There being no caravansary at Peshawer, Forster took up his residence in an old mosque, where he continued several days, melting in perpetual perspiration. While at Kashmere he had converted a part of his property into a bill of five hundred rupees on Kabul, which, in order to secure it from rain and other accidents, he enclosed in a canvass belt which he wore as a girdle. On examining the condition of this bill some days after his arrival in this city, he found that the writing had been so entirely obliterated by perspiration that no one could read, or even conjecture its subject, as from beginning to end it was literally black. The discovery much disquieted his mind, as he began to be apprehensive he might be reduced to want money on his journey. But his temperament was sanguine; and in order to afford melancholy as slender an opening as possible, he flew into society and laughed away his cares.
Still, the apprehension of a diminution in his finances rendered him anxious to proceed; and meeting with a man with whom he had travelled during the early part of his journey, it was agreed they should move on together, unite their means, and protect each other. On inquiring into the state of his companion’s finances, it appeared that he possessed in cash one rupee, on which himself, a boy, and a horse were to be subsisted until his arrival at Kabul, a journey of twelve or fourteen days. As it seemed clear that when this extraordinary fund should be expended the Mohammedan would apply to Forster, the latter, aware of the inconvenience and danger to which a disclosure of the real amount of his property might expose him, pretended to be but little richer, and producing three rupees, the whole was considered common stock; and his companion, with a face brightened by faith and zeal, exhorted him to be of good cheer, for that true believers were never deserted in the hour of need.
In company with this cheerful Islamite he departed from Peshawer, and, uniting themselves to a kafilah proceeding in the same direction, they pushed forward towards the west. During the second day’s march he discovered that rashness is not always a mark of valour; for, advancing before the kafilah with about thirty horsemen, who all appeared by their whiskers to be men of desperate courage, they were met and plundered by a small body of Afghans, who seemed no way disturbed when the larger body of the kafilah appeared in sight, but slowly retreated with their booty.
During this part of the journey it was for many reasons judged expedient by the leaders of the kafilah to travel by night. But if they by this means diminished the danger of falling a prey to the plundering Afghans, they found in return that they had other perils to encounter; for, boisterous weather having come on, and the rain descending in torrents, every hollow of the mountains became the bed of a torrent, which, rushing down impetuously through its steep channel, rolled along stones of a vast size with a noise which, in the stillness of night, resembled thunder. The sky, meanwhile, was overcast with black clouds; and the roaring of the torrents heard on all sides created in the mind of the traveller a certain horror mingled with awe, and disposed him involuntarily to consider this grand scene of nature with sentiments of profound reverence.
On approaching one of these mountain streams, which had been greatly swelled by the recent rains, the commander of the kafilah escort, who was accompanied by one of his favourite women, placed her on a powerful horse, and, that she might not be incommoded by the crowd, attempted to convey her over first; but she had no sooner entered the water than she was carried off among the black whirling eddies of the current, and drowned. The Mohammedan, thus suddenly deprived of his mistress, at once forgot all thoughts of resignation to the decrees of fate, and, throwing himself upon the ground in the bitterness of his affliction, lamented his loss like a giaour. This melancholy event occasioned the immediate halt of the whole kafilah, the tragical fate of the lady having impressed their minds with a salutary terror. Next morning, on searching along the margin of the torrent, the body was found covered with mud, and was interred upon the spot with such ceremonies as time and place permitted. The kafilah then crossed the stream, and continued its march.
The road now lay through a black and desolate track, scooped into hollows by torrents, or yawning with natural chasms. It next entered a wide plain well watered and interspersed with walled villages, in the midst of which stands Kabul, the capital of the Afghan empire, where they arrived safely on the evening of the 2d of August. Here Forster took up his abode with a Georgian named Bagdasir, to whom he had brought a letter of introduction from his countryman in Kashmere. To this man, as to the person most likely to render him aid in such an affair, he showed his bill for five hundred rupees; but when it was found that not one single letter in it was legible, the man shook his head, as well he might, and predicted that no one would be found to discount it. However, after application had in vain been made in every other quarter, Bagdasir himself purchased the bill for half its real amount, which, its extraordinary condition being considered, was fully as much as it was worth.
Not many days after his arrival at Kabul our traveller was seized by a malignant fever, which for several days menaced him with a much longer journey than the one he had undertaken. Hot and cold fits succeeded each other with singular violence; he was tormented by insatiable thirst, and, as he endeavoured to quench this by the constant drinking of cold water, a most profuse perspiration was maintained, which probably saved his life. His whole body was covered with spots of a very bright colour, shaded between purple and crimson, which he should have beheld, he says, with pleasure, supposing that such an eruption would diminish the force of the disease, but that some of his neighbours regarded them as signs of the plague. This created a general alarm, and they were about to exclude him from their quarter, when he confidently asserted that the fever of the plague always produced its crisis in three days, whereas his had now continued seven; which, together with the conduct of Bagdasir, who never deserted him, somewhat assuaged their terrors, and induced them to suffer his presence. His disorder continued three weeks, and at length, when it disappeared, left him so weak that he could with difficulty crawl about the streets.
The religious toleration which prevailed at Kabul, where Turk, Jew, and Christian lived equally unmolested, induced him in an evil hour to throw off his Mohammedan disguise and profess himself a Christian; not considering, that however tolerant the Afghans of this capital might be, the remainder of his road, until he should reach the Caspian, lay among bigots of the most desperate stamp, who regarded the professors of all heterodox religions with abhorrence, and reckoned it a merit to revile and persecute them.
Having remained a full month at Kabul, he hired one side of a camel, on which a pannier was suspended for his accommodation, and on the 1st of September joined a party proceeding to Kandahar. The mode of travelling which he had now adopted is peculiar to that part of the world, and deserves to be particularly described. The camel appropriated to the service of passengers, he observes, carries two persons, who are lodged in a kind of pannier laid loosely on the back of the animal. The pannier, in Persian kidjahwah, is a wooden frame, with the sides and bottom of netted cords, of about three feet long and two broad. The depth likewise is generally about two feet. The provisions of the passengers are conveyed in the kidjahwah, and, the journey being commonly performed in the night, this swinging nest becomes his only place of rest; for on the kafilah’s arrival at its station he must immediately exert himself in procuring provisions, water, and fuel, as well as in keeping an eye over his property.
Forster soon found reason to regret his ill-timed abjuration of the prophet. The camel upon which he was stowed like a bale of merchandise was the worst conditioned of the whole drove; and to comfort him during his ride, a shrill-tongued old woman and a crying child took up their quarters in the opposite pannier, and contrived, the one by shrieking, the other by scolding, effectually to chase away his dreams. An old Afghan lady, with a very handsome daughter and two grandchildren, occupied the panniers of another camel. The rest were loaded with merchandise. This old dame soon began a contest with Dowran, the conductor of the kafilah, respecting the mode in which the movements of the caravan should be regulated; and after some desperate skirmishes, in which the force of her lungs and the piercing shrillness of her voice stood her in good stead, victory declared on her side, and the party fell under petticoat government.