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AT THE COURT OF THE AMÎR

The Amîr of Afghanistan,
from a painting by the Author.

AT THE
COURT of the AMÎR
A NARRATIVE

BY
JOHN ALFRED GRAY, M.B. Lond.
Late Surgeon to H.H. The Amîr of Afghanistan

HAND-MADE AFGHAN RUPEE
STAMPED “AMÎR ABDURRAHMAN.”

LONDON
RICHARD BENTLEY AND SON
Publishers in Ordinary to Her Majesty the Queen
1895
[All Rights Reserved]

THE APOLOGY.

I would not have thought of inflicting a book on my long-suffering fellow-countrymen, but for the wish expressed by my publishers: for

“Every fool describes in these bright days

His wondrous journey to some Foreign Court.”

In Afghanistan however, difficult of access, and hence comparatively unknown, there have been, since that strong man Amîr Abdurrahman ascended the Throne, such remarkable changes in the administration of the country, and such strides towards civilization, that it was thought a narrative of life there, throwing, possibly, some light on the personality of the Monarch, and on the “bent” of the people, might be of general interest.

The book has been written in the intervals of professional work, and, with its shortcomings of diction and style, the only merit it can claim—that of “local colour”—is due to the fact that it was compiled from the letters I wrote from Afghanistan to her who is now my wife.

Wadham Lodge,
Uxbridge Road,
Ealing, W.

CONTENTS.

LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS.

At the Court of the Amîr.

CHAPTER I.
On the Road to Kabul.

The start and the wherefore. Unsettled condition of Afghanistan. Departure from Peshawur. Jumrûd Fort and the Watch-tower, The Afghan guard. The Khyber defile. Eccentricities of Rosinante. Lunch at Ali Musjid. Pathan villages. Pathans, their appearance and customs. Arrival at Landi Kotal Serai. The Shenwari country. Caravan of Traders. Dakka. Dangers of the Kabul River, Mussaks. Camp at Bassawal. Chahardeh. Mountain road by the river. Distant view of Jelalabad.

It was with no small amount of pleasurable excitement that I donned the Afghan turban, and with Sir Salter (then Mr.) Pyne and two other English engineers, started from Peshawur for Kabul to enter the service of the Amîr.

I had made the acquaintance of Mr. Pyne in London, where I was holding a medical appointment. He had returned to England, after his first short visit to Kabul, with orders from the Amîr to buy machinery, procure engineering assistants, and engage the services of an English surgeon.

I gathered from his yarns that, for Europeans at the present day, life among the Afghans was likely to be a somewhat different thing from what it was a few years ago.

In the reigns of Dost Mahomed and Shere Ali it was simply an impossibility for a European to take up a permanent residence in Afghanistan; in fact, except for occasional political missions, none was allowed to enter the country.

We do, indeed, hear of one or two, travelling in disguise, who managed to gather valuable facts concerning the country and its inhabitants, but we learn from their narratives that the hardships they were forced to undergo were appalling. For ages it has been a proverb among the natives of India that he who goes to Kabul carries his life in his hand. They say, “Trust a cobra, but never an Afghan;” and there is no denying the fact that the people of Afghanistan have had the credit from time immemorial of being a turbulent nation of highway robbers and murderers. If there were any chance of plunder they spared not even their co-religionists, and, being fanatical Mahomedans, they were particularly “down” on any unfortunate traveller suspected of being a Feringhi and an infidel.

A busy professional life following upon the engrossing studies of Hospital and University, had given me neither time nor any particular inducement to read about Afghanistan, so that when I left England I knew very little about the country. However, on reaching India I found plenty of people ready enough to enlighten me.

I heard, from officers who had been on active service in Afghanistan in 1880, of the treacherous and vindictive nature of the people; of the danger when they were in Kabul of walking in the town except in a party of six or seven; of the men who, even taking this precaution, had been stabbed. I heard, too, a great deal about the assassination of the British envoy in Kabul, Sir Louis Cavagnari, in 1879; of the highway dangers of the two hundred mile ride from the British frontier to Kabul, and, remembering that we were about to trust our lives absolutely for some years to the good faith of these proverbially treacherous Afghans, it struck me we were in for an experience that was likely to be exciting.

What actually happened I will relate.

Departure from Peshawur.

We were all ready to start from Peshawur one day in March, 1889. The Amîr’s agent, a stout and genial old Afghan, named Abdul Khalik Khan, had provided us with turbans, tents, and horses; we had received permits from the Government to cross the frontier, and our baggage was being loaded on the pack-horses when a telegram arrived directing us to await further orders. We were informed that there was fighting among the Pathans in the Khyber, and we were to postpone our departure till it was over. This seemed a healthy commencement.

Three days afterwards, however, we were allowed to proceed. The first day’s march was short, simply from the cantonment across the dusty Peshawur plain to Jumrûd fort: about nine miles. The fort, originally built by the Sikhs in 1837, has been repaired and strengthened by the British, who now hold it. It is said, however, to be of no very great value: one reason being because of the possibility of its water supply being cut off at any time by the Afghan hillmen.

The servants, with the pack-horses and tents, took up their quarters in the courtyard, but we four accompanied the officer in charge up to his rooms in the watch-tower. From here we had an extensive view over the Peshawur valley. The entry to the Khyber was about three miles off to the west. We had left the cantonment early in the afternoon, and soon after our arrival it became dark. We dined, and were thinking of turning in to prepare for our long hot ride on the morrow, when we found, instead, that we should have to turn out.

The fort was not an hotel, and had no sleeping accommodation to offer us. I looked at Pyne. The baggage was down there in the courtyard, somewhere in the dark, and our bedding with it. Should we——? No! we would roll up our coats for pillows, throw our ulsters over us, and sleep on the platform outside the tower. We were proud to do it. But—the expression “bed and board” appealed to my feelings ever afterwards.

We had an early breakfast.

In the morning we found the guard of Afghan cavalry waiting for us in the travellers’ caravansary near the fort. There were about forty troopers—“the Amîr’s tag-rag,” as the British subalterns disrespectfully called them.

They were rough-looking men, dressed more or less alike, with turbans, tunics, trousers, and long boots. Each had a carbine slung over his shoulder and a sword at his side. A cloak or a rug was rolled up in front of the saddle and a couple of saddle bags strapped behind. They carried no tents. I cannot say they looked smart, but they looked useful. Of the individual men some were rather Jewish in type, good-looking fellows—these were Afghans; and one or two had high cheek-bones and small eyes—they were Hazaras. All were very sunburnt, and very few wore beards. This last fact surprised me; I had thought that Mahomedans never shaved the beard.

It is, however, not at all an uncommon thing for soldiers and officers in the Afghan army to shave all but the moustache; but I learnt that in a Kabul court of law, when it is necessary in swearing to lay the hand upon the beard, that a soldier’s oath is not taken: he has no beard to swear by.

The Khyber Pass.

The baggage was sent off under a guard of about a dozen troopers. We followed with the rest and entered the gorge of the Khyber. It is a holiday trip now-a-days to ride or drive into the Pass. You obtain a permit from the Frontier Political Officer, and are provided with a guard of two native cavalrymen, who conduct you through the Pass as far as Landi Kotal. This is allowed, however, on only two days in the week, Mondays and Thursdays—the Koffla, or merchant days. The Khyber Pathans have entered into an agreement with the Government that for the payment of a certain subsidy they will keep the Pass open on those two days: will forbear to rob travellers and merchants. Doubtless it is an act of great self-denial on their part, but they keep faith.

Riding along the Pass one sees posted at intervals, on rock or peak, the Pathan sentry keeping guard. He is a fine-looking man, as he stands silently in his robes: tall, with black beard and moustache. His head may be shaven or his long hair hang in ringlets over his shoulders. He wears a little skull cap with, may be, a blue turban wound carelessly round it: a loose vest reaching the knee is confined at the waist by the ample folds of the cummerbund, or waist shawl. In this is thrust a pistol or two and a big ugly-looking knife. The short trousers of cotton, reaching half-way down the leg, are loose and not confined at the ankle like the townsman’s “pyjamas.” On the feet he wears the Afghan shoe with curved up toe: the ornamental chapli or sandal of leather: or one neatly made of straw. Draped with classical beauty around the shoulders is the large blue cotton lûngi, or cloak. If the morning is cold the sheepskin postîn is worn, the sleeves of which reach to the elbow. If it rain the postîn is reversed, and the wool being outside shoots the wet off. The next day’s sun dries it.

The rifle he has may be an old English musket, a Martini-Henry or a native jezail, but, whatever it be, in the Pathan’s hands it is deadly.

The scenery in the Khyber is rugged and wild, the only vegetation being stunted bushes and trees at the bottom of the gorge. The rocky cliffs rise precipitously on either side, and gradually closing in, are, at a little distance from the entry, not more than three or four hundred feet apart. The road at one time leads by the stream at the bottom of the gorge, and later creeping up the mountain it winds in and out round the spurs or fissures half-way up the face of the cliff. It is a good broad road, made, and kept in excellent repair, by the British. Nevertheless, I was far from happy: my mare, accustomed to a town, was frightened by the rocks, the sharp turns, and the precipices, and desired to escape somewhere, anywhere—and there was no parapet.

Eccentricities of Rosinante.

By-and-bye, however, we descended and were in a stony valley, for the Pass varies in width from ten or twelve feet to over a hundred yards. Mr. Pyne suggested a canter. A canter! I knew the mare by this time, and I had on only a hunting bit. Off we went. Pyne had a good horse, a Kataghani that had been given him in Kabul, but we swept ahead, my bony mare and I, much to Pyne’s disgust—and mine, for I couldn’t hold her. Roads! what were roads to her? Away she went straight up the valley, and such a valley! The ground was covered with pebbles and big stones, and cut up by dry water-courses wide and narrow. The narrower gulleys she cleared at a bound, the wider she went headlong into and out of before I had time to hope anything. I soon was far ahead of the guard, only the Captain managed to keep somewhere in my wake, shouting, “Khubardar,” “Take care!” I yearned to khubardar with a great yearn, for in addition to the danger of breaking my neck was that of being shot. Sawing at the reins did not check her, and at last I flung myself back, caught the cantle of the saddle with my right hand, and jerked at the curb. I was tossed in the air at every stride, and my loaded revolver thumped my hip at each bound, but her speed diminished, and at last she gave in and stopped, panting and snorting. Then the Captain came clattering up, and I was obliged to turn the mare round and round or she would have been off again. The Captain smiled and said, “Khob asp,” “It is a good horse.”

“Bally,” I said, which means “Yes.”

We adjusted the saddle and waited till the others came up. Pyne remonstrated with me and told me I ought not to have done such a thing, it was not safe! He viewed it as a piece of eccentricity on my part.

About eight miles from Jumrûd, and where the defile is narrow and precipitous, is the Ali Musjid fort. This is built on a high, nearly isolated, rocky hill to the left or south of the road. The small Musjid, or Mosque, from which the place takes its name, stands by the stream at the bottom of the defile. It was erected, according to tradition, by the Caliph Ali. The fort, which is called the key of the Khyber, has at different times been in possession of Afghans and British. We hold it now. The last man we dislodged was General Gholam Hyder Khan, Orak zai, who was then in the service of Amîr Yakûb Khan. He is now Commander-in-Chief of the Amîr’s army in Kabul and Southern Afghanistan. He is a big stout man, about six feet three inches in height. When I saw him in Kabul he did not seem to bear any malice on account of his defeat. There is another General Gholam Hyder, a short man, who is Commander-in-Chief in Turkestan, and of whom I shall have occasion to speak hereafter.

At Ali Musjid we sat by the banks of the streamlet and hungrily munched cold chicken and bread; for Mr. Pyne had suggested at breakfast our tucking something into our holsters in case of necessity: he had been there before.

Beyond Ali Musjid the narrow defile extended some distance, and then gradually widening out we found ourselves on an elevated plateau or table-land, bounded by not very high hills. The plain was some miles in extent, and we saw Pathan villages dotted here and there, with cornfields surrounding them. The villages were fortified. They were square, surrounded by a high wall with one heavy gate, and with a tower at one or all four corners. The houses or huts were arranged inside in a row against the wall, and being flat roofed and the outer wall loopholed there was at once a “banquette” ready for use in case the village should be attacked.

The mountains and valleys of the Khyber range and of the other Indian frontier mountains are inhabited by these semi-independent Afghans called, collectively, Pathans or Pukhtana. There are many learned and careful men among the Government frontier officers who are at present investigating the origin and descent of the Pathan tribes.

Pathans; their Appearance and Customs.

The Khyberi Pathan whom I have described as the “guard” of the Pass is a fair type of the rest. The men are quarrelsome, are inveterate thieves, but are good fighters. Many of them enter the British service and make excellent soldiers. They are divided into a great number of different tribes, all speaking the same language, Pukhtu, or Pushtu, and bound by the same code of unwritten law, the Pukhtanwali. The neighbouring tribes, however, are jealous of one another and rarely intermarry. There is the vendetta, or law of retaliation, among them, and almost always an ancient feud exists between neighbouring villages. The women, unlike the Mahomedan townswomen, are not closely veiled; the head is covered by a blue or white cotton shawl, which, when a stranger approaches, is drawn across the lower part of the face. They wear a long dark-blue robe reaching midway between knee and ankle, decorated on the breast and at the hem with designs in red. The feet are generally bare, and the loose trousers are drawn tight at the ankle. Their black hair hangs in two long plaits, the points being fastened with a knot of many-coloured silks.

When one considers the nature of these mountaineers—hereditary highway robbers and fighters, crack shots, agile and active, and when one observes the unlimited possibility they have among rocks, valleys, and passes of surprising a hostile army and of escaping themselves—the advantage of a “subsidy” becomes apparent.

At the distant or west extremity of the plateau, where we saw the Pathan villages, is the Landi Kotal serai. An ordinary caravansary in Afghanistan is a loopholed enclosure with one gate, and is very like the forts or villages I have described. At Landi Kotal, in addition to the native serai, is one built by the Government. It is strongly fortified, with bastion, embrasure, and banquette, and any part of the enclosure commanded by the adjoining hills is protected by a curtain or traverse.

