[Footnote 84: Traditional sentence of the Prophet.]
'I SWEAR YOU ARE AN ENGLISHMAN!
However fortunate the issue of this amusing proceeding, it had still some consequences not very agreeable, as far as my continued stay in Herat was concerned. Following the Prince's example, every one wanted to detect in me the Englishman. Persians, Afghans, and Herati came to me with the express purpose of convincing themselves and verifying their suspicions. The most boring fellow was a certain Hadji Sheikh Mehemmed, an old man rejoicing in the reputation of being a great astrologer and astronomer, and really, as far as opportunity enabled me to judge, one well read in Arabic and Persian. He informed me that he had travelled with Mons. de Khanikoff, and had been of much service to him in Herat, and that the latter had given him a letter to the Russian ambassador in Teheran, of which he wished me to take charge. In vain did I try to persuade the good old man, that I had nothing to do with the Russians; he left me with his convictions unshaken. But what was most droll was the conduct of the Afghans and Persians; they thought they saw in me a man à la Eldred Pottinger, who made his first entry into Herat disguised as a horsedealer, and became later its master. They insisted that I had a credit here for hundreds, even thousands, of ducats, and yet no one would give me a few krans to purchase bread!
Ah, how long the time seemed that I had to pass in Herat waiting for the karavan! The city had a most gloomy troubled aspect; the dread of their savage conqueror was painted on the features of its inhabitants. The incidents of the last siege, its capture and plundering, formed the constant subjects of conversation.
[Conduct of Afghans on storming Herat]
According to the assertions of the Herati (which are, however, not founded in fact), Dost Mohammed Khan took the fortress, not by the bravery of the Kabuli, but by the treason of the garrison; they insist, too, that the beloved prince Sultan Ahmed was poisoned, and that his son Shanauvaz, who is almost deified by the Herati, did not obtain information of the treachery before a great part of the Paltan (soldiers) had already forced their way into the fortress. The struggle carried on by the besieged prince with his angry father-in-law was of the bitterest description, the sufferings borne and inflicted were dreadful, but worst of all were the sacking and plundering that took place unexpectedly some days after the actual capture, when many fugitive Herati returned with their property into the city. Four thousand Afghan soldiers, chosen expressly for the purpose from different tribes and regiments, rushed at a given signal, and from different sides of the city, upon the defenceless habitations, and are said not only to have carried off clothing, arms, furniture, whatever in fact met their eye, but forced every one to strip himself almost to a state of nudity, and to have left the half-naked tenants behind them in their thoroughly denuded and emptied houses. They tore away even from the sick their bedding and clothing, and robbed infants of cradles, nay, of the very swathing clothes, valueless but to them! A Mollah, who had been robbed of all his books, told me that he had lost sixty of the finest MSS.; but the loss he most deplored was that of a Koran bequeathed to him by his grandfather. He entreated the plunderer to leave him this one book, from which he promised that he would pray for his despoiler. 'Do not trouble thyself,' said the Kabuli; [{281}] 'I have a little son at home who shall pray for thee from it. Come, give it me.'
[Nazir Naïm the Vizir]
Whoever is acquainted with the covetousness of the filthy grasping Afghan, may picture to himself how he would behave in plundering a city. The besiegers levied contributions upon the city during a day, upon the country around during months. These are indeed natural consequences of war, occurring even in civilised countries, and which we will not make the subject of excessive reproach against the Afghans. But it is a pity that, instead of seeking to heal the wounds which they have inflicted, their miserable policy seems now to aim at reducing the whole province still further to beggary; so that in a country, where undoubtedly they are called upon to play an important part, they have rendered themselves objects of detestation: for the inhabitants would at once again plunge into a hopeless contest rather than ever acknowledge the supremacy of the Afghans. Herat, that is said now again to show signs of fresh life, has been left in the hands of a good-humoured inexperienced child. His guardian, the Khan of the Djemshidi, has an understanding with the Turkomans, against whose incursions he ought to protect the country. The Alamans extend their depredations to within a few leagues of Herat; scarcely does any week elapse without villages being surprised and plundered, and the inhabitants being led away to captivity. The Vizir of the Prince, named Nazir Naïm, is a man whose coarse features are, as it were, the sign-post of stupidity; he has in the course of only two months so enriched himself that he has purchased for himself in Kabul two houses with vineyards. As the internal affairs of the city and province are left in his hands, he [{282}] is accustomed, during the whole time of his hours of business, to surround himself with litigants and place-hunters. He soon tires, and when questions or petitions are addressed to him respecting the government recently established, to get rid of the wearisome application he has ever ready the stereotyped answer: 'Her tchi pish bud' (Everything as before). In his absence of mind he returns the same answer when accusations are laid before him of murder or theft; the plaintiff surprised repeats his story, but obtains the eternal answer, 'Her tchi pish bud,' and so he must retire.