Through India and Burmah with pen and brush

by A. Hugh Fisher

I turned right from the Hastings Memorial and presently reached a building called the Gor Khatri which stands on a piece of rising ground, and here I found Mr Agha Khan—not the celebrated head of the Aligar College, but a junior Tehsildar who had been deputed to show me Peshawar.

We went first up to the roof of the building from which there is a fine view over both country and city. Mr Agha Khan was a short Mohammedan with a black beard, many clothes, and a large stick. He pointed out to me a small Hindoo temple about forty yards away called the Gorak Nat, the name of a Hindoo saint who lived there many years ago and gave the name Gor Khatri. This building was originally a guest-house built by Nour Jehan, Jehangir's queen, and is sometimes called still the Sarai of Nour Jehan Begum. Its greatest title to fame, however, lies in its having been occupied for many years and largely added to by the Italian General Paolo Crescenzo Martino Avitabile, one of the most romantic characters in history and, under Runjeet Singh, Governor of Peshawar, which he was the first man to keep really in order.

Walking on the flat roof with Agha Khan I looked over all the city. In the distance to the right rose Mount Tartara from the line of hills that surround Peshawar on three sides like a horseshoe. Cutting through the flat-roofed town, and coming straight to our feet, was the long sharp shadow of the Bara Bazaar. To the left I could see the red-brick Mission Hospital; the large cupola of the mosque of Dilawar Khan, a Kardar in the time of Chaghatta; and still farther to the left, a tower called the Burj of Said Khan; while far away beyond Peshawar, a dip in the nearer hills, marked the position of Jamroud guarding the entrance to the Khyber Pass. Behind us, across the compound of space belonging to the Gor Khatri, was another of its buildings used at times of Mohammedan festival and as quarters for any representative of the Amir of Afghanistan coming to Peshawar.

The Gor Khatri itself is now used for municipal offices. The unglazed window spaces are fitted with dull red wooden shutters; shoes were lying about everywhere in the large rooms, and the brick floors, covered with rush matting, were littered with books of paper made in the Peshawar gaol—that revered building which gives compulsory shelter to so many saintly characters. Amid a heap of documents officials squatted with reed pens, each under his own particular cupboard let into the thickness of the wall.

Here upon dhurries spread over the rough matting sat the "Siahnavis" who keeps the general revenue accounts of the Tahsil. Opposite to him, also on the floor, sat the cashier, the "Devidial" (salary 15 rupees per month). Then at 20 rupees per month, in the midst of a huge litter on a red and blue striped dhurry, sat the Wasil Baganavis, keeping the accounts from the separate villages of the Tahsil. Opposite to him again was the "Ghulam Mahdi" (15 rupees per month). He keeps accounts of income tax and wears silver studs. "Every man who makes a profit of 1000 rupees or more in a year," said Agha Khan, "has to pay income tax."

In the next room, Mr Faujuin, a Pathan, fair, and speaking some English, keeps for 20 rupees per month the Urdu records of cases, criminal, civil revenue, and judicial revenue. He is called the judicial "Muharrir." Then I came to the "Kanungo," the highest of these minor officials who keeps (for 40 rupees per month) records concerning crops and agricultural matters. In this Tahsil, the Kanungo informed me, among the chief things grown are rice, maize, cherry-maize, bajra, sugar-cane, cotton, chilis, cabbages, carrots, turnips, wheat, barley, grain and sesamum—also a little tobacco and, among fruits, grapes, pomegranates, melons and water-melons. There are eighty-two patwaris, lesser officers for the villages in this Tahsil and four field Kanungos who bring in the village reports. Finally, I was introduced to the Tehsildar under whom, with his two assistants, all these other officials work. The Tehsildar owns to 200 rupees per month and the assistant Tehsildars to 60 rupees each.

Inside the main gateway of the Gor Khatri, in a room behind iron railings, were a couple of prisoners. In cases of non-payment of taxes the Tehsildar has power to keep a prisoner for ten days before sending him for trial before the Deputy Commissioner, who may then sentence him to a month's imprisonment. In criminal cases the Tehsildar can himself sentence up to six months.

Mr Agha Khan and I now drove half-way down the Bara Bazaar and then walked up a very muddy side street called the street of Hakims (native doctors). We stopped to talk to one sitting on the raised floor of his shop with its rows of strange bottles and drug jars.

Mr Agha Khan and I were getting on famously. He did not seem at all wearied by my questions, and appeared to enjoy my happiness in being in what is largely still an Afghan, if not a Persian, city. But the doctor—this old turbaned, black-bearded magician with so much spare drapery! I would not ask his name lest I should be told it was not Abenazer and that he never had a nephew, but I did ask what money he charged for his advice and drugs. And the Hakim answered, "A rupee if I go to the patient's house, but if the sick man come himself to the shop only the medicine do I charge him for and the cost of that would be three to five rupees." I wondered if the latter price was in expectation of any possible demands of my own and remarked, "That would surely be a very great deal if the sick man were a poor man." "If the illness is serious," said Mr Agha Khan, "he will be able to pay—otherwise he will not."