Hot, tired, and thirsty, we four rode into the fort, and were received by the British officer in charge. The Afghan guard took up their quarters in the native serai outside. Good as the road was it had seemed an endless journey. Winding in and out in the heat we had seemed to make but little progress, and the unaccustomed weight of the turban and the dragging of the heavy revolver added considerably to our fatigue; but the march, after all, was not more than five-and-twenty miles.

This time there was ample accommodation for us, and after an excellent dinner, the last I had in British territory for many a long month, we turned in.

The Shenwaris: Caravan of Traders.

After Landi Kotal, the Khyber narrows up. We wound in and out round the fissures and water channels in the face of the mountain, and climbed up and down as before; but presently the guard unslung their carbines and closed in round us. It was the Shenwari country we were now traversing, and these Pathans, even by the Amîr’s soldiers, are considered dangerous; for what says the proverb, “A snake, a Shenwari, and a scorpion, have never a heart to tame.” The Amîr had, however, partly subjugated them even then, and a tower of skulls stood on a hill outside Kabul.

Then we came to a series of small circular dusty valleys surrounded by rocky mountains. There was nothing green, and the heat was very great, it seemed to be focussed from the rocks. Further on we caught up with a caravan of travelling merchants with their camels and pack-horses.

These men belong almost entirely to a tribe of Afghans called Lohani. They come from the mountains about Ghazni. In the autumn they travel down to India with their merchandise and go about by rail and steamer to Bombay, Karachi, Burma, and other places for the purposes of trade. In the spring they go northward to Kabul, Herat, and Bokhara. Under the present Amîr they can travel in Afghanistan without much danger, but in the reigns of Shere Ali and Dost Mahomed they had practically to fight their way.

They go by the name of Povindia, from the Persian word Parwinda, “a bale of merchandise.” When I was in Turkestan I became acquainted with one of these men. He was a white bearded old Afghan who had been, he told me, to China, Moscow, and even to Paris. He tried to sell me a small nickel-plated Smith and Wesson revolver.

We rode by the caravan of traders and reached Dakka, on the banks of the Kabul river. This is the first station belonging to the Amîr. The Colonel commanding came out to receive us, and conducted us to a tent on the bank, where we sat and drank tea. We were much interested in watching some Afghans swimming down the river buoyed up by inflated skins—“mussaks.” Grasping the skin in their arms they steered with their legs, the force of the current carrying them rapidly along. Two men took a donkey across. They made a raft by lashing four or five skins to some small branches; and tying the donkey’s legs together, they heaved him sideways on to the raft. Clinging to the skins they pushed off, and, striking out with the legs, they were carried across in a diagonal direction. By-and-bye some men floated by on a rough raft made of logs. They were taking the wood to India for sale.

The river here, though not very deep, is dangerous, on account of the diverse currents.

In the centre, to the depth of three or four feet, the current runs rapidly down the river; deeper it either runs up the river or goes much slower than the surface water.

A few years later I was travelling past here, one hot summer, with Mr. Arthur Collins, recently geologist to the Amîr, and we determined to bathe. Mr. Collins, who was a strong swimmer, swam out into the middle: I paddled near the bank where the current was sweeping strongly up stream. Mr. Collins, out in the middle, was suddenly turned head over heels and sucked under. He could not get to the surface, and, therefore, swam under water, happily in the right direction, and he came up very exhausted near the bank.

Camp at Bassawal.

After resting, we rode on through some hot pebbly valleys, with no sign of vegetation, until we reached Bassawal, where we camped. The tents were put up, sentries posted, and the servants lit wood fires to prepare dinner. It soon became dark, for the twilight is very short. We were advised to have no light in our tent, lest the tribes near might take a shot at us; and we dined in the dark. It was the first night I had ever spent in a tent, and to me it seemed a mad thing to go to bed under such circumstances. I remember another night I spent near here some years afterwards, but that I will speak of later.

On this occasion the night passed quietly.

The next morning they woke us before daybreak. The cook had lit a fire and prepared breakfast—fried eggs, tinned tongue, and tea. As soon as we were dressed the tents were struck, and while we were breakfasting the baggage was loaded up. We had camp chairs and a little portable iron table, but its legs became bent, and our enamelled iron plates had a way of slipping off, so that we generally used a mule trunk instead. The baggage was sent off, and we sat on the ground and smoked. Starting about an hour afterwards, we rode along through fertile valleys with cornfields in them: here water for irrigation could be obtained. In March the corn was a foot high. Then we rode across a large plain covered with a coarse grass. It was not cultivated because of the impossibility of obtaining water. We camped further on in the Chahardeh valley, which was partly cultivated and partly covered with the coarse grass. The tents were put up near a clump of trees, where there was a well. Unfortunately, there was also the tomb of some man of importance, and other graves, near the well. The water we had from it tasted very musty and disagreeable. Next day we went through other cultivated valleys to the mountains again. The river here made a curve to the south, and the mountains came close up to the bank. The road, cut out of the face of the mountain, ran sometimes level with the bank, sometimes a hundred feet or more above it. It was much pleasanter than the Khyber Pass, for to the north (our right) there was the broad Kabul river, with cultivated fields on its northern bank, and though the scorching heat of the sun was reflected from the rocks there was a cool breeze blowing. I thought it was a wonderfully good road for native make, but I found, on enquiry, that it had been made by the British during the Afghan war.

After rounding a shoulder of the mountain, where the road was high above the river, we could see in the distance the Jelalabad Plain and the walled city of Jelalabad. However, it was a long way off and we had to ride some hours before we reached it.

When on a journey in Afghanistan it is not usual to trot or canter, in fact, the natives never trot. They ride at a quick shuffling walk: the horse’s near-side feet go forward together, and his off-side feet together—a camel’s walk. It is an artificial pace, but very restful.

Advantages of Cultivation.

There was a shorter route which we could have taken from Bassawal, avoiding Jelalabad altogether, but it was mostly over pebbly hills and desert plains, and was exceeding hot. From Dacca we had kept fairly close to, though not actually in sight of, the Kabul river. It makes a vast difference to one’s comfort in a tropical or semi-tropical country to travel through cultivated land where, if only at intervals, there is something green to be seen. Few things are more fatiguing than the glare of a desert and the reflected heat from pebbles and rocks; we, therefore, chose the longer but pleasanter route.

CHAPTER II.
Arrival at Kabul.

Arrival at Jelalabad. Reception by the Governor. The Palace. The Town. The Plain. Quarters in the Guest Pavilion. The friendly Khan. Tattang and the gunpowder factory. The Royal gardens at Nimla. The Suffêd Koh mountains. Arboreal distribution in Afghanistan. Gundamuk. Assassination of Cavagnari: details of the plot. The “Red bridge.” Commencement of mountainous ascent to Kabul. Jigdilik. Massacre of British in 1837. Former dangers of the valley of Katasang. Enterprising peasants. Tomb in the Sei Baba valley. Burial customs. The Lataband Pass and the Iron Cage. Distant view of Kabul. The Amîr’s projected road at Lataband. The approach to Kabul. The Lahore Gate.

We arrived at Jelalabad about the middle of the afternoon. The town is fortified; surrounded by a high wall, with bastions and loopholes; and is in a good state of repair. We entered one of the massive gates, rode through the bazaars to the Palace. The bazaars, like those of Kabul, are roughly roofed over to keep out the glare of the sun.

The Governor of Jelalabad received us in the Palace gardens: seats were placed in the shade: fans were waved by the page boys to keep off the flies; and a crowd of people stood around. Sweets were brought—chiefly sugared almonds—then tea and cigarettes, and bouquets of flowers.

We rested for a while, and as we smoked the Governor made the usual polite Oriental speeches. Then he invited us to see the interior of the Palace. It is a large white building, standing in the midst of well laid out gardens, in which are many varieties of Eastern and European fruit-trees and flowers. The Palace was semi-European in its internal decoration. It was unfinished at this time. There was a large central hall with a domed roof, and smaller rooms at the side: a separate enclosure was built for the ladies of the harem: near by were kitchens, rooms for the Afghan bath, and a Guest house or pavilion in a garden of its own.

Jelalabad.

The town of Jelalabad is between ninety and a hundred miles from the Indian frontier town Peshawur, and contains, in the summer, a population of from three to four thousand inhabitants. There is one chief bazaar or street with shops. The other streets are very narrow. Though much smaller it resembles in style the city of Kabul, which I will describe presently.

The spot was chosen by Bâber Bâdshah, the Tartar king, founder of the Mogul dynasty of Afghanistan and India. He laid out some gardens here, but the town of Jelalabad was built by his grandson, Jelaluddin Shah, also called Akbar, in 1560 A.D., just about the time when Queen Elizabeth came to the throne. The place is interesting to us from the famous defence of Sir Robert Sale during the first Afghan war, when he held the town from November, 1841, to April, 1842.

The river which runs near the town is here broad and rapid, though shallow and with low banks. All along the river for miles the plain is marshy and overgrown with reeds. In the summer when the swamp is more or less dried up, one rides through the reeds rather than keep to the glare and heat of the road. The plain of Jelalabad, nearly two thousand feet above the sea, is about twenty miles long, that is, from east to west, and four or five miles wide. Wherever it can be irrigated from the Kabul river it is delightfully fertile, but everywhere else it is hot barren desert. The climate of Jelalabad is much more tropical than that of Kabul—more resembling the climate of Central India; and in the winter the nomadic Afghans of the hills in the Kabul province pack their belongings on donkeys or bullocks, and with their whole families move down to Jelalabad, so that the winter population of the town is enormously greater than that of the summer.

Palm trees and oranges grow out in the gardens: pomegranates and grapes in great quantities; and there are many kinds of tropical as well as sub-tropical flowers. His Highness the Amîr had an idea a short time ago of establishing a tea plantation here. It is doubtful, however, whether it would be successful, for in the summer there is the dust storm and the scorching wind—the simûm.

After taking leave of the Governor we were shown into the Guest pavilion in its enclosed garden. Here arrangements had been made for us to spend the night. On the north side, where the pavilion overlooks the Kabul river, was a stone colonnade or verandah with pillars. A sentry was stationed here and also at the gate of the garden. One of the Khans had asked permission to entertain us at dinner, and with Afghan hospitality he provided also for the guard, servants, and horses. He did not dine with us but came in afterwards for a chat. I noticed that in spite of being a Mahomedan he did not refuse a cigarette and some whiskey. This gentleman we were told had considerable power in the neighbourhood of Gundamuk, and we were advised, in case it should ever be necessary to escape from Kabul, to remember his friendliness; for though Gundamuk is a long way from Kabul, one could ride there in a day.

Next day we had a gallop through the fertile part of the valley. I had changed my mare for a steadier horse and my mind was peaceful. Away to the south it was stony and bare, and in the distance we could see the snow-capped range of the Suffêd Koh or White Mountains. We did not go very many miles, but put up at the village of Tattang. Some of the villages are built entirely as forts, resembling those in the Khyber district. In others there is a similar but smaller fort, which is occupied by the Malek or some rich man with his immediate retainers; the other houses, flat topped and built of sun-dried bricks, are clumped irregularly together near the fort. But the windows, for safety and to ensure privacy, generally open into a walled garden or yard, so that even these have the appearance of being fortified. The villages are surrounded by orchards and fields.

Gunpowder Factory at Tattang.

At Tattang the Amîr has a gunpowder factory, and the superintendent showed us over it. The machinery is of wood, roughly made, and is worked by water power. The water is obtained from a stream rising in the Suffêd Koh mountains, and is led by broad channels to the water wheels. Along the channels, and indeed along most of the irrigation canals that one sees in the country, are planted poplars or willows; these protect the canal banks from injury, and possibly lessen by their shade the rapid evaporation of water that takes place in a dry hot climate. The gunpowder is not for sale, and severe penalties are inflicted on those detected selling or stealing any.

The following day we left the cultivated part of the valley and rode through a stony desert and over pebbly mountains to Nimla. Contrasted with the pleasant ride through the fields of the day before, the heat and glare were most oppressive. The Nimla valley is, however, an oasis in the desert. In it there is a very beautiful garden enclosed within a high wall. It was made by Shah Jehangir about 1610 A.D., and has been repaired by the present Amîr. One can see the garden a great way off, the deep green of its cypress trees being a striking piece of colour among the blue greys and reds of the mountainous barren landscape. There is an avenue of these trees about one hundred feet wide, and between them, from one end of the garden to the other, rushes a broad stream with three cascades artificially made and enclosed within a stone embankment. The water is brought from a stream rising in the Suffêd Koh mountains, and rushes on to join the Surkhâb, a branch of the Kabul river.

At one end of the avenue is a pavilion surrounded by flowers. Here we put up for the night. Soldiers were sent off to the nearest villages to buy provisions, and our Hindustani cook, having dug a shallow hole in the ground in which to build his wood fire, placed a couple of stones on each side to support his pots, and sent us an excellent dinner of soup, roast fowl, and custard pudding.

The Suffêd Koh, or White Mountains.

We started off early next morning. Leaving the Nimla valley we had a rough road, often no more than a dry watercourse which led up over rocky mountains and across stony plains for many miles. As we were travelling westward, on our left hand, that is to the south, could be seen the great range of mountains called the Suffêd Koh, on the other side of which is the Kurram valley, now occupied by the British. This range forms the southern boundary of the Kabul province, and extending from the Khyber mountains had been on our left the whole way. Our route, however, had been somewhat north-west, for we had kept fairly close to although not on the banks of the Kabul river, but at Jelalabad we branched off from the river south-west, and came much closer to the Suffêd Koh.

This range, unlike the other mountains we saw, is covered with great forests of trees. In the whole country the arboreal distribution is peculiar. The forests are confined entirely to the main ranges of mountains and their immediate offshoots. The more distant prolongations are bare and rocky. I remember once in travelling from Turkestan to Kabul, everyone stopped and stared, for there on a mountain a solitary tree could be seen; it looked most extraordinary. In the valleys there are poplars and willows, which have been planted by the peasants for use afterwards as roofing beams, and there are orchards of fruit-trees, but I never saw a forest, a wood, nor even a spinney. The species of tree on those mountains where they are to be found, varies, of course, according to the height you find them growing. For instance, high up, there are the cone-bearing trees, the various kinds of pine and fir. Then come the yew and the hazel, the walnut and the oak. Lower down—to 3,000 feet—are wild olives, acacias, and mimosas. On the terminal ridges you find simply shrubs and herbs.

