which is further detrimental to the country lies in the officials being consulted on all matters concerning the interests of the people, for the Amir has no means of ascertaining the views and wishes of the people himself, and has to accept what his officials say, and this gives them the opportunity of bringing about that which is to their interest, and it is due to this selfish disregard of anything but their own profit that the officials force the people in yearly increasing numbers to give up the cultivation of their land and seek work elsewhere.

The Amir and the Government of Afghanistan are said by the people to be separate and distinct, and there is a public and a private treasury, on both of which the Amir draws, himself defining those expenses which are private, and those the Government must defray; but here all distinction ends, and it is difficult to see wherein the difference lies. I have been told that the Amir is the head of the Government; but so far as I could see he was head, body, and everything else, excepting where officials and governors of provinces save him the trouble of looking into matters which are profitable to themselves. The Government stores chiefly contain the arms and ammunition made in the country or purchased elsewhere, while the private stores, in addition to those goods which are required for daily use, contain the valuable presents brought in from all parts of the country by the chiefs who visit the Amir, and those received from other Governments, and contain immense treasures. In the private stores also are all the latest novelties which have been sent for from India, and there are few articles in that way which are not to be found there. Very few, however, of the articles, except those of daily use, go into the stores and come out of it again, for most of the things are put away and forgotten, and neither the Amir nor his storekeepers know all that the stores contain, for there are no proper records kept except of articles of intrinsic value.

The late Amir was very particular about his palaces, and the dwelling-places he built for himself were the first well-constructed buildings in the country, and they were furnished in the richest European style, all furniture and upholstery being of the best he could get in India or make in his own country. He insisted on all things about him being kept clean and tidy, and woe betide the unlucky slave boy who neglected his duty in that respect.

His food was cooked in the Government kitchens, which are kept guarded so that no one but those who are authorized to do so can enter, and the chief cook, with several soldiers, had to accompany the dishes from the kitchen to the palace (all dishes are served at once, and not in courses), and when placed before the Amir it was the cook’s duty to taste of each dish to show that the food was innocent of poison. Several high officials always dined with the Amir, the latter being seated at a small table covered with a white cloth, while on the ground stretching away in front of his table a long cloth was laid which was covered by another white one, and here, on both sides, squatted or kneeled the officials, all of them, the Amir included, eating with the right hand. The hands are washed both before and after a meal. The very best and richest foods, in the way of pilaus and kabobs, were cooked, and all were seasoned with spices, and the bread was the usual Afghan nan (flat cake), but the Amir preferred white bread baked in small loaves similar to the English ones.

If an Englishman dined with the Amir he was given a separate table, and a Hindustani cook and his assistants prepared and served the food in the usual English way, while, for drink, he had the choice of various wines and spirits, which the Amir used to keep in the stores for such purpose, although he himself always drank water, in accordance with the tenets of his religion.

The Amir’s drinking water, as well as all food for him, was very carefully guarded. One man was held responsible for it, and had charge of the key of the room in which it was kept locked. The same was done with the tea, for which another man was responsible, and another, a hakeem (doctor), was responsible for all medicine, mixing it and bringing it to the Amir himself. The positions these men held were no sinecure, for if the Amir had any strange pain in his body they had a very unpleasant time of it until the pain was gone, or proved to be due to natural causes, and at such times these men went about with a strained look on their faces, for none knew what fancy might seize the Amir to their undoing.

The present Amir follows the same procedure as his father, but, owing to one or two plots against him, which fortunately came to nothing, all measures for safety are more strictly enforced, and all the men responsible for what the Amir eats and drinks wear a more harassed look.

One of the late Amir’s precautions was to be always ready at a moment’s notice either for fighting or travelling to any part of his kingdom, or out of it if needs be. For this purpose several horses (which were changed every few hours) were kept day and night in the stalls by the door of the palace ready saddled and bridled, requiring only the girths to be tightened for mounting. Several fast mules were also kept ready in other stalls for carrying treasure, etc., on the journey. A cupboard with glass doors was kept by the head of the Amir’s bed in which was stacked his best rifles, and with them boxes of ammunition, while under his pillow were two or three revolvers ready loaded, so that the Amir was ever ready for emergencies. In addition a picked company of sowars, called the “Hazarbash” guard (ever present), were always ready night and day outside the palace to accompany the Amir. This guard the Amir kept provisioned for a few days, so that they might start at any moment on a journey, and those on duty were relieved at intervals. The Amir’s life had been an adventurous one, and it had taught him, and his experience in ruling his people had confirmed it, that it is wise to be ready at all times for anything that happens.

AMIR ABDUR RAHMAN AND OFFICIALS AT DINNER.

(From a drawing by the Author.)

[To face p. 104.

