From the Indus to the Tigris

by H. W. Bellew

Whilst here, I took out my note-book to jot down a few memoranda of the road we had traversed, and the Saggid, seeing the movement, jocularly observed, “Now I know what you are going to write.” “What?” inquired I, rather curiously. “People, savages—country, a desert waste; what else can you say?” he very aptly replied. “But I will tell you something much more amusing than anything you have got in your Kandahar book.” This last allusion, I must confess, took me by surprise. I was about to ask where he had seen the book, when he anticipated the query. “Yes, we know all about it; and when the durbar at Kabul is dull, your book is produced, and sets them all a-laughing.” “That’s satisfactory,” said I. “Ah!” he replied, “but you have been very hard upon our faults.” “Come,” said I, in self-defence, “I have not abused you as your writers habitually abuse us.” “Well, no. The argument cuts both ways. Anyhow we are no better than you have painted us.”

I asked how the book got to Kabul, and learned that it had been taken there by Cázi Abdul Cádir, to whom I gave a copy when he was a Government servant at Peshawar. The Cázi had learnt English at the mission school in that frontier station, and, possessed of my book, was now the interpreter of its pages at Kabul. I attempted to explain that the book was not meant for Afghan readers, and the Saggid very good-naturedly helped me out of the difficulty by saying that his people were now accustomed to the hard words of foreigners by reading the English newspapers and other books brought to the country from India. He expressed astonishment at the freedom of criticism allowed to the press, and could not understand how any Government could exist under such uncontrolled discussion of its acts. “You people puzzle us entirely,” said he. “No other Government would permit a public discussion of its acts, but you seem to court it. It is a very bad system, and encourages disaffection.” We endeavoured to explain that the freedom of the press was characteristic of the British system of government, and that the channel thus afforded for the unfettered expression of public opinion was one of the greatest safeguards of the Government, and a powerful instrument in the maintenance of public order. “It may be so for you; you are the best judges of your own interests. It would not do for us. The Government would not last a day under such a system here.” It was now time for us to be on our way again, so the stories we were to have heard were reserved for another occasion.

Our route continued south-west along the course of the river, the opposite bank of which was lined by a black cordon of closely-packed nomad camps. At six miles we came to Júe Sarkár, a little way off to the right of the road. It is a modern country-house, standing in the midst of its own gardens enclosed by high mud walls, and watered by a kárez stream. The late Sardár Kuhudil Khán built this house as a country residence in 1846, after he had annexed the Garmsel to Kandahar. It is now occupied by his grandson, Gul Muhammad Khán, son of Muhammad Sadíc Khán, the torturer of M. Ferrier, as is so graphically described by that traveller in his account of his adventures in this country.

A little farther on are some hamlets scattered amongst the ruins of Lashkari Bazár, which originally formed a suburb of the ancient city of Búst, now lying some six miles ahead. From this point onwards, in fact, our path lay through a succession of ruins, with here and there patches of cultivation between the clusters of decayed mansions and towers, right up to the fort and citadel of Búst.

At a few miles from our camp on the river bank we passed a roadside shrine, and stopped at the cabin of a faqír in charge of it for a drink of water. It was perfect brine, from a small well hard by, yet the mendicant assured us it was the only water he used, and his sickly look and attenuated figure did not belie the assertion. His life of penance secures him the reverence of the nomads of the neighbourhood, and elicited marked respect from our escort.

We halted a day at Búst to rest our cattle and prepare them for the next march, which was to be a long one across the desert. The delay afforded us the opportunity to explore the rivers around. From the top of the citadel, which commands an extensive view, we found that they covered an area of many square miles on the left bank of the Helmand, and extended over the plain for seven or eight miles to the east and north. The citadel and fort form a compact mass of ruins altogether separate from the rest of the Búst city.

The fort is a long parallelogram lying due north and south on the river’s bank. The walls are very thick, and strengthened at short intervals by semilunar bastions or buttresses. On the inner face they bear the traces of chambers, and the top all round appears to have supported houses. At each angle is a very substantial circular bastion, except at the south-west angle, which is occupied by the citadel. This is a lofty structure on a foundation of solid red brick masonry, that rises straight out of the river bed, and is washed by its stream in the season of full flood. The highest point of the citadel is about two hundred feet above the bed of the river, and is run up into a square tower, used apparently as a look-out station.

From its top we got a very extensive view of the country, but could not see Girishk, though the fort of Nádálí on the plain opposite to it was distinctly visible. A more dreary outlook than this station affords could be found in few countries. Beyond the strip of villages and cultivation on its farther bank, and the collection of hamlets and walled gardens in the angle of junction between the Helmand and Argandáb, nothing is to be seen but a vast undulating desert tract, limited towards the south by a bold coast of high sand-cliffs.

The southern portion of the fort, in which the citadel stands, is separated from the rest by a deep ditch some forty feet wide, and running east and west. The eastern half of this division is fortified against the rest of the fort, and contains the remains of several large public edifices. The most noteworthy is a fine arch built of red bricks set in ornamental patterns. The arch is of broad lancet shape, about sixty feet high in the centre, and fifty-four feet across from basement to basement on the level of the ground. The arch extends due north and south, and from the ornamental designs and Arabic characters on the façades fronting the east, it was most probably the portal of the principal mosque.

The western half of this division is occupied by a lofty artificial mound, on the summit of which stands the citadel. Through the whole depth of this mound is sunk a very remarkable well, closed above by a large cupola. The well is built very substantially of red brick and mortar, and is descended to the very bottom by a spiral staircase, which, in the upper part of the shaft, opens successively into three tiers of circular chambers, that look into the shaft through a succession of arches in its circumference. In each tier are four chambers circling the well, and communicating with each other by arched passages; and at the back of each chamber, away from the well shaft, is an arched recess.