Thursday, 22nd April.
so I have one room to sleep, sit, and write in, and a room where we dine and breakfast, and which is, of course, public property. I have, as a special indulgence, a bath-room all to myself, but no one else has one. The room when I came into it was horrid; the floor was six inches deep in dust; there were no doors or windows, and altogether it was most unpromising. I have, however, had a floor made for it, the passage and dining-room, of a wonderful kind of stuff like Plaster of Paris which abounds here, and which hardens in the most wonderful way. I have had windows put in, and hope to have a door soon; and having bought a few pieces of a rough native carpeting in the city, and a couple of tables and chairs, my room begins to look very fair indeed. The mud walls are appropriately covered with yards of maps, which look very business-like, and in the small recesses I have had a few wooden shelves put up which quite do to hold my very scanty wardrobe. I find my room very hot and close at night, so I have pitched my little tent outside my door and sleep in it, watched over by a sentry whose sole duty is to guard his sleeping General, who can, therefore, slumber in the most perfect security. It would be rather monotonous to live with my Brigade Major and orderly officer only, as I am afraid we should get very tired of each other during the hot weather, so I am trying to get up a sort of mess between General Burrows and me, taking in our staff, and a couple of outsiders who have no special place to go to—viz., our Chaplain, Mr. Cane, and the Judge Advocate, Colonel Beville. The latter has agreed to manage the affair, so I have nothing to do with housekeeping, which is a blessing, and as Colonel Beville quite understands management and likes good things, I hope the affair will be a success, and that General Burrows will agree to join. The parson begged me to take him in, and I did not like to refuse, though I cannot say I care much about him (though perhaps he will improve on acquaintance), as he has the reputation of being rather inclined to quarrel and be difficult to manage. We will hope he is maligned and will prove not to have so unclerical a failing. A mess on service is a very rough affair, as we have no plate, crockery or linen, and live what is called camp fashion, that is, all the mess provides is tables and food, and each person's servant brings his plates, knives, forks, and spoons, and chairs, and when dinner or breakfast is over removes them. We shall, I daresay, in time get a few luxuries such as chairs, dishes, and perhaps a few table-cloths (I have 2 of my own for great occasions), and we have already made our dining-room look fairly comfortable (I am writing on 4th May), by putting down some carpets, and I have no doubt between Colonel Beville and me that we will get rid of as much unnecessary |Annoyances from flies and sand-flies.| roughness as we can. The great drawback of the whole place is the flies, which are most exasperating and pertinaceous. I am preparing a complete set of fortifications against them for my own room, by having net (which I have been fortunate to get in the city), such as musquito curtains are made of, nailed over the windows, and a door covered with net for the one entrance, so that I hope in time to be fairly free from them. They retire for the night, I am glad to say, about 7 o'clock, but as soon as they leave the sand-flies begin, and I think they are almost as bad, as they buzz and bite just like musquitos. They are a kind of very small gnat, and their bite is most irritating to some people, but they don't hurt me. The regiments are necessarily scattered over a large extent of ground, and the work is consequently very heavy on the men, as we have to post sentries very closely together to prevent the Afghans coming within our lines. The great proportion of the force is outside the city where I am living, but we hold the citadel, which is inside the city, where also we keep our arsenal and commissariat stores. A native infantry regiment and a detachment of a British infantry regiment hold the citadel, and the quarters occupied by both the officers and men there are much preferable to ours in the cantonments, as they are all regular native houses, many of which have gardens, and all some trees near and about them, and in this desert land a bit of green or a little shade have a value which no one who has not seen the country can understand. There is nothing striking about the actual city of Kandahar to anyone who has visited or seen an ordinary Indian town of the 5th or 6th rank. There are the usual bazaars with the occupants of the shops at work at their various trades in the front of their shops, and in many shops coarse English earthenware and cheap Birmingham and Manchester goods are exposed for sale, as is the case in even small villages in India. Raisins of all sorts and description, from the little sultanas up to dark purple ones, are sold in quantities, and seem to be a regular portion of the food of the poorest people. So far I have seen nothing curious or unusual which I would be tempted to buy, but then we cannot here wander about and go into the shops and ransack them for curiosities, as the people have a nasty trick of watching till a person is busy looking at things in a shop, and then coming up quietly and stabbing one in the back. It is consequently necessary, when we go shopping, to go in parties of 2 or 3, or take an escort, so as to always have some one on the watch against treachery, and as long as one takes this precaution they are too cowardly to attack in the open. The people in the streets are very picturesque, and most of them fine handsome men. No women are ever seen except very old ones, and even they generally wear the Turkish yashmak or veil which covers |Kandaharis—the Charsoo.| them from head to foot. In the centre of the city the 4 main streets meet under a curious large-domed building, around which are shops, and which is always crowded with a very mixed gathering of villains of all sorts. This place is called the Charsoo (or four waters), and it was in it that Lieutenant Willis, of the artillery, was murdered in broad day light by a Ghazi (N.B.—Next week I will explain who and what Ghazis are), who, however, was himself immediately killed. Any native attempting the life of any officer or soldier is now always hung in the Charsoo, which has had a very good effect.