Under the absolute Amir

by Frank A. Martin

SIRDAR MAHOMED OMAR KHAN AND STAFF.

[To face p. 24.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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