It was the Amir’s custom to sit up working most of the night, and not to retire to rest until about four o’clock in the morning. He would then rise between twelve and two o’clock in the day, and, after dressing and taking food, would hold durbar. This habit of keeping awake most of the night was probably due to fear of a rising or treachery, which would be attempted at night rather than during the day, when all the people were about. Occasionally he held a public durbar in the salaam khana, a specially large audience chamber built in the garden outside Arak, and on these occasions any persons desirous of petitioning him were allowed to come before him, and anything they had to say was listened to. The people who wanted to make personal application to the Amir were ushered in by the shagrasi, an official whose duty it was to present people to the Amir; but they had first to square the captain of the guard on the gate, and also certain other persons through whose hands they passed, before being allowed in. The Amir was a very hard worker, and opened and answered all letters as they came, and continued doing so, no matter what other business was in hand, until he slept. As soon as he was dressed each day people were brought before him either to state their grievances or for trial, and deputations from tribes in various parts of the country were received and listened to. He put off no work until a later date that was possible of completion, but tried to get each day’s work finished the same day.

The Amir seldom spent much time in the harem serai amongst his women, it being his custom to devote an occasional evening to them only, and his opinion of women in general was not a high one. On some occasions he spoke rather plainly of the length, and lying propensities, of a woman’s tongue, and her general inaptitude for anything of worth, and love of intrigue. Solomon eventually found little worth having in woman’s society, and no doubt familiarity breeds contempt in more cases than his.

The Amir’s amusements were few and simple. He would stop for a few weeks in turn, at each of his summer palaces in the spring and early summer, to enjoy the air of the country and the scent of the flowers, of which he was passionately fond, and would eventually reach Baghibala, which is some four miles out of the city on the road to Paghman, and was his favourite summer palace, and would stop there until winter drove him back to the warmer city palaces. The Amir always had flowers in the room where he was, and in winter and spring when there were no flowers in Kabul, he had them sent from Jelalabad and other places which are at a lower altitude than Kabul and have a warmer climate. One day when I was with the Amir, he spoke of some flowers beside him, and taking one of them smelt it, and found it had no scent. The gardener was ordered to be sent for, and he came in with pale face and knees knocking against each other, for having no knowledge of the reason why he was wanted, he no doubt feared the most, and probably he was the same as others in having done more than he would care for the Amir to know. When the Amir looked up from his reading and saw the gardener, he asked why the flowers had no smell, and the gardener, at a loss to reply, could only lick his dry lips as he sought an excuse. The Amir, however, told him of a certain manure he was always to use, and bade him beware if the flowers had no scent the following year, and then told him to return to his work.

Occasionally the Amir would drive or be carried out to the chaman (marshy plain) where duck shooting was obtainable, but during the last few years of his reign he was seldom equal to the exertion of doing so, for he suffered almost constantly from gout and its accompanying ailments. His indoor amusements were chess, of which he was so able an exponent that few in his court could compete with him, and his only other amusement was in listening to or telling stories, and joking with one and another of the officials, during the occasional free-and-easy hour following dinner, when the Amir became as one of those surrounding him, and gave himself up to jest and repartee, before again assuming the duties and dignity of the head of the State. One of the recognized members of his suite was the court jester, who was dressed, however, as others were, and not in cap and bells, whose duty it was to joke and make merry when the Amir was so inclined. The jokes and stories, and the gestures used to illustrate the stories were, however, always too broad for those who are delicately inclined. This may be the outcome of the want of women’s refining influence, for women, of course, are never present in such gatherings, and men mingle with men, and see no women except those of their own house. Jesters were also among the retinues of the princes; but, without the restraining influence of the Amir to keep them a little in check, the jokes of these men were not even fit for a barrack-room.

The attendants with the Amir, or ghulam bachaha (slave boys), as they are called, are mostly the sons of chiefs. These boys are given to the Amir for his use, and are trained in his service, and when they grow up, are given civil or military appointments. These attendants, besides waiting on the Amir, had charge of various duties, some being placed in charge of the lamps and candles, others the carpets, others books and papers, others arms, etc.; and each was held responsible for the proper conduct and safe keeping of that in his charge. Neglect of duty or other offence was punished at once, and often severely. In one case, some boys were stripped of their clothes and tied to trees in the garden, and kept there the greater part of a winter night. Another, a storekeeper, had his nose cut off for stealing some of the articles in his charge. All had to be cleanly dressed, and while in the Amir’s presence, had to keep silence, and walk or move about without noise. Their clothes were gaudy, being mostly of coloured velvets, with plenty of gold lace and fur trimmings, and their turbans or hats were of the richest description. The present Amir, who is fond of plain dress and quiet colours, has his attendants dressed in black clothes cut in the fashion of frock-suits, the frock-coats being rather long and more in the Turkish official style, while among the officials generally a similar style of dress is worn, except when a man has a position which entitles him to a uniform, which pleases him best the more gold lace it has. There were many officials, as well as slave boys, who dressed in velvets in the court of Amir Abdur Rahman, and on a durbar day they presented a gay appearance, so far as dress was concerned.