We passed Gundamuk, where in May, 1879, the “Treaty of Peace” was signed by the reigning Amîr Yakoub and by Sir Louis Cavagnari. Four months later, in September, Cavagnari, while British Resident in Kabul, was assassinated with the connivance of the same Amîr. I heard the whole plot of the assassination when I was in Kabul.

The story was this. Cavagnari had been holding Durbars, giving judgment in cases of dispute brought to him by the natives, and had been distributing money freely, till the Sirdars, coming to Amîr Yakoub, said, “No longer is the Amîr King of Afghanistan, Cavagnari is King.” Yakoub therefore took counsel with his Sirdars as to the best course to adopt. They said, “To-morrow the Herati regiments come for their pay—send them to Cavagnari.” It was crafty advice—they knew the hot fiery nature of the Heratis. The following day, when the troops appeared, unarmed, as is the custom on these occasions, Amîr Yakoub sent word, “Go to Cavagnari—he is your King.” Off rushed the soldiers tumultuously, knowing the Englishman had been lavish with money. The Sikh sentry at the Residency Gate, seeing a great crowd rushing to the Bala Hissar, challenged them. The excited shouts of the crowd being no answer, he fired. At once their peaceable though noisy excitement changed to anger, and they retaliated with a shower of stones. The Residency guard were called out, some of the Afghans rushed back for their rifles, and soon all were furiously fighting, though no one but Yakoub and his Sirdars knew why. Messages were sent to Amîr Yakoub, and the answer he returned was, “If God will, I am making preparations.” The end was the massacre of the British Envoy and all with him.

Commencement of Ascent to Kabul.

About ten miles beyond Gundamuk was Surkh pul, or “The Red Bridge.” This is an ancient brick bridge built over the river Surkâb, which runs into the Kabul river near Jelalabad. The bridge is built high up at a wild looking gorge between precipitous red mountains, and the river comes roaring out into the valley. The water of the river is reddish, or dark-brown, from the colour of the mud in suspension; however, the Afghans said it was good water, and while we sat in the shade of a fakir’s hut there, the servants boiled some of the water and gave us tea. Then we crossed the bridge and rode on again. From here, almost to the Kabul valley, the road is through a very wild and desolate mountainous region; you gradually rise higher and higher, to nearly 8,000 feet, but just before you reach Kabul, descend some 2,000 feet, the valley of Kabul being 6,000 feet above the sea. It is, of course, a very great deal colder in this region than in Jelalabad; in fact, while the harvest is being reaped in Jelalabad, the corn at Gundamuk, only twenty-five miles further on, is but an inch or two above the ground. It would, perhaps, be more accurate to say that the ascent commences at Nimla. We rode some miles between two ranges of hills—the long narrow valley being cut across by spurs from the mountains; then climbed a very long steep ascent, with precipitous walls of rock on either side, and descended a narrow winding gorge which appeared to have been once the bed of a river. On either side of this gorge there was brushwood growing, some stunted holly trees, and what looked like twisted boxwood trees. Then we climbed the mountain, on the top of which is the Jigdilik serai. This is 6,200 feet high, and the scenery from the serai is the abomination of desolation—range after range of barren mountains. It felt bitterly cold up there, after the heat we had been through.

They found us a room over the gateway of the serai, lit a blazing wood fire, and we stayed there till the next day. In the first Afghan war in 1837, during the winter retreat of the British army, of the 5,000 soldiers and 11,000 camp followers who left Kabul, only 300 reached Jigdilik, and of these only one, Dr. Brydon, reached Jelalabad, the others were shot down by the Afghans, or died of cold and exposure.

The village of Jigdilik is not on the hill where the serai is situated, but in the valley at the foot. Here three gorges meet. One was the road by which the ill-fated army came in their retreat from Kabul through the Khurd Kabul Pass. We took another road to the north-west. We climbed up and down over steep mountains and through narrow defiles hemmed in by bare rocks. In the valleys it was rare to see anything but stones, rocks, and pebbles. There was one valley at Katasung where there was a little stream with grass growing by it. This valley, a short time ago, was very dangerous to travel through on account of the highway robberies and murders of a tribe living near. It is safer now, for the Amîr has killed some of them, imprisoned others, and dispersed the rest. We camped at Sei Baba, a narrow valley of pebbles, with a small stream trickling through it. An enterprising peasant, finding water there, had picked all the pebbles off a narrow strip of ground, piled them in a ring round his field, led the water by a trench to it, and had planted some corn. He, however, was nowhere to be seen, nor was there any house or hut there.

Irrigation Terraces.

We occasionally came across these patches among the mountains wherever there was a trickle of water to be obtained. Sometimes they were more extensive than this one, and, if made on the slope of the mountain, the ground was carefully dug and built up into terraces, so that irrigation was possible. In the middle of the Sei Baba valley was a tomb with a low wall all round it, and a solitary tree was growing by. On the tomb were placed two or three pairs of horns of the wild goat. This is done as a mark of great respect. Every passer by, too, throws a stone on a heap by the grave, and strokes his beard while he mutters a prayer. The heap of stones, or “tsalai,” is supposed to be piled only over the graves of holy men or martyrs; but they are heaped over any grave that happens to be apart from others, and by the wayside. The peasants, not knowing, assume it is the grave of a holy man. The custom is said by some to originate by imitation from an act of Mahomed, in which the form but not the spirit of the ceremony, has been retained; for Mahomed, fleeing for refuge to Mecca from Medina, threw stones at the city and cursed it. By others, these heaps of stones are supposed to be representative of the Buddhist funeral pillars, the custom having remained extant since the days when Buddhism was the dominant religion of the people inhabiting this country. The latter seems the more likely explanation.

By the side of some of these tombs a small shrine, “ziyârat,” is built. If the tomb is that of a known holy man, the passer by, in addition to adding a stone and saying his prayer, calls upon the name of the saint, and tears a small piece of rag off his garment which he hangs on the nearest bush or tree. The shred is to remind the holy man that the wearer has prayed him to intercede on his behalf with the prophet Mahomed. On the grave, too, is generally planted a pole with an open hand, cut out of zinc or tin, fixed on the top. If the deceased has fallen in battle a red rag is fixed on the pole as well. What the open hand pointing to the sky represents I never heard.

When we arrived at Sei Baba we found that a party of peasants on the tramp had halted there—one of their number died just as we arrived. Seeing that we had a cavalcade of horsemen and much baggage, and there being no village nearer than seven or eight miles, they came to us to beg a little calico for a winding sheet. It struck me that ten yards, the amount they asked for, was rather much for that purpose. Possibly they thought the living men required it quite as much as the dead man.

The Iron Cage.

Next day we had a high and stony range of mountains to climb—the Lataband Pass, nearly eight thousand feet above the sea. This part of the journey between Lataband and Chinár, with the winding rocky road curving high up round the spurs or plunging into narrow ravines, always seems to me the wildest and most weird of all. The mountains are so huge and rocky, the ravines so precipitous, and the silence so appalling. A few years ago the Pass was dangerous not only in itself—the road in one place runs on a ledge of rock overhanging a seemingly bottomless precipice—but it was infested with Afghan highway robbers. Being comparatively near the capital this was particularly exasperating to the Amîr. Finding ordinary punishments of no avail he determined to make an example of the next man apprehended. As we were riding along we could see fixed on one of the highest peaks something that looked in the distance like a flagstaff. The road winding on we drew nearer, and saw it was not a flag, it was too globular, and it did not move in the wind. When we got right under the peak we saw it was a great iron cage fixed on the top of a mast. The robber had been made an example of. There was nothing left in the cage but his bones. I never heard of there being any more highway robbery or murder near here.

From this pass you get the first view of Kabul. In the distance it seems a beautiful place, and after the long desolate march the sight of it lying in the green Kabul valley is delightful. We reached the foot of the mountains, rode some miles along a stony and barren plain till we reached a village called Butkhak, where we camped. The next day the cultivated part of the Kabul valley lay before us. First were the fields surrounding Butkhak, then we crossed a small dilapidated brick bridge over the Logar river, which runs north to join the Kabul river. We had quite lost sight of our old friend the Kabul river since we left Jelalabad: he was away somewhere to the north of us, cutting a path for himself among the mountains. The Amîr has spent several thousands of pounds—or rather lacs of rupees—in trying to make a road in the course of the river from Kabul to Jelalabad, but it was found quite impracticable among the mountains in the Lataband and Chinár district. The object, of course, was to avoid the climb over the Lataband Pass. I have never been the route through the Khurd Kabul Pass to Jigdilik, but I have heard that the road is not very good.

After crossing the Logar bridge we mounted a range of low pebbly hills, which run irregularly east across the valley, cutting it in two. From the elevated ground we could see on our left a large reed grown marsh surrounded by meadow land, which ran right up to the foot of the mountains, forming the south boundary of the valley. We were much nearer to the southern than to the northern limit. The mountains curved round in front of us and we could see the gap or gorge between the Asmai and Shere Derwaza mountains. From this the Kabul river emerged and took its course in a north-easterly direction across the valley.

The Approach to Kabul.

On the south bank of the river near the gorge and at the foot of the Shere Derwaza lay the city. Jutting out north-east from the Shere Derwaza into the valley, about a mile south of the gorge, was the spur of the Bala Hissar, and the city seemed, as it were, to be tucked into the corner between the Shere Derwaza, its Bala Hissar spur, and the Asmai mountain. On our right, about a mile and a half north of the city, was the Sherpur cantonment or fortification, backed by two low hills—the Bemaru heights.

We descended the elevated ground, from which we had a birds-eye view of the valley, and found ourselves riding along excellent roads fringed with poplar trees. The cultivated fields separated by irrigation channels lay to the left of us. On the right were the pebbly hills we had crossed lower down, continued irregularly west. On the last hill nearest the town, “Siah Sang,” was a strong fort, built by the British when Lord Roberts was in Kabul. It is called Fort Roberts.

We rode along the avenues of poplar and plane trees right up to the Bala Hissar spur. In the time of the Amîr Shere Ali, on the high ground of the spur stood the royal residence and the fort, and when Yakoub was Amîr this was the Residency where Cavagnari lived. It is now almost all in ruins or demolished. The gateway stands, and a part of the old palace. This is used as a prison for women, political prisoners, Hazaras, and others. The wall and the moat exist, and inside, some rough barracks have been built for a few troops. The native fort on the higher ground of the Bala Hissar seems to be in good repair. I have never been inside. It is used as a magazine for powder.

We passed the Bala Hissar, leaving it on our left, and the road led through a plantation of willows extending from the Bala Hissar some distance north, skirting the east suburb of the city. The willows in the plantation were arranged in rows about ten yards apart with a water trench or ditch under each row of trees, and the shaded space between was green with grass—an unusual sight in Afghanistan. The trees were planted by Amîr Shere Ali, whose idea was to camp his soldiers here in the summer without tents. The willow branches are used now to make charcoal for gunpowder.

We entered the gate of the city called the Lahore Gate. It was rather dilapidated, but looked as though it might once have been strong. There were heavy wooden doors studded with iron, and large loopholes in the upper brickwork of the gate which were guarded by brick hoods open below, a species of machicoulis gallery. Possibly the loopholes were once used for the purpose of pouring boiling water on the heads of an attacking enemy.

CHAPTER III.
The Reception.

Position of Kabul. Its defences. Amîr’s opinion of the Founders of his Capital. Entry into Kabul. Aspect of the Townsmen. Arrival at the Arm Foundry. Visit of the Afghan Official. His appearance. Absence of Amîr. To be received at the Palace by the Princes. The approach to the Palace. The Amîr’s Pavilion. Page boys. The Princes Habibullah and Nasrullah. The Reception. Internal arrangement of Pavilion. The earthquake. Abrupt ending of the Reception. Other buildings in the Palace.

The Defences of Kabul.

The city of Kabul, 5,780 feet above the sea, lies then at the foot of the bare and rocky mountains forming the west boundary of the Kabul valley, just at the triangular gorge made by the Kabul river. Through this gorge runs the high road to Turkestan and Ghuzni. An ancient brick wall, high, though somewhat ruined, with towers at intervals, leads up on each side of the gorge to the summit of the Asmai and Shere Derwaza mountains, along the latter to the Bala Hissar spur, where it joins the fort. From the Asmai a line of hills extends west to the Paghman range. Formerly the wall was taken across the gorge, bridging the Kabul river. Remains of it are to be seen on a small island in the middle. The city, therefore, was well protected on the western side—the side of danger from invasion of the Tartars: it is comparatively unprotected on the east, except by the Bala Hissar fort; for in those days little danger of invasion was apprehended from India.

The city extends a mile and a-half from east to west, and one mile from north to south. Hemmed in as it is by the mountains, there is no way of extending it, except in a northerly direction towards the Sherpur cantonment. It is here midway between the city and Sherpur on the north side of the river that the Amîr has built his palace.

His Highness speaks derisively of the founders of his capital, “Dewanas,” he calls them, “Fools to build a city of mud huts cramped into a corner among the mountains.” One of his ambitions has been to build a new Kabul in the fertile Chahardeh valley to the west of the Shere Derwaza and Asmai mountains, between them and the Paghman hills. Amîr Shere Ali had also the intention of building a new Kabul, and “Shere pur,” the “City of Shere Ali,” was begun. However, he got no further than three sides of the wall round it.

The desire to build a new Kabul is not surprising when one has seen the present city. The first thing that strikes you on entering it is the general look of dilapidation and dirtiness. Closer acquaintance shows you how inexpressibly unclean and unhealthy an ancient Oriental city can become.

We rode through the narrow badly-paved streets, and through the bazaars, which were crowded with turbanned Afghans and Hindus robed in bright colours. They moved out of the way of our rather large cavalcade, but very few showed any appearance of curiosity; and we rode on to the garden or orchard in the gorge between the Shere Derwaza and Asmai mountains, where, by the side of the Kabul river, the Amîr’s European Arm foundry has been established. This is protected on one side by the river, on the three other sides by high walls.

Arrival at the Arm Foundry.

The entrance was through a large double wooden gate, where some soldiers were on guard. Inside there were built along the walls a series of rooms where tin workers, brass workers, and others practised their handicraft. In one of the larger of these rooms Mr. Pyne and myself were located, and an adjoining one was prepared for the two English engineers, Messrs. Stewart and Myddleton, who had accompanied us.

