From the Indus to the Tigris

by H. W. Bellew

We now saw the rest of the regiment to which they belonged, for there was no possibility of mistaking its identity, their uniform of its kind being unique. Their uniform was a tight jacket and trousers, cut on the old English pattern, but of a striped material called ticken, the same as is used for making mattress-cases at home. The head-dress was the native quilted conical cap or topi, with a boss of scarlet wool stuck on to its point. The other Kabuli regiment wore red jackets, and the Kandahari one a uniform of dingy yellow colour. The militia were the most sensibly dressed of all, and, encased in their great sheepskin coats, looked the only comfortable people on the parade.

As we came up to the troops, a startling object pranced his horse to the front of the line, and gave the word for a general salute, but the words were not yet out of his mouth, when our horses stood stock-still, and, pricking their ears, commenced snorting with fear. Our own persuasive measures, aided by the banging of the guns close beside us, presently overcame their objections, and they shied and shuffled past the object of their terror—whom we now discovered to be no other than our road-companion, Colonel Táj Muhammad—in no very dignified manner. The Colonel had left us, on approaching the city, to superintend the arrangements for the parade, and he now completely took us by surprise by the wonderful change in his dress. A Russian-pattern forage-cap, with a broad gold band and straight peak, adorned his head, but the body was covered by a capacious overcoat of chessboard pattern, in great squares of brightest red, white, and blue. Having passed him, our steeds recovered their equanimity, which was more than we had, and enabled the General to acknowledge the honours of “dipped colours” and “God save the Queen” with becoming grace and dignity.

At the end of the line we ran the gantlet of another apparition similar to the first, and entered Rahmdil Khán’s garden, where his summer palace had been prepared for our reception. Sardárs Mír Afzal Khán and Núr Muhammad Khán conducted us to our quarters, and after partaking of some tea and sweets that had been provided for our refreshment, took their leave of us, and we saw no more of them here. The first thing we did on being left alone was to stop the pendulums of no less than five American clocks, which, whether they figured or not, most decidedly ticked, and that too with a vigour and rapidity that gave rise to the surmise that they were racing to make up for lost time, having been only just wound up and set agoing for the occasion.

CHAPTER V.

We halted four days at Kandahar to recruit our cattle, and replace the broken-down ones by new purchases. Our entertainment all this time was most hospitable, and was really more than we could conveniently endure. The apartments were luxuriously furnished with Persian carpets, Herat felts, and Kashmir embroideries. Several coloured glass globes were suspended from the ceiling, and every niche that was not already occupied by an American clock—and there were some ten or twelve such—was ornamented with a glass lamp. The clocks were all of the same pattern, and brightly gilded all over, and, together with the globes and lamps, appeared to form part of an investment ventured in this yet barbarous region by some enterprising merchant with a partiality for “Yankee notions.”

We had hardly been left alone in our palatial quarters when a succession of huge trays of all sorts of sweetmeats began to arrive. Each was borne in by two servants, one supporting each end, and deposited one after the other on the floor. The array was quite alarming, for I knew they would go to our servants for disposal, and was certain they would exceed the bounds of prudence and moderation; a surmise in which I was not far wrong, for nearly all of them had to undergo a physicking before we set out on our onward journey. One of the trays in particular attracted our attention, on account of the variety of zoological forms its surface was crowded with. We dubbed it “Noah’s Ark,” and kept it till our departure, partly from a suspicion that the different species of animals might not all be good for the food of man, and partly as an amusing specimen of the artistic skill of the confectioners of Kandahar. Much cannot be said for their proficiency in the art of moulding. Their figures generally left a good deal for the imagination to supplement before their identity could be satisfactorily brought home to the mind; but some, with even the most liberal allowance of fancy, were altogether beyond recognition. One figure in particular afforded us much amusement from its puzzling resemblance to several totally distinct animals, and various were the speculations hazarded as to its real prototype. Looked at on one side, it was pronounced to be a hare, but this was negatived by the length of its tail. Then it was suggested that it was meant to represent a wolf; but this was objected to on account of the square form of the head and face. “Perhaps it’s a tiger,” observed one of our attendants. “Perhaps it is,” said Ghulám Ahmad, the General’s Munshí, “or any other animal you like to call it. The material is the same, and just as good under either name.” This was a well-directed hint to the servants, some of whom he observed were inclined to differ in opinion as to the respective qualities of the different mathematical figures and animal forms which were about to be divided amongst them. “Yes,” chimed in his assistant, “whether disc or diamond, sun or star, the sugar of all is alike, and the pistacio paste equally thick; whether elephant, ox, or horse, the candy is alike transparent in all, whilst the difference in size is nothing to what it is between the real animals.”

