We then went into the different wards, or rooms, where the patients were, and he said that such and such men had been in the Hospital for so long, why did I not cure them and send them out. I said—
“Because their disease does not admit of cure,” and added, through the Interpreter, “Tell him he can take that, and that, and that man away, if he likes.”
I had no intention of being cruel to the men; speaking in English it did not strike me they would understand, though of course they did when it was interpreted. They seemed to give up hope at once. One shut his eyes and died the same day, another the next. I could, at first, hardly believe the report when I heard it: then I cursed that fat man.
When we had gone the round of the patients we came out into the garden. There he stood, this man, surrounded by his staff, and he commenced to take me to task. He said I was to give the patients good medicine and see that I cured them—one had Bright’s disease, another advanced Phthisis, and so on! and was continuing his tirade, when it struck me quite suddenly—for I am a mild man—that I was being ill-treated. At once I thirsted for his blood with a dreadful thirst—the effect of the climate probably—and I desired greatly to assault him with fire arms or with steel. Fortunately, I had neither at hand, or the situation might have become complicated. The Persian I had learnt went back on me, as it were, and I had to speak English.
The Power of the Amîr’s Name.
“Does this son of a pig, whose ancestors were pigs for many generations; this iniquitous mass of vileness, with much body and little brain, does he——;” but this was enough for the Armenian, he guessed at the rest, and he turned on the General.
In vituperation—for volume of sound and rapidity of words—I never met the Armenian’s equal. I have heard talk of the ladies of Billingsgate, and I should like to put one in the ring with the Armenian.
It grew alarming. I thought so, and so did the General. He backed and looked exceedingly uncomfortable. He tried feebly to stem the torrent: he might as well have tried to stop the Kabul river when swollen by the melting snows. Then he essayed the playful, he smiled an apologetic smile and offered me a rose: and still the Armenian foamed:—The whole matter should come before Amîr Sahib, he was the only master in Afghanistan; if he had a complaint let him bring it then, and so on. Many times the General tried to speak, to explain, to remonstrate, but straight ahead went the Armenian, never pausing one moment. At last the General thought he had better go, and he went.
He had not escaped yet: a letter from the Armenian followed him. In it he was solemnly warned never to attempt that sort of thing again (he never did), that a European will not bear it, and that this particular European would proceed at once, on the slightest attempt at a repetition of the offence, to “very much kick and blow.”
At the next Durbar the General happened to be standing not very far from my chair, and the Armenian said to him—