In the centre of the ground three or four large buildings were in course of erection. These had been commenced by Mr. Pyne during his first short visit to Kabul. The walls were nearly completed. To finish them were the corrugated iron roofs which Mr. Pyne had brought out from England, and the machinery, some of which was lying around packed in cases in two hundredweight pieces: the rest arrived on strings of camels a few days or weeks after we did.

In our room we found a large table loaded with sweets, cakes, kaimaghchai, or cream and tea, and various other eatables. We set to, but were presently visited and salaamed by some score or so of Hindustani mistris, whom Mr. Pyne had engaged and sent on from India. There was a very fair carpet on the earth-beaten floor. Our beds, bedding, and chairs we had brought with us. A soldier was posted on guard at our door and another on the roof.

In the space inside the enclosure unoccupied by buildings, there grew a great many mulberry trees, and outside the walls were large beds of flowers, vines trailed over upright poles, and a fountain. This plot of ground had once been the garden of a wealthy Afghan gentleman.

On the day after our arrival in Kabul it rained hard, but on the following day we received a ceremonial visit from Jan Mahomed Khan, the treasury officer, who was accompanied by a large retinue of servants. This gentleman was of medium height and slightly built. He had a rather dark skin, but a very pleasant face, and was charming in his manner. His costume was brilliant. It consisted of a black astrakhan hat of the globular Russian shape, a purple velvet tunic embroidered with gold, a belt and sword, both highly ornamented with beaten gold, trousers and patent leather boots. The sword was not of the European shape. It was made with a slight curve, had no hand guard, and slipped almost entirely into the scabbard. Mr. Pyne was acquainted with this gentleman, having met him during his first visit to Kabul. I, therefore, was introduced. After the usual compliments and polite speeches, it was intimated to us that Prince Habibullah, the eldest son of the Amîr, would receive us at the Palace that day.

We learnt that His Highness the Amîr himself was away in Turkestan, where he had been fighting his rebellious cousin Ishak.

The Approach to the Palace.

After Jan Mahomed Khan had politely asked permission to depart, we got ready to go to the Palace. Our horses were brought to the door, and we rode, accompanied by our guard and an interpreter, to the Erg Palace. This Palace is situated outside the town, about midway between it and the Sherpur cantonment. We rode from the workshops some little distance along the Kabul river, then skirted the Government buildings which are built on the south and east sides of the Palace gardens, and arrived at the east entrance, a big arched gateway in which, however, there were no gates. Here we left our horses. Entering the gateway we walked across the gardens, the guard unceremoniously clearing out of our way the clerks, pages, and petitioners who were walking along the paths. We saw in front of us the ramparts, moat, and bridges of the Palace. The flame-shaped battlements of the walls, and the decorated gateway set in a semicircular recess flanked by bastions, had a quaint Oriental appearance.

On the wall over the gateway was a small cupola sheltering what appeared to be a telescope, but may have been a machine gun. From this tower issues at sunrise and sunset the wild native music of drums and horns, which is the invariable “Salaam i subh” and “Salaam i shām” of Oriental kings. Many a morning in after years was I woke up at daybreak by the weird monotonous howl of the horns and the distant rattle of the drums.

We crossed the bridge in front of us and entered the decorated gateway, the wooden gates of which—massive and studded with iron—were open. Inside was the guard-room, large and high, with passages leading off from it, and the soldiers of the guard were grouped idly about.

The sentry on duty with fixed bayonet was lounging in a wooden shelter near the gates. He jumped up as we entered. We walked across the guard-room, out into the open, and found ourselves in another garden. On either side of the path were grass lawns and trees. The paths were fenced off by thin iron railings. All around the gardens were buildings symmetrically arranged: two stories high on each side of the gateway, and one story elsewhere. We walked along the centre path, till we came to a long high wall, with loopholes extending across the garden, and evidently concealing other buildings; turned to the left till we came to a small heavy wooden door studded with iron, and with the posts and jambs somewhat elaborately carved. There was no porch, but fixed in front of the doorway, about six feet from it, was a high heavy wooden screen. The object of this screen I could not see, unless it were to obstruct the view when the door was opened. Near the door was a wooden bench for the use of those who were waiting. Between the door and the screen we found an officer in uniform, armed with a sabre, and several soldiers in uniform, all armed with Martini-Henry carbines and sword-bayonets. We waited a few minutes while the officer went in to report our arrival.

We were admitted, and I saw, standing in the middle of a flower garden, the Amîr’s pavilion. There were roses, wallflowers, stocks, and other sweet-smelling flowers in the garden, and the walks between the flower-beds were paved with marble. Directly opposite was the entrance to the pavilion, and it struck me at once why the heavy screen had been erected outside, opposite the gate of entry to the garden; for the door of the pavilion being open it was possible to see into the interior, and if the door into the garden were also opened it would be possible, without the screen, for a man in a distant part of the outer gardens to fire a rifle straight up to the royal couch. On either side of the steps leading up to the entrance of the pavilion reposed a marble lion. These I found had not been carved in Afghanistan, but were imported from India. The pavilion struck one as an extraordinary piece of architecture in an ornate style.

The Princes Habibullah and Nasrullah.

We went up the steps into the entry, where there were several page boys waiting. They were not dressed as Orientals, but had on astrakhan hats, velvet tunics of different colours, embroidered with gold, trousers, and English boots. The lobby led into a circular or octagonal hall, with a high domed roof, and, entering it, we found ourselves in the presence of the Prince.

His Highness was seated in an arm-chair, his brother, Sirdar Nasrullah Khan, on his left, and several officers in a semicircle on his right. The Prince Habibullah Khan is a broadly built somewhat stout man, and appeared to be about twenty years of age. He is fair for an Oriental, is shaven except for a slight moustache, has handsome features, and a very pleasant smile. Sirdar Nasrullah Khan, who seemed about seventeen, is of a different type. He is less broadly built than his elder brother, and his features are more aquiline. Neither of the Princes are tall. Habibullah Khan bears a strong resemblance to the Amîr, though he has a smaller frame and a much milder expression than his Royal Father. The Prince stammers slightly in his speech, and His Highness, the Amîr, told me this affection first appeared after an attempt had been made to poison the Prince when he was quite a child. The Princes and the officers were dressed in European military uniforms, with astrakhan hats, and though this was an Oriental court no one was seated on the ground.

Contrary to Oriental etiquette we took off the turbans which we had been wearing, for it seemed better to act according to Western ideas of courtesy than to attempt to imitate the customs of Orientals, of which we then knew very little. We bowed as we were introduced, and the Prince, without rising, shook hands with us, politely enquiring if we were well, and expressed a hope that we were not fatigued by the journey to Kabul.

Chairs were placed for us in front of the Prince, at some little distance, and to his left. Tea and cigarettes were brought. The Prince spoke to us for some time, chiefly about the machinery and workshops. He spoke in Persian, the interpreter translating.

There were four alcoves or rooms leading off from the central hall of the pavilion, each about twelve feet square: one constituted the lobby: in the opposite alcove, I learnt afterwards, the Amîr’s couch is usually placed, and one led off from each side. The four rooms leading from the central hall were not separated by doors, and over each was a corresponding room upstairs, also looking into the central hall, but protected by a wooden railing. The rooms were lighted by windows opening into the garden; and the central hall by borrowed light from the rooms. The hall, though high and domed, was not more than about eighteen feet across, and against the four short walls that intervened between the rooms, were placed respectively a piano with a gold embroidered velvet cover; a carved wood cabinet; a marble table covered with brass candlesticks and ornamental lamps of different patterns, from England and Russia; and a dark carved wood escritoire with writing materials on it.

As I sat facing the Prince with my back to the entry, I saw hanging on the walls opposite me two framed chromo-lithographs—one representing the English House of Commons and the other the House of Lords. A year or two afterwards I became much better acquainted with this pavilion, for I had to live there while I was attending His Highness during a severe illness. The Amîr told me he designed it himself; I fancy he got the idea from one of the churches in Tashkend, of which I have seen a picture. It was small, he said, but was built as an experiment; he had endeavoured to make it earthquake proof by bracing it with iron bands. It cost him a great sum of money.

The Earthquake.

The Prince lit a cigarette, and just as he began smoking we heard a most curious noise. The lamps and vases rattled violently, and I saw the Prince’s face change. Pyne turned to me and said, “An earthquake!” The rattling and shaking increased, the doors swung open, and our chairs heaved. The Prince sat a moment while the noise and shaking grew more and more severe, then suddenly he rose and walked rapidly out into the gardens. The whole court, and we with them, followed hurriedly. All thought the Palace would fall. With one exception it was the most severe earthquake I ever experienced. The shock lasted four minutes, and travelled from east to west. We returned again to the pavilion for a short time, but presently were allowed to retire, so that the reception ended somewhat abruptly.

As we were coming out I found there were two other enclosures in the fort beside that containing the Amîr’s pavilion. Next to the Amîr’s garden was the large enclosure of the Harem serai. It is not etiquette to walk past the door of this if you can get to your destination any other way. I had to enter this enclosure once, but that I will speak of later.

Next to the Harem serai was a quadrangle containing the official quarters of the Princes. Each Prince has also an establishment in the city, where are his servants, and horses, and his harem. Besides these enclosures there is the Treasury, the Amîr’s private Stores containing valuables of all kinds, silks and diamonds, carpets, and wines: a row of cook houses or kitchens: quarters for the court officials and pages; and barracks for the garrison. The fort, though seemingly strong, and no doubt useful in case of a sudden riot, is completely under the control of the fort on the summit of the Asmai mountains.

CHAPTER IV.
Afghan Hospitals.

The first attendance at an Afghan Hospital. Its arrangement. The drugs and instruments. The Patients. An Interpreter presents himself. Dispensers. Marvellous recovery of the Page boy. Its effect. Buildings near the Hospital. The Durbar Hall and Guest House. The Sherpûr Military Hospital. Lord Roberts and the Sherpûr Cantonment. Adventure with an Afghan soldier. Arrangement of the In-patient Hospital. Diet of Patients. Attendance of Hakims. Storekeepers and their ways.

The Out-patient Hospital.

The next day Mr. Pyne set to work to get the pieces of machinery removed from their cases and put together. Followed by a sergeant and a couple of soldiers of the guard he bustled about vigorously, issuing rapid orders in a mixture of English and broken Hindustani, and Persian, which compound language his workmen soon learnt to understand.

I had received no orders as to attending patients, but hearing from Pyne that there was a City Hospital I rode off with my guard to see what it was like. I found the Hospital was situated in the row of Government buildings erected outside the Erg Palace on the wide poplar-fringed road running between the city and the Sherpur cantonment, which was made by the British and called by them “The Old Mall.” These buildings skirt the gardens outside the Erg Palace on the south and east. Like most of the buildings put up under the direction of the Amîr, they are better built than most of the other houses in Kabul. Though only of one story they are very lofty, with thick walls, and have glazed windows. The buildings do not open into the street but into the gardens, access to which is obtained by the big gateway on the east side, where we left our horses when we visited the Prince, and by a similar gateway on the south.

In the storeroom of the Dispensary I found on the shelves of glazed cupboards a great many cases of old-fashioned surgical instruments, some of which were marked “Hon. East India Co.,” and on other shelves a large collection of European drugs in their bottles, jars, and parcels. The name of each drug was written in Persian as well as in English characters. These had been ordered from time to time by certain Hindustani Hospital assistants who were in the service of the Amîr, and who had had charge of the Out-patient Hospital and the European drug stores. The Hospital assistants had not used any great amount of judgment in their orders, nor had they considered expense in the least. I found great quantities of patent medicines warranted to cure every disease under the sun; and of the newer and more expensive drugs of which so much is expected and so little is known. The old tried friends of the Medical Profession, whose cost is reasonable and whose action is known, such as quinine, ipecacuanha, carbonate of ammonia, Epsom salts, were conspicuous by their absence. I enquired what plan had been adopted by the Hindustanis when they were making out their orders, and learnt that they got hold of the price list of some enterprising vendor which had found its way to Kabul through India, and ticking off any drugs or patent mixtures that seemed to promise an easy road to success in treatment, they ordered great quantities of these, regardless of cost and before they had tested them.

The stores were in charge of a Hindustani, who had obtained a medical qualification in Lahore, and who had been in the British service. He showed me a medal, and was reported to be in receipt of a small pension from the Government, though how he received it while in Kabul I never heard.

I reached the Hospital about nine o’clock in the morning, and found myself confronted by some eighty sick Afghans who had heard of the arrival of a “Feringhi doctor,” and were all eager to be cured by him. In the time when Lord Roberts occupied Kabul the regimental surgeons had done good work among the Afghans.

A guard, with fixed bayonet, stood at the door to keep off the crush; he did not use the bayonet, but he used a stick that he had with some vigour.

The First Patient.

Every patient who had a weapon, and most Afghans wear one of some kind, was disarmed before he entered the room. I had no interpreter, and had been advised by Mr. Pyne not to learn Persian; so that when the first patient was admitted I was in somewhat of a difficulty. I had seen in a Persian grammar that the word “Dard” meant pain, so that when the first man came up I said, “Dard?” putting a note of interrogation after it. The patient looked blankly at me. I thought he must be intellectually very dull, and I repeated my word, but with no better result. Not knowing quite what to say next, I examined him with the stethoscope.

He was greatly astonished, and shrank back somewhat suspiciously when I placed it against his chest. However, when he found no evil resulted, he allowed me to proceed. I could not find anything the matter with him, and was again at a standstill.

This seemed very unsatisfactory; when to my great relief, a tall young man, in a turban and a brown frock-shaped coat, stepped forward and addressed me in imperfect English. I found he was an Armenian Christian who had been educated in a Missionary boarding school in India, but he had been so long in Kabul that he had nearly forgotten English. He afterwards became my interpreter, and grew very fluent, but at first I had to learn his English before I could understand him; it was quite different from anybody else’s. However—about the patient—I said, “Ask this man if he has any pain.” And then I found that my word “Dard” ought to have been pronounced more like “Dŭrrŭd.” I tried “Dŭrrŭd” on them afterwards, but either they didn’t expect me to know Persian, or else there ought to have been some context to my word, for they looked just as blankly at me as when I said “Dard.” The ordinary Afghan is a very slow-witted person. I found the patient had no pain, and I said,

“Tell him to put out his tongue.”

