Under the absolute Amir

by Frank A. Martin

The Kotwali guard with me gave a good deal of trouble through their thieving propensities. When I tried to fix the theft on them, for they never let themselves be caught red-handed, they would in turn accuse one or other of my servants, and by all combining their evidence, would show that one had seen the servant do it, and another one would bring the man he had sold the stolen article to, and so on, until they made up a strong case. That the servants stole things if left to themselves I knew, but I had made a rule that each man was responsible for the articles in his charge, and had to make good anything lost, and this I enforced, so that a servant would not be likely to steal and sell that for which he had to pay double the amount he could sell it for. About this time, when I was endeavouring to stop the thefts which just then were very frequent, a particularly bad lot of sepoys being on guard at the time, the Kotwal was evidently informed of my endeavours, for one of my servants was taken to prison accused of stealing two teapots from a tea-seller in the public garden close by, and some of the Kotwali sepoys with me gave evidence that they saw him sell the teapots to a shopkeeper in the bazar, and brought forward the shopkeeper and the teapots as evidence. The matter being taken before the Amir, the servant was ordered to be put in prison, and the Amir wrote to me to be careful what sort of men I got for servants, because, if a man was a thief, he might on occasion become a murderer, and it was dangerous for me to have such men about me. Having thus, as the Kotwal intended, prejudiced the Amir’s mind against my servants, any complaint I was likely to make of his sepoys’ stealing would not be listened to, when they would all swear that one of my own servants was guilty. Concerning the theft of teapots just mentioned, I knew the servant to be guiltless, for both before the time of the supposed theft he happened to be with me for some hours, and after that until late at night, helping me while I made a bookshelf. Eventually I got the man released from prison, but he would not come back to my service, fearing, he said, the enmity of the sepoys. However, they followed their vindictive custom of not letting a man alone whom they had once accused, and got him back in prison some short time after, where, like many another, he disappeared.

The guards of sepoys given to the European servants of the Government are called guards of honour, but they have also to report all that the European does, where he goes, who visits his house, or his servants, and all pertaining to him. This is principally to find out if he is a spy, and sending reports to the Indian Government, but it also enables the Amir to find out what manner of man he is. The guard is a necessary one, to prevent Europeans being attacked by fanatics, or ghazis, as they are called, of whom there are plenty about, and from whom there is now more danger of attack than when the late Amir was in his prime.

These fanatics care little, provided they kill a Feringhee, whether they themselves are killed the next moment or not, for they are then sure of Paradise, and the houri, and the rivers of milk, etc. I was attacked by one of them one afternoon in the workshops, while I was squatting on my heels, directing some masons below me, who were putting in the foundations of a furnace. The ghazi came behind with an empty 9-pounder iron shell in each hand, and threw one at me with all his force from close behind; he aimed at my head, but fortunately I stood up at the moment he threw the shell, and received it between the shoulders instead of on the head, and the edge of the shell struck me about half an inch from the spine. The force of the blow took all power from my body for a time, but the sepoy with me—there was but one of the guards with me that day, strangely enough—seized the man before he could throw the second shell, and pinioning his arms, got him on the ground, while the workmen gathered as if by magic, and kicked and beat the ghazi so roughly that he was soon in a semi-conscious condition. I afterwards sent for the captain of the regiment on guard in the workshops, and had the man made prisoner, and put in the guard-room there, pending the Amir’s orders. He was punished by being kept for six months with his hands chained together with a stick between, so that they should remain about twelve inches apart, and the punishment included being kept in prison for life. To try and kill a Feringhee is not a very great crime among Mussulmans, and the man’s friends very nearly succeeded in getting the sentence annulled a year or so later, but I used the influence I had, and their efforts were not successful. For some days after being attacked I was unable to move about much, and paralysis was feared, for the spine was injured a little; but Mrs. Daly, the lady doctor, attended me with so much care and skill that I was soon going about as usual, though for a year or two the place was tender. The Amir sent his own hakeem (doctor), with many expressions of sympathy, to examine my hurt. He came for three days to inquire how I progressed, and then rejoined the Amir at Paghman, where he had moved his court, to escape the cholera, which broke out the day I was injured. There were other attempts, but none where I escaped so narrowly, and these happened in the last three years of my stay in Kabul, that is, when the late Amir was feeble, and during the reign of the present Amir, who is not yet a prophet in his own country.