After these encouraging signs of a peaceable division of the spoils, we were glad to see the trays removed, for their size and number incommoded our movements. On their removal, an excellent zújafát, or cooked dinner, was served up Afghan fashion, and with the profusion of Afghan hospitality. The principal dish, as a matter of course, was the puláo—a whole sheep stuffed with a rich and savoury store of pistacio and almond kernels, with raisins, dried apricots, and preserved plums, &c., and concealed under a tumulus of rice mixed with pomegranate seeds, caraways, cardamums, and other aids to digestion, and reeking with appetising perfumes. Around it were placed, in crowded confusion, a most substantial array of comestibles, the variety and excellence of which were rather puzzling to inquiring foreigners with only limited powers of digestion. There was the yakhni, the mattanjan, and the corma, the kabáb, the cuímá, and the cúrút, with the phirín, and falúda, and the nucl by way of dessert, together with sherbets of sorts, sweet preserves and sour preserves, and bread in the forms of the nán, paráta, bákir-khání, and tuakí. Our host, the Saggid, with an inviting bismillah (“In the name of God,” used as an invitation to commence any act), stretched forth his hand against the puláo, and we followed suit, but without making the smallest impression on the savoury heap before us. With this as a secure foundation, we dipped from dish to dish to make acquaintance with their contents. Each had particular merits of its own, but as only an Afghan palate can distinguish them, of course they were not appreciated by us. The Saggid, who had seen a good deal of the English in India, and was familiar with our mode of living, was careful to point out the dishes most resembling our own; but alas! for the prejudice of human nature, I could trace no points of similarity, and would have preferred a good mutton-chop and some mealy potatoes to all the rich chef d’œuvres of the Afghan culinary science that loaded the table. As a nation the Afghans are gross feeders. They eat largely and consume astonishing quantities of fatty matter. The merit of any particular dish with them depends more upon the quantity and quality of the melted butter or fat in which it swims than on the tenderness or flavour of the flesh, and the more rancid the fatty matter is, the more highly is it esteemed. This is particularly the case amongst the peasantry and the nomads, amongst whom it is an ordinary occurrence to dispose of the tail of a dumba sheep between three or four mouths at a single meal. The tail of this variety of sheep is a mass of pure fat, and weighs from six to eighteen pounds. The hardy out-door life they lead requires that they should have a certain amount of carbonaceous pabulum in their food; and as by their religion they are debarred from the use of fermented liquors, the deficiency is very probably supplied by the abundant use of fat and butter. At all events, they lay great stress on a liberal supply of roghan, or grease, in all their food, and to its plentiful use, I believe, is to be attributed their physical superiority, combined, of course, with the influences of climate, which, taken alone, are not sufficient to account for their large limbs and robust frames.

At length our part of the performance came to a close, and the row of attendants marching in, carried off the feast to the side-apartments, where, in the character of hosts, they entertained our domestics. The Saggid now took leave of us to go to his home in the city, and we put out most of the lamps and candles, that filled the room with a painful glare, and increased its already close temperature.

The Afghans have no idea of domestic comfort or refinement according to the European standard, nor have they any taste in the arrangement of their houses. The rooms prepared for us, though full of costly and really fine specimens of native manufacture, were yet singularly deficient in comfort and tasteful decoration. The Saggid, and his coadjutor here, General Safdar Ali, had accompanied the Amir Sher Ali Khán on his visit to India in the spring of 1869, for the conference at Amballa, and they now attempted to light up our quarters here after the fashion they had seen in our houses in India. Lamps and candles without stint were lighted, and set wherever there was room to stand them, without reference to the amount of light required, or the proper places for exhibiting it. Consequently, the room, which was entirely unventilated, except through the doorways opening into side-chambers, speedily became insupportably hot and stifling, so much so, that we were obliged before we could go to sleep to open all the doors and let a draught of the cold frosty night air through the house.