The patient appeared surprised, and looked somewhat doubtfully at me. I suppose he thought I was jesting in making such a request. However, he put out his tongue: it was quite healthy. I said,

“There is nothing the matter with him;” but the Armenian said,

“Sir, a little you stop—I find out.” He said something in Persian, and the man nodded. What words the Armenian used to enable me to understand what was wrong I do not remember, but I found out eventually that the patient wanted a tonic, for all he suffered from was an inability to manage his many wives. I said, “Tell the man his complaint does not exist in my country; I have no medicines for it.”

There were, I should think, a dozen who came the first day for the same reason. Of other diseases, malarial fevers, eye cases, venereal diseases, coughs and dyspepsia were the commonest. I was not able to finish attending to all the patients in the morning, and returned in the afternoon, finding them still waiting. As the days went by, the number of patients increased to such an extent, that it finally became no small matter to attend to them all, and do my own dispensing. There were Hindustani dispensers, but I was not quite prepared to trust them, till I knew them better.

Miraculous Recovery of the Page Boy.

One day a lad, one of the Court pages, was brought: he was suffering from jaundice. I put the suitable medicine in a bottle, placed it on the table, then turned to examine another patient, mixed his medicine, and put the bottle by the side of the first one. I went on till I had about a dozen bottles ready, then I ordered them to be filled with water, and gave them out. The patients took their medicine and progressed satisfactorily: the Page boy, in particular, rapidly improved. I was naturally pleased and said so to the Armenian. I thought he looked rather strangely at me, and he said—

“Truly God works for the Sir!”

I wondered rather that he should be so impressive; but not for some months after did I know why he was so. Then he told me. It seemed that after I had mixed the Page boy’s medicine and turned away to the second patient, one of the dispensers seeing the bottle on the table ready, as he thought, for use and not quite clean, washed it out and replaced it. It was then filled with water and the boy rapidly became well. The dispenser had not dared to say what he had done, lest I should be angry. There was great wonder and awe at the hospital over that case, and my reputation as a healer of the sick spread rapidly.

“If the Feringhi,” they said, “gives a pinch of dust (jalap powder) or only water, the sick became well!”

The Durbar Hall and Guest House.

In the Palace gardens outside the moat, and about a hundred yards from the out-patient hospital, I saw a large white building with pillared verandah and corrugated iron roof. This was the “Salaam Khana” or Hall of Audience. It is a long high hall, with twelve lofty windows on each side draped with English curtains: two rows of white pillars support the ceiling, which is decorated in colours with stencilled and lacquered plates of thin brass. The floor is covered with English carpets, and when, as is frequently the case, a dinner is given by His Highness to the chief officers of his army, long tables occupy the aisles, and each guest is accommodated with a cane-seated wooden arm-chair. During a banquet or festival, the hall is lit in the evening by two big “arc” electric lamps, the dynamo of which is worked by a portable engine, which is brought from the workshop for the occasion. The building lies east and west, and is entered at the eastern extremity by a big doorway and portico. The western extremity is entered through a large vestibule with portico and steps. Here the building is carried up another story, and this part of the Salaam Khana constitutes the Amîr’s Guest house.

On the ground floor are the great hall, the vestibule or entrance hall which opens into the Palace gardens, and three smaller rooms. A stone staircase with wooden balustrades leads to the upper floor. Here there is in the centre a large pavilion, the Guest House, lighted by many large double windows, which open on to the covered balcony or terrace on the roof of the lower rooms. The Amîr and, sometimes, Prince Habibullah, are accustomed to spend a month or two in this house, living in the upper pavilion, or in one of the lower rooms.

A few days after my first appearance at the dispensary, I heard there was a military “In-patient” hospital situated in the Sherpur cantonment, which lies to the north of the town about a mile and a-half away.

I determined to visit it, and one afternoon, after finishing at the City dispensary, we started along the Old Mall which leads from the town, past the Erg Palace to the cantonment.

We passed first the Salaam Khana, and then, further on, at the extremity of the Palace gardens, I saw a small monument about twenty feet high. It was square at the base and carried upward like the spire of a church. On the square pediment was an inscription in Persian. This monument I learnt was erected by His Highness to the memory of those soldiers who fell in the last war against the British.

On the other side of the Old Mall, commencing opposite the Palace and extending as far as the monument, is a row of one storied buildings. These open not on to the road, but on the other side into vegetable gardens and fields at the back. This row of buildings which turns a corner opposite the monument and extends down a road running east to the Kabul river, the Amîr has built as a barrack for the soldiers of his body guard. About four feet from the doors of this row of buildings is a narrow stream of running water, artificially made and used, after the Afghan custom, both for ablutionary and for drinking purposes, as well as for the irrigation of the vegetable gardens.

The Sherpur Cantonment.

Proceeding on our way we approached the lofty battlemented walls surrounding the Sherpur cantonment. This oblong enclosure which lies nearly east and west a mile and a-half due north of the city, is a mile and a-half along its front, nearly three-quarters of a mile along either end, and backs upon two low hills about three hundred feet high, the Bemaru heights, at the east base of which, within the enclosure, lies the Bemaru village. The hills protect the north side: the other three sides are protected by the high walls, which are complete except for half the length of the east extremity just by the Bemaru village.

It was this cantonment, it will be remembered, that was held by the British at the time when Lord Roberts occupied Kabul during the second Afghan war.

The Afghans had planned a sudden night attack in which their whole force was to move suddenly at a given signal upon the cantonment. As Lord Roberts’ force was exceedingly small, considering the great extent of the cantonment, it was thought by the Afghans that an easy victory would result. The signal was to be the sudden lighting of a beacon on the Asmai mountain. But there are never wanting those among the Afghans who, for a sufficient bribe, will reveal anything, and the British were ready when the attack came. The rush was met by a continuous and deadly fire, and after strenuous but vain efforts to gain an entry, the Afghans retired, leaving great numbers of their comrades dead on the field.

The gate we entered was protected outside by a semicircular curtain. Built along the inner side of the wall were buildings one story high, with a massive pillared colonnade or verandah and flat roof. There were wood-faced, clay-beaten steps at intervals leading to the roof, so that it was possible for troops defending the cantonment to take their stand on the roof and fire through the loopholes.

Just inside the gate was a bazaar of small shops, where fruit, vegetables, and bread were for sale; and soldiers in every style of dress, Turkoman, Kabuli, Hazara, were grouped about. Some were seated on the ground playing cards, some smoking the chillim or hubble-bubble, others digging in little vegetable or flower-gardens. These were created with great pains around irregularly arranged huts which formed the north side of the street leading along by the colonnade. These huts and the rooms under the colonnade were used as barracks. The soldiers seemed to stare with more curiosity than the townspeople had shown, and as we rode along towards the hospital one suddenly stepped forward and seized my bridle. I thought it was a piece of insolence, and raised my riding-whip to cut him across the face, when it occurred to me that perhaps it would be as well not to risk a close acquaintance with the ready knife of an incensed Afghan. My guard seized the man and hustled him out of the way with many loud words, to which he replied vigorously. Not understanding Persian, and an interpreter not being with me, I could not enquire what it was all about, so I rode on. All the centre of the cantonment was a huge open gravelled space, and here troops were drilling. The words of command were in Afghani or Pushtu, not Persian, but the titles of the officers were moulded upon English titles: Sergeant was pronounced Surgeon; Captain, Kiftan; General, Jinral; and there was Brigadier and Brigadier-Jinral.

The hospital was in an enclosed garden within the cantonment, and was entered by low but heavy double gates. A series of rooms was built along the inner side of the walls of the garden in the usual Afghan style. There was no connection between the rooms except by a verandah, and there was no upper story. Each room was about eight feet by ten, and as none of them had windows, but were lighted simply by the door that opened on to the verandah, they were nearly dark.

In the garden were a few trees, and in the centre a square sunk tank for water: this, however, was empty. There was a cook house or kitchen, with its coppers and ovens heated by charcoal, where the cook baked the bread and prepared the diets for the patients: Pilau (rice and meat), kabob (small squares of meat skewered on a stick and grilled over charcoal), shôrbar, or broth, and shôla, which is rice boiled and moistened with broth. There were two dispensaries, one containing native drugs and one a few European drugs. There were, of course, no female nurses: each sick soldier was looked after by a comrade.

Storekeepers and their Ways.

The Hakim on his daily round wrote on a slip of paper the date and the name, diet and medicine of the patient he prescribed for. This was handed to the attendant of each patient, whose duty it was to procure the medicine from the dispensary and the food from the cook-house. I never heard of an attendant eating the food intended for a patient. One hakim, the cook and dispenser lived in the hospital. The slips of paper were taken to the mirza, or clerk, who copied the daily diets on to one paper and the medicines on another. The papers were then put away in the stores. No daily totals were taken, so that if fraud were suspected on the part of a storekeeper, dispenser, or cook, and the Amîr ordered a rendering or auditing of accounts, the matter took a year, a year and a-half, or two years before it was completed. However, as I found later, the order in Afghanistan to “render an account” is usually synonymous with “fine, imprisonment, or death.”

The next morning at the out-patient hospital when the Armenian interpreter appeared, I told him of the soldier seizing my bridle in Sherpur, and asked him to enquire what the man wanted. He seemed rather startled when I told him, and at once turned to the sergeant of the guard to enquire about it. It was nothing after all, simply the man, guessing I was the Feringhi doctor, wanted me to see a sick comrade. They apologized for him, saying he was not a Kabuli but an uncouth “hillman” who knew no better. However, an order from Prince Habibullah arrived in the afternoon that I was not to attend at Sherpur till he had communicated with His Highness the Amîr.

CHAPTER V.
Afghan Dwellings.

The Residential streets of Kabul. Their appearance and arrangement. The Police. Criminal Punishments. The Houses. Their internal arrangement. Precautions to ensure privacy. Manner of building for the rich and for the poor. Effect of rain and earthquake. The warming of houses in the winter. Afternoon teas. Bath-houses. The Afghan bath.

The same day that I attended the Hospital, I received an order to visit a man of some importance, the brother of the Prince’s Chief Secretary or Mirza. Although it was but a very short distance, I went on horseback, for I found it was not usual for any man of position to walk about the town. The patient was suffering from Paralysis agitans, or Shaking palsy, and was of course incurable. I was not allowed to depart until I had eaten some sweets and drank tea.

Residential Streets.

To reach his house we rode through the streets in which are the living houses of Kabul. I think the most striking peculiarity of these Residential streets is their narrowness, and the height and irregular arrangement of the almost windowless walls. Generally, they are simply narrow passages necessary to obtain access to one, or a group, of the living houses. Few of the streets, except the bazaars, can be called in any sense thoroughfares. They wind and twist about most irregularly, sometimes open to the sky, sometimes covered in by rooms belonging to the adjoining houses, and they usually end abruptly at the closed door of a house or garden. When one or more rooms are built over the street the builder rarely trusts to the strength of the original wall: he fixes wooden uprights on each side to support the cross beams. Dirtiness and want of ventilation are conspicuous. Drainage and street scavenging are also conspicuous by their absence. At one time it was exceedingly unsafe to traverse the streets after nightfall—I mean for the Kabulis themselves. Robbery and murder were every night occurrences. It is now, however, less dangerous. There are sentries belonging to the military police posted at intervals, each having a small oil lamp at his station. After ten o’clock at night every passer-by must give the night word or be kept by the police till the morning, when he is brought before a magistrate to give a reason for his wanderings. And the Amîr now punishes the crimes of robbery and murder most severely. For robbery and theft the hand of the criminal is amputated in a rough and ready way. It is done in this manner. The local butcher is called in. He knots a rope tightly just above the wrist of the criminal, and with a short sharp knife he severs the hand at the joint, plunging the raw stump into boiling oil. Then the criminal becomes a patient and is sent to the hospital to be cured. No flap of skin has been made to cover the end of the bone, and the skin has been scalded for two inches or more by the oil, so that months go by before the stump heals by cicatrization. A priest one day—he may have been a humane Afghan—suggested to the Amîr that operations of this and other kinds on criminals should be done by the European doctor. The Amîr negatived the suggestion with a sharp reprimand.

For murder—hanging and other forms of putting to death were found inadequate. So that now in addition to the murderer being given into the hands of the deceased’s friends for them to kill as they please, such a fine is put upon his whole family—father, brothers, uncles, and cousins—that they are all ruined. Mere life is of no great value to an Afghan, and at one time if a man found it inconvenient to kill his enemy himself, he could easily get someone who for six thousand rupees would do it for him and take the risk of being hung, so long as the money was paid to his family.

The Approach to the Kabul Dwelling-house.

Supposing you have to visit a person in the town, you are conducted on horseback along the narrow winding streets. You dismount at a door and stumble into a dark winding passage with your head bent to avoid a bang against an irregular beam, and you go slowly for fear of puddles and holes which you cannot see. You come into the open, and find yourself in a garden with flowers and trees, and a tank or pond in the middle, or in a small courtyard with simply a well. The house is built round the garden or yard, and consists of a series of rooms opening by doors into one another and with the windows all looking into the garden.

Internal Arrangement of the House.

The richer men, especially those whose houses have been built within the present reign, have large and beautiful gardens full of fruit-trees and flowers, and through them ripples a stream or channel to supply the tank with fresh water. A house so placed that a stream can be brought through the garden from some irrigation canal is of greater value than one where water can be obtained only from a well. These modern houses are better built and much more elaborate than the older ones. The windows, large and often filled with coloured glass, are made to open and shut on hinges. The floors, though rarely boarded, are of beaten earth carefully levelled. The rooms are decorated all round in the Oriental way with “takchas,” or small niches having the Saracenic arch. There is a frieze just below the ceiling, and below this is a dado, with mouldings which are arranged also around the takchas and the fireplace, if one exists. The mouldings are of a hard and fine cement with which the whole wall is faced. The best cement is brown in colour, very like Portland cement, and is found at Herat. Generally the wall is whitewashed, and sometimes before the cement is dry it is sprinkled with sparkling particles of talc. The ceiling may be boarded, but more often the beams are hidden by crimson drapery stretched tightly across. In the winter a crimson curtain is hung over the door. The windows, except in the Amîr’s palace, are rarely curtained.