One attempt, which illustrates the narrow-minded jealousy of the Kabuli, was in the powder-shop, where I went in accordance with instructions from the Amir to put matters in order, the Amir saying that the powder made in Kabul fouled the bore of the guns much more than foreign powders did. The man in charge of the powder-shop was a member of the royal family, which is a large one in numbers, and he resented my appointment over his head to the extent of putting flints with the powder in the incorporating mills and starting them as soon as I entered the shop they were in. There is always a possibility of powder exploding while incorporation is going on, and, seeing that he and all the others with him remained outside and left me to go alone into the shop, I suspected that all was not right, so, going out, I gave orders for the mills to be stopped, and then I found out the reason I was allowed to inspect them alone. I said nothing of this to the authorities, as my report which showed that the quantities of the ingredients were so arranged as to prove a source of revenue to those in charge, would, I knew, be sufficient for all purposes.

Europeans are allowed to take their wives to Kabul, and the wives are generously given a living allowance by the Amir; but Kabul is no place for a woman to live in, for there are no amusements, and there is practically no society for her, and few women can live happily who see no one but their husbands from one month to another; consequently women are forced back on themselves, and get into a low condition of health, which soon brings out all the ailments they are subject to. For children the climate is a good one, and they thrive well. The Afghans are fond of children, and as they believe that all of them, no matter of what race, are Mussulmans until they arrive at the age of reason, European children are well looked after wherever they go, and are admired to the extent of a large crowd following them about the roads and public gardens when they take their daily outings. Toys are given them, and their every wish is a law, so that they are very much spoilt, and usually yell when they have to be taken from their guards and go into the house to their father and mother. The change from despot to subject being one little to their liking.

European women servants are not desirable in Kabul, for they require looking after too much, and are, besides, of little use except as companions for their mistresses. They are treated familiarly by the native servants and others they come in contact with, and form acquaintances which are not to their credit. Those who were brought to Kabul in the early part of my stay there by the wives of the English residents were mostly sent away in more or less disgrace, while the German nurse, who was taken up there by Mrs. Fleischer, left her when her services, for which she was engaged, were immediately required, and went to the present Amir’s harem and placed herself in the hands of his chief wife, saying that she wanted to become a Mussulman, and although Mr. Fleischer went to the Amir’s palace late that night to get the woman to return, if only for a day, or until the trouble was passed, the Amir said he could not use force to make her do so, but she could return for a time if she wished, and this the woman refused to do. Consequently Mrs. Daly had her hands very full looking after Mrs. Fleischer and the baby all that night and the next day unattended by any nurse. The German nurse eventually got a husband, which was apparently the chief reason of her apostasy, although at first it seemed likely to be a difficult matter, for when the Amir called together his attendants and asked who would marry her, her face had unfortunately been seen by them, and none volunteered. In this we see one advantage of the Afghan marriage custom. The Amir at last bestowed her on a Kafri officer, whose pay he raised, and a house was given them to live in.

As there are no Christian churches or clergymen in Kabul, Mrs. Fleischer’s baby was christened by her husband, Mrs. Daly and myself standing as sponsors, and the Amir, in a firman, giving the child its name. Any written order of the king is called a firman.

The English who formerly lived in Kabul were not unfortunate in having their social status at home fixed. One lady, the wife of one of the English employés, on stating that her father was a minister, had the admission promptly translated by the native interpreter as “the daughter of the Prime Minister,” and the other ladies had to keep up to this standard to prevent themselves being put down as nobodies; consequently it was a rather well-connected bevy who graced the Queen-Sultana’s court on occasions.

The servants to be obtained in Kabul are unfit for anything but the commonest sort of housework, and know nothing of English cooking or waiting at table. I took a Hindustani cook and a khitmatgar (table-servant) up with me, and engaged Hazara coolies to carry water, sweep, and clean things, and to look after the horses. After several months’ service these men got to know their work, but by the time they had done so and were becoming useful, they had invariably saved enough money to return to their own country and start as farmers in a small way. Some of the Hazaras I had from time to time who worked as cook’s assistant, were soon able to cook several English dishes, and do it well, and, no doubt, if they could have been induced to stop long enough, they would have become good cooks. The Hazaras, however, are a truculent lot, and quarrels with the sepoys on guard were frequent. In consequence of this quarrelling there was a good deal of enmity generated, and several of my servants disappeared, and I found out afterwards that they had been put in prison by the Kotwali sepoys on a charge of being spies, and supplying me with information, and while in prison were put out of the way by one or other of the methods of murder in common use there.