Under the absolute Amir

by Frank A. Martin

Another race the late Amir subjugated, the Kafris, are entirely distinct from the other races of the country. They are generally very fair complexioned, and have light-coloured eyes. They are not tall, and are slimly yet symmetrically built. In many cases their features are Grecian in type, and it is quite conceivable that they are, as has been suggested, the descendants of the garrisons Alexander the Great left in the country on his historic march to India. They were idolators until the Amir took them in hand and converted them by fire and sword, and they have little love for their new masters. They are quick and intelligent, and make good workmen.

The language of the country is Pushtoo, which is general among the people from Peshawar to Kandahar. The Turkestanis use the Turki language, and the Kafris have a language of their own, which latter might form an interesting study for those who are acquainted with the old Greek language. All people of any consequence speak Persian, which is the court language, and the language used in Kabul itself, for very few of the Kabulis are able to speak Pushtoo, and with a knowledge of Persian one can get on anywhere in the country, but it is less common among the frontier tribes than elsewhere.

Persian is the language taught in the schools, which the children attend from early morning until about ten o’clock, and again in the late afternoon for a couple of hours. In these schools the master, usually a moullah, sits on a carpet in the centre of the room with the children in a circle round him, sitting cross-legged, with their books on their knees, and reading aloud in a sing-song manner, while rocking their bodies backwards and forwards. This rocking the body to and fro while reading becomes such a habit that in after life very few men can read anything without doing it, and their voices take on the sing-song intonation of the school. For the chastisement of the unruly and stupid, the master has a pliable rod by him. There is no sparing the rod and spoiling the child, and when the master wishes to punish one of them, the small offender is held on his back, with his legs up in the air, and receives so many cuts on the soles of his feet, and while the punishment lasts he howls piteously. Sometimes in passing by a school I have stopped, thinking a child was surely being murdered, until I saw the reason why the boy was howling, and my standing to watch generally had the effect of stopping the child’s noise, for the “Feringhee” is one of the names used to frighten children with. One end of the room in which school is held has no wall, and is open on the side facing the road, so there is nothing to prevent one watching the school children at work.

Children are also taught in the school to read the old Arabic, in order that they may read the Koran, but while there are many men who can read Arabic, there are few who understand it, and fewer still, if any, who can speak it as a language. Many can recite passages from the Koran as a parrot would do, and some, who are thereby called Hafiz, can recite it from memory from beginning to end.

In character the people are idle, luxurious, and sensual, which characteristics become prominent as soon as a man possesses power or money (almost synonymous terms in Afghanistan). They are capricious and ungrateful, and turn easily in their likes and dislikes, and are readily led to turn against those to whom they owe gratitude. Usually, when they want anything, they want it at once, and should their desire be delayed for any time, they no longer want it. They are lying, treacherous, and vengeful, and one who has a grudge or enmity against another will not show it openly, but conceals his feelings and feigns friendship, while waiting the opportunity for vengeance, and in the execution of their vengeance they are capable of unheard-of cruelties. They are readily ruled by fear, but are apt to brood over small grievances until they convince themselves that they are most cruelly treated, and then their feelings may result in a fit of Berserk rage, under the influence of which they lose control of themselves and take vengeance violently, often stabbing and hacking at their victim long after life is extinct. They are cruel and insensible to the pain of others, often laughing at it, and, except in the case of a relative, will seldom go out of their way to relieve suffering.

Towards their children they are too kind, and spoil them while they are young, denying them nothing which it is possible to give them, and dressing them in gaudy clothes while they themselves go ragged. They make no attempt to correct them for any wrong-doing, laughing at it rather as a sign of precociousness, and among the Kabulis it is a common thing for a little child to be able to curse fluently, and their curses are often directed at their parents. This neglect in training the young properly accounts for much that is objectionable in the character of the people. It is not until children are seven or eight years old that they begin to correct them, but a good deal of the character of a child is at that age already formed.

The Afghans are for ever scheming one against another, family against family, official against official, farmer against farmer, workman against workman, and wife against wife—the latter being, naturally, one of the evils which arise from the custom of plurality of wives. The result of all this scheming is often a quarrel which ends in a fight, in which one or other of the parties may be killed; they do not always use knife or bullet for the purpose, they have other ways too of ridding themselves of an enemy.

In the cities, when a man commits murder, he is taken charge of and judged by the authorities, but in the country it often results in a feud between the two families, which is carried on for generations, the murderer being waited for by the relatives of the man whom he killed, and killed in turn; the slayer in this case also being eventually slain by a member of the opposite party, and so the feud goes on for many years.

Illustrating the vengeful character of the people, I may mention the case of a man who killed another and escaped to his own house or fort, as it is called by them, each house being in the nature of a stronghold. Here he stayed for some thirty years, without venturing to put his foot outside the house; but at the end of that time, supposing the watchfulness of his enemies had slackened, he went out one day, and was carried back dead. The vengeance of the relatives of the man he had killed had not slumbered, neither had their watchfulness. It is said that revenge is sweet, but it seems to have an added sweetness to these people.

There is a law among the people that a man who has been apprehended by the authorities for murder, may be claimed by the murdered man’s relatives to execute or forgive as they wish. The relatives may then accept so much blood-money as compensation, or may kill the man in any way they like. Sometimes the haggling among the relatives about accepting the blood-money offered by the murderer and his friends, some being in favour of accepting the money, and others in favour of death, is continued even under the scaffold, where the condemned one stands ready pinioned, and with the rope round his neck, and after, perhaps, an hour or so of wrangling, it ends in the decision that the man must suffer death, and then the rope is seized and the man hauled up. The feelings of the man during the altercation in such cases must be unenviable.