The takchas or recesses are filled with vases, lamps, or candlesticks, and the floor is covered with beautiful Turkestan rugs or carpets. These, with the addition of a velvet-covered mattress, properly constitute the furniture of a room, for Orientals habitually sit cross-legged on the ground. Now-a-days, however, no rich Afghan townsman considers his room furnished without a chair or two; not that he uses them much except when a distinguished foreigner calls, but it is a sign that he knows what is correct. Sometimes you even see a small table, but this is not usual. The houses of the richer men are in the suburbs. They cover large spaces of ground and are rarely more than one story high. They are not built level with the garden, but are raised some three or four steps. The roof is flat, and a staircase leads to the top. In the summer, on account of the heat, it is usual for a tent to be erected on the top of the house, and for the owner to sleep there. There are apartments which are devoted solely to the ladies of the harem, and also kitchens and quarters for the servants and slaves. The stables are, as a rule, in another enclosure. The whole house and garden, surrounded by its high wall and entered by only one gate, is absolutely private and screened entirely from any curious eye.

Generally there is a room arranged apart from the rest with its window opening outside and not into the garden. This is often a story above the others, and has a staircase of its own. It is for the reception of male visitors who are not relatives or intimate friends of the host.

The houses of the less rich, particularly those in the heart of the town where space is limited, are two, three, or even four stories high. They are built on very much the same plan, though the garden is replaced by a small cramped yard. Many of these are very old houses, and their window sashes do not hang on hinges, but consist of three shutters one above the other, sometimes beautifully carved. If the owner can afford glass the top shutter has one small pane, the second, two, and the third, three; generally, however, there is no glass. The shutters all push up out of the way, and the window is generally wide open, for in the spring, summer, and autumn, the heat is considerable. It is only in the newest houses that you see fireplaces, and these are rarely used, not because the winter is not cold, but because wood is too expensive to burn in such an extravagant way. There is coal in the country, but it is not in use. Even if mines were worked it would be far too costly a proceeding in the absence of railways to bring the coal to town. Quite lately a little inferior coal has been brought for use in the Amîr’s workshops, but there is none for sale.

In the winter people keep themselves warm by means of a charcoal brazier or sandali, which I will describe presently. In the city, the houses being crowded so close to one another, it was to me a source of wonder how the owners could prevent themselves being overlooked. I was informed that if a man standing on the top of his house could see into his neighbour’s enclosure, even into the garden, he was compelled by law to build a wall or screen to cut off his view: a violation of the privacy of a man’s dwelling by looking over the wall is a great offence in Afghanistan.

The Building of the House.

When a house is to be built, a trench two feet deep is dug and large stones or pieces of rock, unshaped, are packed in with a mixture of clay and chopped straw. This is the foundation. The thickness of the wall depends on the class of house and the height it is to be built. Two feet is about the thickness of the wall of a house one story high. In the poorer houses the wall is built of lumps of clay or mud mixed with chopped straw: in the better houses, of sun-dried bricks six inches square, an inch thick, and laid on the flat: in the best, of similar bricks properly baked. The roof is supported on beams of unshaped poplar. The wood being of poor quality the beams are arranged close together, with a space of not more than two or three inches between each. The beams are covered with rush matting, or, in some houses, little pieces of wood, about four inches long and an inch wide, are placed from beam to beam close together. Over this or the matting is placed clay and chopped straw to the thickness of eight or nine inches. Upper floors are made in precisely the same way. As there is very little rain in the country, a house built in this manner will stand for years, but it is necessary to repair the roof every autumn. When a poor-class house is carried more than one story high, the upper stories, often projecting beyond the lower, are framed with wooden beams—poplar—and the interspaces filled in with sun-dried bricks, making a wall one brick thick. The builder never trusts to the lower wall alone to support a second or third story, but invariably fixes uprights of wood in the ground against the wall to support the first floor. This may be because the extra stories have been added on as the need for more space became urgent. In the older houses the walls are rarely perpendicular, but bulge and lean in all sorts of dreadful ways. If a house seems inclined to tumble over on one side, several extra props of wood are fixed under it. Sometimes an unusual amount of rain in the autumn will wash a house down, and not infrequently an earthquake will shake one to pieces. But considering how they are built, and what they look like, it is astonishing how long they stand.

In the better class houses, built of brick, there is not so much need of the wooden uprights, though even in these you generally see them. The walls of these better houses are some of them very thick: this is the case when they are from the commencement intended to be more than one story high. The house that I lived in in Kabul, after I returned from Turkestan, was one of the better class. It was arranged in two wings at right angles to one another, and was two stories high. It was built of brick coated with mud and chopped straw. The lower walls were about four feet thick and the upper about two feet. Nevertheless, wooden uprights supported the upper floor where I lived. Below were the stables, the kitchen, and the servants’ quarters. I noticed in the stable that one of the walls bulged alarmingly, so that I did not feel any too comfortable when an earthquake—a common phenomenon in Kabul—shook the house. The sensation produced by a slight earthquake is somewhat similar to that produced when you are standing on the platform of a small station and an express comes rushing through. There is not so much noise, but the shaking is very similar. A severe earthquake is very different. It commences mildly, and you think it will stop soon—but it does not: it becomes worse and worse, the beams creak, the windows and doors rattle, the house rocks, and you wonder what is coming next. If it is daytime you escape from the house; if it is night, and in the winter, with three feet of snow outside, you wait for further developments, hoping your house will not fall on top of you.

The Warming of the House.

The houses, being built in this way with thick non-conducting walls and roof, are wonderfully cool in spite of the intense heat of the sun in summer. They should be equally warm in the winter, but, unfortunately, the windows and doors never fit properly. There is no paint on the woodwork, for paint is far too expensive to be used in such a wholesale way, and the heat and dryness of the summer make great cracks appear. Except in the Amîr’s palaces there are no latches to the doors such as we have. The doors and windows are fastened by a chain which hooks on to a staple. The windows of a room occupy nearly the whole of the wall on the garden side of the room; and as passages are rare—one room opening into another—there are two or more doors to each room. The number and variety of draughts, therefore, can be imagined; so that with the thermometer at zero, or below, it is utterly impossible to keep a room warm with a wood fire in the fireplace—even if you have a fireplace, which is unusual.

The Afghans do not attempt to keep the room warm. They keep themselves warm, however, by means of the “sandali.” An iron pot or brazier is placed in the middle of the room and filled with glowing charcoal. Among poorer people simply a shallow hole is scraped in the earth of the floor, and in this the charcoal is put. A large wooden stool is placed over the charcoal and covered by a very large cotton-wool quilt, or rezai. The people sit on the ground round the sandali, pulling the quilt up to their chin. A big postîn over the shoulders keeps the back warm, and the turban is always kept on the head. In the winter there is not much work done, and the people sit by the sandali most of the day. Supposing you make a call, you find them, masters and servants (all men, of course), sitting round the sandali chatting together or playing cards or chess. The ladies have their own sandali in the harem—you don’t see them. Everyone rises as you enter, and room is politely made for you at the sandali. One of the servants goes off to prepare tea, making the water hot in the samovar. Another makes ready the chillim, or hubble-bubble. The tray is brought in with an embroidered teacloth over it, covering teapot, cups and saucers, and sugar-basin. The servant places the tray on the floor and kneels down by the side of it, folding up the cloth for a tea cosy. It is not etiquette for a servant to sit crossed-legged in the presence of a visitor or a superior. In the privacy of their own homes etiquette is, however, considerably remitted. He puts two or three big lumps of sugar into the cup and pours out the tea, breaking up the sugar with a spoon. He gets up and hands you the cup and saucer with both hands. To use one hand would be a rudeness. No milk or cream is drank with the tea, except in the occasional cup of “kaimagh-chai.”

You must drink two cups of this sweet tea—it is flavoured with cardamoms—and half a cup of tea without any sugar—“chai-i-talkh”—this is to correct the sweetness. If you make two or three calls in an afternoon, you feel it is as much as you can bear. In Afghanistan you may call upon a man whenever you like, but you must not leave his house without asking permission. I told them that in my country it was different: people were not allowed to call upon us without invitation, and they could go away as soon as they pleased. The Afghans seemed to think this was very discourteous, for they are nothing if not hospitable.

The Bath House.

All the larger houses have rooms for the Afghan bath; there is the bath-room proper, and a small dressing-room. It is not a hot dry-air bath like the Turkish bath, but a hot moist air, so that the heat is never so great as in the Turkish bath. The walls are cemented, and the floor either cemented or paved with an inferior marble that is plentiful near Kabul. The cement is made of equal parts of wood-ashes and lime moistened and beaten together for some days. In a recess in one wall is a cistern or tank of stone or cement, with a fireplace beneath it, which is fed from the stokehole outside the bath-room. Public bath-rooms are quite an institution in Afghanistan. They are rented by a bath-man or barber, who makes what he can out of them. Some of the bath-houses belong to the Amîr. The bath is by no means an expensive luxury: the poorer people pay about a halfpenny. Richer people who engage the services of the bath-man or barber to shampoo them, pay about eighteenpence. The plan I adopted was to engage the bath-room and the shampooer for the day. It cost but a few shillings.

Having sent word a day or two beforehand, I used to start about ten o’clock in the morning, accompanied by all my Afghan servants, bringing bath-towel, soap and comb. It is the custom in Afghanistan when the master has engaged the bath-room, for the Afghan servant to seize the opportunity of having a free bath. Hindustani servants in Kabul do not presume to accompany the Sahib on such an occasion. The outside appearance of the bath-house is not very inviting. As a rule, there is a large pool of stagnant water near by—the waste water of the bath—and you dismount in a hesitating way. When you get into the small dark unpaved entry, and slip about on the mud, the inclination is to turn round and go out again. However, having got so far, you think you may as well face it out. You find the dressing-room clean and dry, and the bath proprietor (or tenant rather) comes out to receive you. He is dressed—or undressed—ready to shampoo you, his only garment being a waist-cloth. The servants pull off your boots, and help you to get ready, and then fix a waist-cloth, which reaches the knees, very tightly round the waist, fastening it with a particular twist. The bath-man taking your hand, raises the curtain over the arched door of the bath-room, and leads you carefully in. The reason is that the floor being very smooth and wet, you are exceedingly likely, without great care, to have a dangerous fall. When you enter, the air being damp as well as hot, you feel almost suffocated.

The Process of the Bath.

A good class bath-room is generally octagonal, with a vaulted and groined roof, not much decorated, but displaying a certain amount of taste in the building. The windows are arched and glazed, and very small, so that the room is rather dark. The Afghan servants quickly follow you in, attired in the same way as yourself, and though they treat you with due respect, all seem for the time, more or less, on an equality, and as they dash the water over each other, they chat and laugh quite unrestrainedly. The process of massage, or shampooing, which the bath-men thoroughly understand, is rather a long one; and it is not at all uncommon when bathing to spend a great part of the day—four or five hours—in the bath-room. For myself, I found two hours quite as much as I wanted. A cloth is folded up for a pillow, and you lie on a warm part of the marble, or cement floor. You generally see, at first with some disgust, a few large long-legged ants, running quickly about near the walls: afterwards you become indifferent, for, as the bath-man says, they are harmless, they don’t sting. There are such swarms of insects of all kinds in the East, that you divide them roughly into those that sting and those that don’t. The latter you take no notice of, the former you treat with more respect. The shampooer, having dashed on a little warm water, begins by stretching and kneading the skin of one arm, the rubbing being done in the direction of the blood current; the knuckles of the fingers he cracks with a sudden jerk. Then he goes to the other arm. Having treated all the limbs the same way, he places his two hands on the sides of the chest, and suddenly throws his whole weight on to them, which stretches the skin, and compressing the ribs, drives out the air from the chest with a grunt and gasp. Then he kneads and rubs the muscles of the chest, shoulders, and body. After that he brings you into sitting posture, and fixing you with his knee, he seizes one shoulder and twists you round as far as you can go, and with a sudden jerk in the same direction he makes the back-bone crack. A similar twisting is done the other way round. He then takes a coarse flesh glove and proceeds to rasp your skin off. The more he can get off, the better pleased he is. They left me the first time with a “fox bite” on the chest, which lasted for days. On subsequent occasions I called attention to the fact that I was an Englishman and not a cast-iron Afghan. After the flesh glove, come two courses of “soaping”—how it smarts! hot water being dashed on at frequent intervals. The Afghan shoe leaving a part of the instep exposed, the skin becomes thick and coarse, and a piece of pumice stone is used to scrub the feet with. This, after all the rest, was too much for me, and I rebelled, excusing myself by explaining that my life was of value to the Amîr on account of the number of sick poor in the city.

The Lack of Ventilation.

Finally you stand up, and two or three bucketfuls of hot water are thrown over your head. Your servant then comes up, wraps you in a bath-towel, and you go off to the dressing-room. There are no velvet couches to lie on, so you proceed to rub down and dress: then tea is brought, you have a cigarette, and ride languidly home. The Afghan bath is an excellent institution for cleanliness in a hot climate, but it certainly is neither exhilarating nor stimulating. There is little or no arrangement made for ventilating the bath-room, and it is customary, in the bitter cold of a Kabul winter, for poor people to obtain permission to sleep there at night. It is a not uncommon occurrence for one or two to be found suffocated in the morning.

CHAPTER VI.
The Kabul Bazaars.

The unpopular Governor and his toothache. The meeting in the Erg Bazaar. Appearance of the Kabul Bazaars. The shops and their contents. Boots, shoes, and cobblers. Copper workers. The tinning of cooking pots. Impromptu tobacco pipes. Tobacco smoking by the Royal Family. Silk and cotton. “Bargaining.” “Restaurants.” Tea drinking. Confectioners. The baker’s oven. Flour mills. The butcher’s shop. Postîns and their cost. Furs. Ironmongers. Arms. “The German sword.” The Afghan tulwar. Rifles and pistols. Bows. Silver and gold-smiths. Caps and turbans. Embroidery. Grocers: tea, sugar, soap, and candles, and where they come from. Fruiterers. Tailors. “The Railway Guard.” Costume of the Kabuli townsmen. Personal effect of the Amîr on costume. Drug shops.