After ’97 the Amir’s feelings towards England and the English changed, and those of his court had to see that they conducted themselves as comported with his mood. Sirdar Mahomed Omar told his half-brother, Sirdar Aminoolah, one day at that time, not to go before his father in the English gaiters he was wearing, and to be careful not to wear anything English on such occasions. The Amir was greatly disappointed in the failure of Sirdar Nasrullah Khan’s mission to England in ’95, which was chiefly to obtain consent to an Afghan envoy being appointed in London. As this meant dealing over the head of the Indian Government, it was negatived by the English authorities. Also the letters he received from the Indian Government, concerning his participation in the Afridi rising on the borders, in August, ’97, were bitter to him. One, which plainly hinted at the loss of his throne, if such happenings occurred again, he read out in public durbar held for the occasion, and to which all leading men were summoned, and after reading it, he accused his people of doing that which brought upon him disgrace at the hands of his ally. About this time he sent for me, and spoke for several hours on the Afridi rising, and the trouble the border tribes had caused him, and seemed particularly bitter against the Haddah moullah, Maulavi Najmudeen Aghondzada, who was the principal instigator of the rising. He said that since he came to the throne, rebellions had been frequent, and though each revolt had been put down with a strong hand (those who know the Amir’s methods will understand what his “strong hand” meant), it had not been sufficient to prevent further risings, for his people were not only the most unruly, but the most fanatical of all people. As to his having participated in forwarding the rising, the Amir argued that the people once risen and flushed with any little success, would become beyond the control of any man, and there were old scores to be wiped off between the border tribes and the Afghans, so that any rising was a menace to himself. And in addition to this, a rising in one part of the country would undoubtedly lead to similar risings and revolt in other parts, and it was only by his firm ruling and the stringent methods adopted towards those who sought to agitate the people, that the country was kept quiet.

The Amir said that no one knew to what country the Haddah moullah belonged, for he had no known relations, and during Shere Ali’s reign the moullah had been allowed to do much as he liked with the people, and raise revolt at his pleasure. He himself, however, had made inquiries, and found out the moullah’s mode of procedure, and had arranged to capture him, but the moullah received timely information of his intention, and escaped across the frontier, where he shortly afterwards raised the Shinwari and other tribes against him, and for some months gave considerable trouble, and it was not until four thousand or so had been killed that the tribes were quieted. And this was the man whose actions he was held responsible for.

The Haddah moullah had great influence with the tribes, the Amir said, and had sent agents to the Jelalabad and Laghman districts, where they induced some three thousand men to join them, but the governor of Jelalabad got news of it and stopped them, and on asking by whose permission they were going on this jihad (religious war), they replied that they were told by the agents of the moullah the Amir had given permission. The Amir said that of their leaders he had four sheikhs and two maliks, who carried the green jihad flag, in prison in Kabul, and he knew what to do with them, but the other leaders had escaped.

It was on this occasion that two men were brought in before the Amir as refugees from India, who had returned according to the amnesty issued by the Amir a few years before to all who had been driven out of the country; but the Amir said that the men were lying, and he had ample proof that they were spies from Ayoob Khan, who wanted reports of all said and done in his durbar. He said that both Ayoob Khan and Yakoob Khan yearly spent large sums of money in trying to get information of what he was doing, and to show how little he feared their influence, the Amir said: “If they will pay their money to me I will send them weekly or monthly reports, and give them all news of what happens, and my reports will be true ones, for no one else knows what I do or intend doing, and not even my most trusted officials know of any secret matters of importance.”

The Amir’s great wish, as he often expressed it when I have been in durbar, was to make his country rich by developing all its resources and bringing it on a level with other countries, and had he been gifted with health no doubt much would have been done towards it; but he was confined to his room mostly, and had to depend on his officials for information, and they proved a poor staff to lean on.

In another letter the Amir received about this time from the Indian Government, he told me that it was written that he had been faithful for twenty years, and yet in the same letter it was also written that he was buying too much war material, and that the Parliament in England would perhaps get suspicious. He could not reconcile these two statements, and said he came to the country as ruler without arms, and was recognized and acknowledged as Amir by the English, and his first act as ruler was to help them in providing for General Roberts’ army on its march from Kabul to Kandahar by giving orders all along the route to the maliks, and others in authority, to bring in provisions for the English army at each camping place, and in no way to molest them, whereby the English were enabled to march rapidly and without trouble to Kandahar. According to his treaty with the English it was necessary for them to furnish him with the latest arms to enable him to stand as her ally between her and Russia; but, instead of having them given to him, he had bought war material himself, and was now told not to do so. When the Russians extended their railway to Khuskh, they asked him to take advantage of it by trading that way, and he sent a copy of the letter to the Indian Government, asking what answer he should give, and they replied, “Give no answer;” but he was forced to reply or it might end in trouble or war, so he replied to the Russians that they had constructed this railway without consulting him, and had they done so in time he would have asked his merchants and people their opinion and what they wished, but they had made the railway for their own convenience, and his country did not want it, as their camels and pack-horses were sufficient for their own needs. He said he sent a copy of his reply to the Indian Government, who wrote back to say he had done well. He said he did not blame the English officials for what they wrote, because they were under the orders of the Parliament, but his idea of the Parliament was that it was like the Kabul public hamam (Turkish bath), where many are speaking at once, and the reverberations of sound from the big dome overhead mingles one man’s talk with that of others, so that all sequence of speech is lost in the confusion of sounds.

