CHAPTER XVIII.
The Levee on New Year’s Day.
The Mahomedan New Year’s Eve. Presents. The “Izzat” medal. Coinage of Afghanistan: Rupees: Pice: the “Tilla.” Levee on New Year’s Day. The guests: Maleks and Governors: The British Agent. Presents to the Amîr. The Levee as a picture. Lunch. Chess as played in Afghanistan. The great rider among men: his fall. The Amîr as a Pathologist. The steam-engine pony: his paces: his wickedness. Sight-seeing with the Princes. The Temple of Mazar. The booths at the entrance to the Temple. The Park of Mazar. Native music. The Afghan dance. The wrestling contests: Turkoman v. Mazari. Kabuli wrestling.
March 21st is the Mahomedan New Year’s Day. On New Year’s Eve one of the Chief Secretaries was announced. He entered, accompanied by some servants carrying two trays with cloths over them. After the usual salutations the Secretary gave me a letter. It was from His Highness requesting my acceptance of the accompanying presents.
The “Izzat” Medal.
The cloths were lifted and I found that His Highness had conferred upon me the gold Afghan Medal of Honour and had presented me with five thousand rupees.
The medal was for the work I had done among the sick during the past year, and the rupees for the portrait.
From the Sultana was a gold English lever hunting watch and chain, and six or seven yards of stuff, the prevailing tint of which was Indian red, but which was so woven with gold threads that it seemed red gold. I heard that the medal was unique: it was the only one of the kind that had been struck.
I do not think I have said anything about the coinage of Afghanistan. The ordinary medium of exchange is the rupee. It is a smaller coin than the kaldar, or Indian rupee, being about the size of a shilling. Nominally, it is worth twelve annas, though there is no such coin as an anna in circulation. A half rupee is called a kran. The copper coins in circulation are called pice. Five pice go to the anna. There are sixty or more pice in a rupee, according to the exchange, which can always be found out by reference to the money-changers in the bazaars. Formerly the coins were struck by hand. Quite recently His Highness has established a minting machine in Kabul. I think the new rupee is scarcely as artistic as the old: it is Europeanized, and it is said to be worth an anna less. Pice, too, are now being made in the minting machine. The Amîr is introducing the new rupee into circulation by paying the soldiers of his army with that coin.
There is no gold Afghan coin in circulation, though the Bokhara “Tilla,” worth about twelve shillings, is current. Many of the richer Afghans hoard their wealth, and for this purpose they buy Bokhara Tillas, or bar gold, from the alluvial deposits of the Oxus.
The Levee on New Year’s Day.