One day soon after I arrived in Kabul the Governor of the city—the notorious Naib Mir Sultan—of whom I shall have more to say later, sent to say he was very ill. He had been suffering for days from an agonizing toothache. I was advised not to visit the Naib because he was not in favour with the Prince. I therefore sent him some medicine and directed the Armenian interpreter to go, and if he found a decayed tooth to introduce a small pellet of cotton wool soaked in creosote. A day or two after, as I was returning from the hospital, I met the Naib in one of the bazaars. He was surrounded by a guard of the military police, whose Chief he was, and by a great crowd of servants. At that time he was execrated in Kabul. He did not, however, look very evil. He had a dark skin but not a disagreeable face. I enquired how he was, and he said the pain had entirely left him. He dismounted, and I examined the tooth in the street. It was decayed and the socket inflamed. I wanted to pull it out there and then with my fingers, but he would not let me touch it.

The Appearance of the Kabul Bazaars.

The bazaar in which I met the Naib is a modern one built by the present Amîr, the street is wider and the shops are better built than those of the other bazaars.

There are three chief bazaars or streets of shops in Kabul. Two lead from the direction of the workshop gorge eastward through the town. One running near the foot of the mountains to the Bala Hissar, and the other near the middle of the town. These two are for a considerable distance broader, better paved, and more carefully roofed than the others. In the best part the houses are two stories high. They are flat topped, and beams supporting a roof to the bazaar extend across from house to house. In other parts, where the houses are but one story, the bazaar is not roofed in. The other chief bazaar extends from a strong wooden bridge over the Kabul river, southward through the middle of the town. This too is roofed over in a part of its course, but it is neither so broad nor so carefully built as the others. There are a few smaller bazaars and many narrow streets or passages striking off in different directions from the others. They are badly paved, undrained, and exceedingly dirty. The shops are small and open, like stalls, with no front window. The floor of each is raised three or four feet above the street, and the shopkeeper sits cross-legged among his goods. At night he closes his shop with shutters, fastening the last shutter with a chain and a curious cylindrical padlock. Some parts of the bazaars are reserved for the sale or manufacture of particular articles. There is, for instance, the shoe bazaar. This is in the street leading from the wooden bridge south. The Afghan shoes are of heavy make, are sewn with strips of leather and have the pointed toe turned upwards. Some are elaborately embroidered with gold. The women’s shoes or slippers are generally green in colour, and are made with a high heel. They are almost sandals, having an upper only at the toe. They are awkward things to walk in, I have noticed, for they drop at the heel at every step. The native shoes are those most on show, but one can buy English boots of all kinds, from the elaborate patent leather of Northampton to the three-and-sixpenny army boot. There are also long Russian boots made of beautifully soft leather: these are the fashion among the highest class; and a cheaper Turkoman boot of a similar shape with a high heel that cavalry soldiers who can afford the luxury invest in. A shopkeeper is, however, none too ready to show you his best goods. He does not exhibit them in the shop, for the Government officials have a way of buying anything that takes their fancy at their own price.

I noticed in the boot bazaar that in the three-foot space under the floor of the shop the poorer men, the cobblers, did their business. There was just room to sit, and there the cobbler sat stitching, with his nose on a level with the knees of the passers by. A customer with a shoe to mend squats down beside him and gives his orders. Cobblers who can’t afford to rent even such a “shop” as this, sit by the roadside in the shade of a wall or a tree and carry on their business.

Copper Workers: Tinning of Copper Pots.

There is a copper bazaar. Though copper is found in Afghanistan, most of that used comes from India. This bazaar is in the street running east through the middle of the city. Here, there is shop after shop of men hammering out copper into the different shaped utensils: the long necked vase for the chillim, or hubble-bubble pipe: bowls and pots for cooking kettles: water vases with long neck and handle and tapering curved spout. The shapes are all those made by their fathers and forefathers; there is no new design invented. The pots used for cooking are tinned over inside and out. Supposing the tin has worn off your cooking pots, you send to the bazaar for one of these men. It is interesting to watch how he sets to work.

He brings a pair of hand-bellows with him and a stick of tin. Settling himself on the ground in the garden he digs a shallow hole six or seven inches across. This is to be his furnace. From it he leads a little trench about six inches long, which he covers over with clay, placing his finger in the trench as he moulds each piece of clay over it. Thus he has a pipe leading to his furnace. The nozzle of his bellows is fitted into the distal end of the pipe. He begs a little lighted charcoal from the cook with which to start his “furnace,” piles it over with black charcoal, blows his bellows, and soon has what fire he wants. A small boy with him having cleaned the pots with mud and sand, he places the first one, supported on three stones, over his furnace. When it is at the proper heat he rubs it round with a rag smeared with wood ashes, touches it with the stick of tin, then rubs it round again with his wood ashes, and the pot is tinned. If you are watching him he may make it extra superfine with another touch of tin and another rub with the wood ashes, and so he goes on till he has finished them all.

Supposing the pot to be tinned is a large one, the small boy, having thrown in the mud and sand, stands inside the pot, and jerking it round and round with his hands, cleans it with his bare feet. Describing the way that the “furnace” is made reminds me that I have seen men prepare an impromptu tobacco pipe the same way. The principle is exactly the same, only instead of blowing air through the pipe they suck the smoke from the tobacco which they have lit with a match. To lie on your face on the ground in order to get a smoke seems rather excessive, but if a man has tobacco, a match, and cannot get a pipe, this is one way out of the difficulty. I have also seen a soldier use his bayonet for a pipe. He filled the cylindrical part that fits on the muzzle of the rifle with tobacco, and having put a lighted match on the top, he fitted his two hands round the lower end and sucked the smoke between them. Most Afghans are inveterate smokers. The tobacco they smoke is not the American tobacco that we have. It grows in Kabul, Kandahar, Herat, and many parts of Afghanistan, but the best comes from Persia. The leaf is paler, apparently uncured and is not pressed, nor cut, but simply broken up. I have smoked it, but it is very hot in a short pipe. It smokes best in the chillim.

Tobacco Smoking by the Royal Family.

There is the cotton and silk bazaar in the street leading from the gorge to the Bala Hissar. The shops here are mostly kept by Hindus. Every Hindu in Kabul, and there is quite a colony of them, has to pay a poll tax, and is not allowed to wear a blue turban. It must be either yellow or red—generally they wear red.

Besides the rolls of silk from India and Bokhara, and the plain and printed cotton goods which come from India, there are many English undergarments to be seen: for English clothing of every kind is very fashionable among the upper classes in Kabul. There are cotton and merino vests, socks, and handkerchiefs hanging on strings across the little shops. The Hindu shopman in Kabul strikes one as oppressively civil, he “salaams” so low with the hand on the forehead. The Afghan trader does not. You can buy or not as you please. If he has a piece with a yard or two more than you want, often he will not cut it for you. You can take the lot or leave it, he is not particular. But Afghan and Hindu alike ask you a much higher price than they will afterwards take.

If you want to buy anything, you send for a shopkeeper to your house and ask his price. He tells you. You smile derisively, and offer him just a third. He is pained, he is indignant, the thing is absurd, he gave a great deal more than that himself. You say, “Good morning.” Then he says—Well, he will do what he can, for you are a friend to the poor, but it will be a dead loss to him; and he knocks a little off his price. You say, “No,” but add a little on to yours, and so it goes on for a variable time, derision and sarcasm on your side—a pained indignation on his. Finally, he takes less than half of what he asked originally, and is well paid then; but when he goes away you feel rather as if you had swindled the poor man.

Though shopkeepers in Kabul selling similar goods tend to congregate in the same bazaar, they do not do so to the same degree as in some of the towns of India. You find boot shops in other streets than the chief boot bazaar; and so with other goods for sale.

In the tea-drinking shops you see a large samovar, about three feet high, in one corner, where water is kept boiling hot by the glowing charcoal in the centre pipe. Men drop in and seat themselves, cross-legged, for a chat and a cup of tea. The shops will hold some three or four. The Afghans like their tea very hot, weak, very sweet, and flavoured with cardamoms, which are put unpowdered into the teapot. They pay a pice, that is a little less than a farthing, for a cup of tea. If a man has some tea with him, and he often has, he can always send to one of these shops for a teapot and hot water. He pays a pice for it. There is also a preparation they call “kaimagh-chai,” but this is comparatively expensive, and is drunk only at festivals or times of rejoicing. It is a mixture of tea, sugar, cream, soda, and cardamoms. It is thick, curdy, pink, and very sweet—not at all bad to taste, but very “rich.” The teapots, cups, and saucers in use are generally from Russia. Some of the richer men have them from China or Japan.

The Kabul Restaurant.

Besides the tea-drinking shops there are the eating-houses. These have no marble-topped tables or velvet-covered chairs. The shop is the same as any other shop, except that it looks rather dirtier, probably from the amount of fat or oil used in the cooking. The customer carries his lunch away with him, or stands outside to eat it. The space inside the shop is taken up by the cook and the cooking pots. They sell kabobs—little cubes of meat skewered on a long stick and grilled over charcoal. A stick of kabobs, with some bread, is uncommonly good if you are hungry; you tear the meat off the stick with your fingers. They have also meat, finely minced and mixed with fat, which they squeeze in their hand round a thin stick and cook over charcoal. It looks rather like sausage, I don’t know what it is called. They use any kind of meat for this—mutton—or, failing that, the flesh of the camel or horse that age or infirmity has rendered unfit for further service. There are many kinds of pilau too. Rice, boiled skilfully till every grain is soft without being soppy, is piled over the meat, stewed to such tenderness that you can easily tear a piece off with the fingers. There are chicken pilau, mutton pilau, sweet pilau with raisins in it, and so on. Kourma is another dish—meat stewed in small pieces and eaten with stewed fruit.

For his pudding the Afghan goes to another shop, the confectioner’s. Here there are sweets of many kinds: sugared almonds, “cocoa-nut ice,” sweets made in the shape of rings, sticks, animals, or men; gingerbread, soft puddings made of Indian corn, much sweetened. In the summer different kinds of iced sherbet, lemon, orange, or rose are sold in the street.

In the bread shop, the baker squatting on the floor kneads out the dough into large flat cakes and claps it in his oven. The oven is a large clay jar about three feet across and three feet deep, with the neck a foot in diameter. This is buried beneath the shop, the mouth being level with the floor, and is packed round with earth. It is heated by making a fire inside. When the heat is sufficient, and the fire has burnt out, the baker puts his hand in the mouth and flaps the flat doughy cake against the wall of the oven, where it sticks. When baked, it generally brings away some grains of charcoal or grit with it. You pay two pice (a little less than a halfpenny) for a cake of bread a foot and a-half long, a foot wide, and an inch thick.

Flour is ground in a water mill. A hut is built by the side of some stream which has a sufficient fall. The water pours down a slanting trough over the water wheel, and turns two circular flat stones which are arranged horizontally in the hut. The miller, squatting down, throws the grain into an aperture in the upper wheel and scoops up the flour as it is ground away from between the stones on to the floor. The bread made from the flour varies very much in grittiness, some is hardly at all gritty. The Afghans are very particular about eating their bread hot, they don’t care to eat it cold unless they are on a journey. One of their proverbs is, “Hot bread and cold water are the bounteous gifts of God,” “Nan i gurrum wa ab i khunuk Niamati Illahist.”

The Butcher’s Shop.

Butchers’ shops are not very common; meat is an expensive luxury. Mutton is the usual meat eaten. By very poor people other meats are sometimes eaten, especially in the form of mince. In the latter case it is impossible to say what the meat is, so the impecunious Afghan assumes it to be mutton. If there is any meat in the mince that is unclean—on the shopkeeper’s head be it for selling anything “nujis” to a True Believer.

There is very little meat to be seen hanging in the shops, for the climate being a hot one and flies numerous, the meat will not keep more than a few hours. What the joints are it is impossible to say, for they cut the sheep up quite differently from an English butcher. At one time I used to try and puzzle out when the joint came to the table what it was: I gave up the attempt afterwards as futile. The mutton is excellent in quality and very cheap. I wished to give a dinner one day to a dozen Afghans—the Amîr’s palanquin bearers. I bought a sheep for 4s. 6d., some rice, butter, bread, and firewood, and the whole cost less than 6s.

Kabul is famous all over Central Asia for the manufacture of the postîn or sheepskin pelisse. While riding along the bazaar running from the wooden bridge south, I used to wonder at one place what the faint disagreeable smell was due to. I found on enquiry that there was a manufactory of postîns there. I have not seen the whole process of tanning. The skin of the sheep or lamb with the wool on it is cleaned and scraped, then soaked in the river and pegged out in the sun to dry; afterwards it is tanned yellow with pomegranate rind. The leather is beautifully soft, and it is usually embroidered artistically with yellow silk. The wool is, of course, worn inside. The better ones are trimmed at the collar and cuffs with astrakhan. There are several different kinds of sheepskin postîns. The long one reaching from shoulder to ankle, with ample folds that you wrap yourself up in on a winter night: there is nothing more cosy and warm to sleep in. The sleeves are very long and are more for ornament than use. These are but little embroidered, they cost from fifteen to thirty rupees. There is a short one with sleeves, which is elaborately embroidered. This is worn in the winter by the soldiers—cavalrymen, for instance, if they can afford the necessary ten or fifteen rupees. Similar but cheaper ones with less beautiful wool and no embroidery, can be bought for four or five rupees. There is the waistcoat postîn of lamb’s wool, which is made without sleeves, this costs two rupees six annas Kabuli, or half-a-crown English. These waistcoat postîns and the long sleeping postîns are used by all classes, rich and poor. The others are used only by the poorer classes, the peasants and the soldiers. A gentleman or a man of position would no more think of putting one on, were it ever so beautiful and elaborate in its embroidery, than would a resident of the west of London think of appearing in the “pearlies” and velvet embroidered coat of the coster. The rich men wear, in the winter, coats of cashmere, velvet or cloth, lined with beautiful furs from Bokhara and other parts of Asiatic Russia.

Furs: Their Cost.

The most valuable fur that is imported I have not seen, only the Amîr wears it, and he rarely; from the description they gave me I conclude it is sable. The next most valuable is the “Khuz,” a species of Marten. There are two kinds, the Khuz i Zulmati, which is dark, and the Khuz i Mahtabi, which is much lighter and of an inferior quality. These can be bought sewn together in the sheet, either with or without the tails of the animals attached. There were twenty-four skins in the sheet I bought. The shopman asked £10 for it, but he let me have it the next day for £6.