The great Boer War had just commenced at that time, and the Amir said he had spent several nights in anxious thought, for it seemed possible that the Russians might take advantage of this to advance through his country on India, but when he put himself in the place of the Russians and viewed the situation from their side, and he had spent many years in exile in Russia, and knew them and their ways and policy, he found much to fear from Afghanistan, for a war with them meant a general rising of Islam, which would spread to Russian Asia, and they had not enough troops for all that this meant, for the Mussulman countries she had conquered were insecurely held, and the people hated their conquerors, and as the Afghans would prefer death to being enslaved, and their women and children taken, it would be too great an undertaking to quell these risings, and fight Afghanistan and India at the same time.

About the Boer War he said he was very much grieved to hear of the number of troops lost. He had had a large experience in fighting, and from the different pictures and plans he had seen, he thought the fighting arrangements were not good, for the Boers were entrenched and hidden, and the English advanced on them in the open, and as the bodies of men are not made of steel, it is impossible to stand against the hail of bullets which modern weapons storm out every minute. He said he could send fifty thousand troops to help the British, but Afghans are unused to ships, and would be demoralized if sent in them, but England must always remember that he was ready to fight for her on his side or in India. He once told me an anecdote of the time when he was in Russia, and the Russo-Turkish War was raging. He was asked to join the Russian army with his followers in this war, for they told him they had heard that he was a great general, and would like to test his powers. But he was in no mood to fight for the Russians, particularly as they were fighting against his co-religionists, so he replied that to fight on their side would give them no opportunity of testing his merits and bravery, for all the Russians were brave and good fighters, and he would be one among many. Therefore it was better they should let him fight on the enemy’s side, and then when he was fighting against them, his ability, or want of it, would be made apparent, and they could judge for themselves. They asked him no more, he said.

In speaking of the foregoing matters the Amir said these and other anxieties were hard for one man to bear. He had to be strong enough to fight Russia both for the sake of his country, and because of his treaty with the English, and yet he was told he was buying too much war material. He tried to keep on the best of terms with his ally, and was told he stirred up the tribes to fight against them. Then, again, he had many reforms at heart for the benefit of his country, and his own officials were unreliable, and he could not ascertain the true wishes and views of the people, so that he might alter those laws which pressed upon them, and help them to better themselves, and yet he must strive that his people live in peace, security, and prosperity.

Although Amir Abdur Rahman was an exceptionally able man, he had received little or no education and training, except in the hard school of adversity, and the history of his adventures and adversities until he was made Amir would form a stirring romance. He was undoubtedly the strongest ruler Afghanistan has known, for when he came to the throne lawlessness reigned and had reigned for all time throughout the country, and no man’s life was safe who could not protect himself, and when he died a solitary traveller might journey from one end of the country to the other in safety. He was also a man of great personal courage, as those who fought against him knew, and he was relentless in vengeance for any wrong done him.

He told me an anecdote one day of when he was at war with other members of his family and had lost all but a remnant of his followers. He had taken refuge in a village fort, and one of his followers had treacherously betrayed his whereabouts to his enemy, who came that night with a large number of soldiers, and surrounding the fort, clamoured at the gate for his surrender. He was without provisions for his men and horses, and was greatly outnumbered, so that fighting was useless, and he determined on stratagem as a means of getting out of the difficulty, for his capture, he knew, meant death. So putting on a large posteen (sheepskin coat) which covers the body down to the feet, and is usually worn at night, covering the head as well as the body, he had himself let out of a small door at the side of the fort, and with a pistol in his hand which he kept hidden under the sheepskin he mingled with the soldiers outside, who did not molest him thinking he was one of themselves. Eventually he came to where his enemy was standing, and watching his opportunity when none of the others were near he seized him from behind, and clapping the pistol to the back of his head, ordered him to make no outcry or instant death would follow, and then by roundabout ways he led his prisoner to the small door he came out from, and got him into the fort. Here, as a condition of life, he made him give orders from the wall for his followers to retire to a considerable distance, and thereafter he effected his escape and got clear away with his men.