Under the absolute Amir

by Frank A. Martin

In Kabul a bugle sounds the “wardi” between eight and nine o’clock every night from each police station, and it is sounded again in the morning at sunrise. Between those hours no person is allowed to go about the streets without giving the password for the night, and should any one be found who is unable to do so, he is detained in the guard-room until morning, when he is taken before the Kotwal, who fines or releases him according to the quality of the excuse given.

The bazar shops are very small, the greater number of them being about a huckster’s stall in size. The front of the shop is open, and at night it is shuttered and padlocked. There are no glass doors or windows, for glass is too rare and costly except for the Amir’s palaces. The plinth of the wall projects in front of the shop into the street, and on this the shopkeeper sits, with his goods ranged on the floor and shelves of the room behind him. The goods offered for sale are principally grain, fruit, vegetables, sugar, and other provisions, cloth and cotton goods, shawls, boots, and articles of apparel, leather goods, copper, tin, and iron utensils, etc. There are tea shops where a man can get a small pot of tea for less than a halfpenny, but if he takes sugar with it he has to pay about a farthing extra.

In the bazars are also letter-writers, for the use of those who cannot write themselves, who charge a halfpenny to a penny for each letter written, the stamp, of course, being extra. The principal bazars are named after the article mostly sold there; such as Gandam Farosh (wheat bazar), Zaghal Farosh (charcoal), Kunah Farosh (old curios), etc. Revolver and rifle cartridges can be obtained also, but are expensive, ranging from two to four cartridges for a shilling, according to size and demand.

The better-class houses are usually built of sun-dried brick and mud; there is a good deal of wood-work about them, and sometimes the whole front of a house is built up of wood. There are two parts to each house. The inner part is the harem serai, where the women are quartered, and here the rooms are built in such form as to surround and look out upon an inner courtyard; and an outer small house, which is built over the gate of the harem and overlooks the street, for the use of the man, and where male visitors are received and entertained by him. The largest houses have also a garden attached to them, which is surrounded by a high wall to insure privacy when the women walk in it, for no woman must allow her face to be seen by any man excepting only her nearest relations. The door leading to the women’s quarters in all houses has a kopchee or door-keeper, and no one is allowed to enter any house until its master has given permission, and no woman is allowed to leave the house unless the kopchee has been told by the master to permit it.

The palaces of the Amir and princes are the only well-built houses in Kabul. The Amir’s principal palace is Arak. Arak signifies “fort” in Turki, and “palace” in Persian. It is a large fortified place, some five hundred yards square, and is surrounded by a deep and wide moat. The surrounding walls are double and very thick. The outer walls are loop-holed for cannon and Maxims, while an earthen embankment, carried on arches connecting the two walls, is sloped up from above the embrasures to the inner wall, the top of which is slotted for riflemen. Under this embankment are the rooms where the guns are worked. Inside the fort offices and storerooms are built up against the inner walls, together with rooms for the men of the garrison who form the Amir’s bodyguard, and are specially selected and highly paid. In the Arak fort are also the public and private treasuries, and all the modern rifles and cartridges, of which there are many thousands, are kept in the storerooms there. The Amir’s palace inside Arak, and the harem serai for his women, are both surrounded by a high wall, which forms an inner defence when so required, and besides these are other rooms for the Amir’s use, which have lately been built alongside the north tower, and at other places inside the fort. The inner area of the fort is laid out as a garden, and at one end of the garden is a large glass-covered hothouse where the Amir sits very often in winter, surrounded by shrubs and flowers, and with bulbuls and other singing birds in cages suspended from the roof.

Outside Arak are situated the Boistan and Gulistan palaces. While of the summer palaces, Shahrara (city’s adornment) lies about a mile to the north-west of the city, and a couple of miles further on lies Baghibala (high garden), which was the late Amir’s favourite summer palace and where he died. More to the west, and about eighteen miles out of the city, is the summer palace at Paghman, a green spot at the foot of the Hindu Kush mountains. South of Kabul, and about one and a half miles from the city, is Baber, where another summer residence has been built beside the tomb of Baber Shah, the first of the Moghul emperors, who was buried there in 1530. Six miles out in the same direction is Hindeki, where the present Amir has a summer palace, which he used before coming to the throne. A little to the south-west of Hindeki lies Kila Asham Khan, where the summer palace of the Queen-Sultana of the late Amir is situated.

In the gardens outside Arak are two large salaam khana (audience chambers) which were built by the late Amir to afford room for large public durbars. These, in addition to the audience chambers proper, have smaller rooms attached to them, and the late Amir was in the habit of spending several days together in the new salaam khana, which is a handsome building.

The Kabul climate is a good one, and very bracing. Situated as it is some seven thousand feet above sea level, the air is rare, and it is, of course, much colder than other places on the same latitude. At first, one experiences a little difficulty in breathing when walking uphill, and is inclined to doubt the efficiency of one’s lungs, but this wears off afterwards. I once climbed up the Hindu Kush to the limit of the snow in summer, and found the air very exhilarating and fresh; but I had to stop frequently to recover breath, and the air I breathed seemed altogether insufficient and not satisfying, like that at a lower altitude.

Although there is usually very little rainfall, during two of the summers I spent in Kabul, thunder storms, with heavy downfalls of rain, were frequent. In these storms the flashes of lightning were almost continuous and the peals of thunder were deafening, and without cessation; but the electricity was expended on the heights close to the city, and there are very few cases on record of a house being struck.

In the winter heavy falls of snow are common, and when the wind drifts it, the smaller houses are sometimes covered. After a fall of snow, hazara and other labourers are called in with their wooden shovels to clear it off the roofs, as it would otherwise melt when the sun came out, and, percolating the mud covering, make the rooms below uninhabitable, and the added weight of snow is often the cause of a roof falling in. The snow is shovelled off the roofs into the streets below, where it piles up and takes months to melt, and keeps the roadway near by in a muddy condition; but the Afghan cares nothing for a little extra mud or dirt, and no one takes the trouble to clear away snow which will melt away itself in time—that would indeed be wasted labour. Latterly, arrangements have been made for carting it away from the principal thoroughfares, and in time the people may see the advantage of clearing all thoroughfares alike.