Then there is the “Altai,” a beautiful fur taken from the inner side of the leg of the red fox. A sheet consists of many pieces, each with a deep black centre surrounded by a dark red margin. I bought one in Turkestan for £6, which I was told was cheap. Squirrel fur made into the sheet, with or without tails, either grey or grey and white, is very popular. It is called “Sinjab,” and is less expensive than the others. There are several other cheaper furs—a white one they call cat skin—though of what cat I do not know, the fur of it soon rubs off; and a short brown fur, the name of which I never heard. Astrakhan, of which the Amîr has the monopoly, is exported largely to Russia and in small quantities to India. It is used chiefly to cover the round or straight-sided Russian hats that Afghan Colonels and Captains wear. It is difficult to get hold of any in the Kabul bazaars.

In the ironmongers’ shops are nails, hammers, locks, knives, and horse-shoes. The last are made broad, flat, and rather thin, in the Russian style. I was told that this pattern is considered to protect the frog of the horse’s foot from the numerous stones and pebbles he has to go over on a journey. Shoes in the English pattern are more expensive. I heard that the Amîr had imposed a small tax on the sale of them.

Weapons: Their Nature.

In the “arms” shops are swords, guns, and pistols of various kinds. There is the curved “shamshir,” or scimitar, with a cross hilt. Most of these come, Mr. Pyne told me, from Birmingham, some, I suppose, from Germany. They can be tied in a knot if necessary. The Armenian interpreter one day brought me a sword to examine; he was thinking of buying it for eight rupees. It looked like an English sword, and was brightly burnished. I put the point on the ground and bent the sword to try its spring. It seemed easy to bend. I raised it up and it remained in the position to which I had bent it.

“Wah!” said the Armenian, “and he is English sword!”

“Oh, no,” I said, “German.”

Then I had to explain where Germany was. But I don’t know, it may have been English; I hope not. I advised him not to buy it for eight rupees. He said, “I not have him at one pice.”

There is the straight-pointed Afghan sword, the blade of which broadens to three inches at the handle. The back from point to handle is straight and thick. There is no handguard. The best of these are made in Khost, a frontier district south of the Kurram valley. The blades are often beautifully damascened, and the handles of ivory or horn are carved and inlaid with gold or silver or studded with jewels. They are very sharp, the steel is of good quality, and they are rather expensive. For one of good quality without a scabbard, and which was not elaborately ornamented, I gave sixty rupees. I had a scabbard made in Kabul. The scabbard is made of two long pieces of wood thinned and hollowed out to receive the sword; these are fastened together and covered with leather. Formerly they were covered with snake skin. Mine was covered with patent leather and mounted with silver. I weighed out rupees to the silversmith, and when the mounts were finished he weighed them out to me before they were attached to the scabbard. The scabbard is made longer than is usual in England, for it takes the handle all but about an inch, as well as the blade of the sword. In these shops are also rifles for sale—the native jezail with a curved stock ornamented with ivory, and with a very long barrel fastened on with many bands. The Afghan hillmen and the Hazaras make these, and they are good shots with them. They make their own powder also. There are old-fashioned English rifles, flint locks and hammer locks: some very heavy, with a two-pronged support hinged on to the barrel, presumably to rest on the ground and steady the rifle when taking aim; native pistols and old English pistols of various kinds; old shirts of chain mail and small shields with bosses on. These are not used now except for ornament. Lance or spear heads, old Indian and English helmets, firemen’s helmets; powder flasks made of metal or dried skin; and heavy tough very strong wooden bows, with a straight handpiece in the middle of the bow: these were used in the time of Dost Mahomed. I never saw any arrows, and the bows were sold merely as curiosities. Boys and lads, now-a-days, use a bow with two strings which are kept apart by a two-inch prop. They use it to kill birds, shooting small stones from a strip of leather attached to the two strings.

The silver and goldsmiths make native ornaments similar to those one sees in India: broad, thin perforated bracelets; studs for the nostril, that the hillwomen wear—this custom, however, is not so common as among the Hindus; necklaces of coins and discs, amulet boxes, belt buckles, and so on. Nothing original or peculiar to Afghanistan seems to be made.

Turbans and Caps.

In the cap shops there are rows of small conical caps, hanging on pegs and on bars across the top of the shop. The Afghan turban is wound round the cap which is jammed on the back of the head. If put more forwards the weight of the turban causes a painful pressure on the forehead.

There are several different kinds of caps. The Kabul cap is thickly quilted with cotton-wool. Inside, at the top, a little roll of paper enclosed in silk is sewn. This is supposed to have a sentence from the Koran written on it to protect the wearer from harm. I opened a roll one day to see what was written, but found the paper blank. The best caps are embroidered all over with gold thread from Benares. Some are but little embroidered, have simply a star at the top, and others not at all. Some are made of velvet, and some of cloth. Those from Turkestan are not quilted. They are not so heavy as the Kabul caps, are of very bright colours, and are worn indoors or at night. The caps are of all prices, from three or four pice to fifteen rupees. The lungis, or turbans, are also of many different kinds: the commonest being cotton dyed blue with indigo—these are of native make: or of white cotton or muslin from India. A better kind are of blue or grey cotton, embroidered at the ends with gold thread, in wider or narrower bars, according to the price. These come from Peshawur, and they look very handsome on a tall dark-skinned Afghan. Others are from Cashmere, most beautifully embroidered, and are fawn-coloured, turquoise-blue, black, green, or white. The ordinary length of a lungi is nine yards; the cashmere, being thicker, are not so long. The only white cashmere lungi I ever saw was the Amîr’s. He gave it me one day; but that is a story I will relate further on.

In the cap shops are also Kabul silk handkerchiefs for sale. They are of beautiful colours—purple, crimson, and green. I do not know what dyes are used, but they are not fast, they wash out; and the silk is of poor quality, not to be compared with English or French silk. In these shops, too, are gold brocades of various kinds, mostly from Delhi or Agra. Some, however, are made in Kabul, the design being copied from English or European embroidery that has been imported. Many of the workers imitate European embroidery with wonderful exactness, though they do not seem to be able to originate any new designs. If one bolder than the rest attempts to do so, the design is greatly wanting in beauty of outline. The brocades are used for tea-cloths, and by the Amîr and richer men for table-covers. The skill of these men is also called into use to decorate the dresses of ladies, and the tunics of pages and gentlemen.

In the grocer’s shop the most prominent things to be seen are the big loaves of white sugar from India and Austria. The native sugar is made in small conical loaves—about a pound each. It is very sweet, but not so white as European sugar. The loaves of native sugar are always wrapped round with coloured paper—pink, red, or blue—so that the shop looks quite smart. The tea for sale is chiefly green tea from Bombay. It is brought by koffla—camel and donkey caravan, from Peshawur through the Khyber Pass, by the travelling merchants or carriers. Many of the rich men of Kabul own trains of camels, which they hire out for carrying purposes. There is black tea also, but in small quantities and expensive. It is said to be brought from China through Asiatic Russia and Turkestan. The Afghans always call black tea “chai-i-famîl.”

Lamps, Candles, and Soap.

The candles are of two kinds, tallow and composite. The tallow are of native manufacture—dips—with cotton wick. They are not used very much, as they gutter and melt away very quickly. There is a much better tallow candle made in Afghan Turkestan, thicker than the Kabul candle, which burns exceedingly well. The composite candles are much more popular, and are not very expensive. They come from Bombay or Peshawur, and are used largely by the Amîr and the richer men. The poorer people use an oil lamp, very much the shape of the old Roman lamp. It is of clay or terra-cotta, saucer-shaped, with or without a handle, and with a spout. The cotton wick floats in the oil, and extends a quarter of an inch beyond the spout, where it is lighted. The oil they use is, I believe, almond oil: it is called “Têl-i-kûnjit.” It has a smoky flame, and gives a poor light. Some lamps on the same principle are larger, elaborately made of brass, and hang by chains from the ceiling; they have four or five wicks. Others, also with three or four wicks, are made of tinned iron; they stand on the ground supported on an upright about a foot high. Paraffin oil from Bombay can also be bought, and some of the richer men occasionally use cheap paraffin lamps “made in Germany.”

Soap is both native and imported. The native is in saucer-shaped lumps. It is not used for washing the hands and face—an Afghan rarely uses soap for this purpose; but for washing clothes or harness. It is rather alkaline and caustic. A soap “plant,” with its tanks, has been erected in the workshops, and doubtless when the working of it is better understood the soap will be of usable quality. At present it does not sell. Other soap in the form of tablets is imported from India, Russia, and Austria. By what route it comes from Austria I do not know, unless, like so many cheap German goods, it comes through India. Russian soap is the cheapest and worst, it crumbles up in your hands the second time you use it. Next is the Austrian, which is not at all bad; the best and most expensive is the English. The native salt—powdered rock salt, pinkish in colour—is not very good. You have to use so much before you can taste it. I don’t think any salt is imported. Spices of most kinds can be bought—pepper, nutmeg, cloves, and so on; but these are bought at drug shops.

Fruit shops are in great numbers, for fruit and vegetables form important items in the diet of the poorer people: in the summer fresh fruit and vegetables, and in the winter dried fruits, particularly the mulberry, are largely used. The fruit shops are, as a rule, arranged very tastefully. Grapes of different kinds are in great quantities and exceedingly cheap—a donkey load for a rupee. Melons and water melons, apples, quinces, pomegranates, pears, and various kinds of plums, nectarines, peaches, and apricots. Dried fruits, almonds, roasted peas, pistachio nuts, dried mulberries, apricots, and raisins, are sold by the grocers. Fresh fruit, as soon as it is ripe, and even before, is eaten in large quantities, far more than is good for the health of the people.

The Englishmen in Kabul had to be exceedingly careful in eating fruit. Unless taken in very small quantities it produced, or predisposed to, troublesome bowel affections. The natives, though, as a rule, not so susceptible as the English, were affected in the same way, sometimes dangerously, occasionally fatally.

Tailors. “The Railway Guard” Costume.

In a tailor’s shop you see one man sitting on the ground hard at work with a sewing-machine, another cutting out or stitching. There are no ready made clothes in a tailor’s shop, these are to be bought elsewhere. A rich man has, as a rule, a tailor attached to his establishment. Those less rich having procured their material send for a tailor from the bazaar. He cuts out the material in front of the employer and takes away the garment to his shop to make up. This is a check upon the tailor, so that there can be no purloining of material. Ready-made clothes, new or secondhand, are for sale in many shops. English coats of all kinds sell readily, especially old military uniforms. One day a man walked into the hospital evidently thinking himself rather smart. For the moment I was startled: I thought he was an Englishman. He was dressed in the complete costume of a railway guard.

The costume of the hillmen and peasants is the same as that worn by the Khyberi Pathans, which I have described. An Afghan in typical native town costume—say a mirza, or clerk—is dressed somewhat more carefully than the Pathan. He wears the loose oriental trousers, or pyjamas, gathered in at the waist and hanging in multitudinous folds draping from the hip to the inner side of the knee and ankle, the band at the ankle fitting somewhat closely. The native shoes with turned up pointed toes are worn without socks, that is, unless the wearer is wealthy. The embroidered camise, or shirt, falls over the pyjamas nearly to the knee. A waistcoat with sleeves is worn reaching a little below the waist and slit at the hip. Finally, a loose robe or coat worn unfastened and with long sleeves, reaches midway between the knee and ankle. The waistcoat is of velvet or cloth, quilted and generally embroidered with gold. The coat is of thinner material, and, as a rule, of native cloth. The townsmen, however, generally, though not always, modify the native costume with European innovations. As a rule the higher they rise in the social scale the more Europeanized they become—in costume if in little else. The Afghans, though invariably spoken of as religious fanatics, are far less “conservative” than the Mahomedans of India. You never see one of the latter with an English hat on: a very great many refuse to adopt even European boots. In Afghanistan the readiness to become Europeanized, at any rate in appearance, probably depends upon the personal influence of the Amîr. After European weapons and knives—these are readily adopted by all who can afford them—the first thing taken is the belt with a buckle, instead of the cummerbund or waistshawl. It is, however, open to question whether this innovation is an improvement, for in a climate with such great variations of temperature as that of Afghanistan the cummerbund is an excellent protection to the abdominal organs. Socks are readily adopted even by the conservative. Then come European coats, which are worn by a great many of the townsmen. After the coats, European boots. Trousers are worn, as a rule, only by the upper classes, including the court pages and by some of the soldiers. They are made somewhat loosely and are worn over the pyjamas. When a gentleman or Khan arrives at home after the business of the day is finished, he throws off his European garb and appears in native costume. First, the belt and tunic are removed, and he dons the loose robe. Then his boots and trousers, and he can curl his legs up under him once more in the comfortable Oriental way, as he sits on his carpet or cushions on the floor. To sit on a chair for any length of time tires an Oriental very much more than a European can realize.

Finally, English felt hats, or solar helmets, are worn by the more liberal minded, or those who are more ready to imitate the Amîr. Russian astrakhan hats, semiglobular shape, and those wider at the top, have been worn for many years by gentlemen and officers in the army. This was not such a striking innovation, for the somewhat similar Turkoman hat of astrakhan has been familiar to the Afghan for ages.

Drugs.

In the drug shops are native drugs for sale. Some few English drugs can be bought: quinine, of which the Afghans are beginning to realize the value; and chloral hydrate, of which some are beginning to learn the fascination. The native drugs are such as manna, camphor, castor oil, and purgative seeds of various kinds.

CHAPTER VII.
Ethics.

Sir S. Pyne’s adventure in the Kabul river. The Tower on the bank. Minars of Alexander. Mahomedan Mosques. The cry of the Priest. Prayers and Religious Processions. Afghan conception of God. Religious and non-Religious Afghans. The schoolhouse and the lessons. Priests. Sêyids: descendants of the Prophet. The lunatic Sêyid. The Hafiz who was fined. The Dipsomaniac. The Valet who was an assassin. A strangler as a Valet. The Chief of the Police and his ways. Danger of prescribing for a prisoner. “The Thing that walks at night.” The end of the Naib. Death-bed services. Graves and graveyards. Tombs. The Governor of Bamian. Courtship and weddings among the Afghans. The formal proposal by a Superior Officer. The wedding of Prince Habibullah. Priests as healers of the sick. The “faith cure.” Charms. The “Evil Eye.” Dreadful fate of the boy who was impudent. Ghosts.