Prince Habibullah, one or two Secretaries, and several Page boys were in the room with His Highness when I arrived. I sat on a couch in a convenient position, and presently Prince Nasrullah entered. I stood up and bowed as he went by. I do not know whether the Prince recognized me: he did not return my bow. He went to His Highness and salaamed. His Highness said something to the Prince that I did not hear, and the Prince was kind enough to return at once to where I was sitting and enquire if I were well. I thanked His Highness the Prince for his kind enquiries, but I did not rise.
The Noah’s Ark.
Then the presents were examined. They were not of any consequence, but were such as I could give. It had struck me that a writing-cabinet and paper stamped with the Royal name, might be a convenience to the Amîr. I had sent for one, therefore, and had directed the cabinet to be decorated with an original design in metal by an artist friend. There were various other things, all of which His Highness examined. For the little Prince, Mahomed Omer, were several mechanical toys. The Page boys gathered in a cluster behind the Amîr, as he was examining these. Among them was a mechanical dog that jumped and barked, and the boys were much interested, and there was a good deal of laughter, when one of the Page boys snatched his hand away as the Amîr made the dog jump at him. Then came a Noah’s ark, with some well modelled animals, all of which His Highness stood up on the table. A model steam-engine excited a good deal of interest, as did the little tin men, who walked rapidly along, dragging their little tin carts. A toy sword and rifle the Amîr decided to put by till the Prince was older. For the Sultana, there were various novelties in the way of brooches and fans; but these were not examined at that time. Some nodding china images amused the Amîr very much. Altogether, His Highness must have been three hours examining everything, for I went to the Palace at one and got back home at five.
The excitement of the various Durbars and dinners did me no good, and during the month of August—the bad month in Kabul—I was confined to my bed. Just at that time, His Highness sent a carpenter to me for instructions, so that a framework might be made for the canvas of a full-length portrait. I am sorry to say the portrait was never painted.
Mr. Pyne called two or three times to ask me to go for a ride with him. That being an impossibility, he sat down and told me some amusing stories.
One day, the Armenian was sent for to the Durbar, and when he returned, he told me that His Highness had been enquiring as to my diet. I was not to have any more beef-tea, and no brandy or whisky: I had not drank them in Mazar, why should I drink them in Kabul. I was to have rice and sago only.
Sago boiled in water for breakfast and rice boiled in water for dinner is abominably nasty, especially if you can vary the diet only by putting salt in one day and leaving it out the next. I never knew what real unadulterated hunger was till then. I dreamed of Roast-beef and Yorkshire pudding, of Duck and green peas, but being powerless in bed, I had to put up with the rice and sago and—became better. I have hated them ever since, which—in the abstract—seems ungrateful.
One day they brought a man into my bedroom, who looked even more of a scarecrow than I did. I looked at him, asked a question or two, and said feebly to Hafiz, the compounder,
“Recipe, pulveris ipecacuanhæ grana viginti, statim sumendus”—“boiled rice and sago—bed.” He got well before I did: he was used to the diet. A little girl of eleven, who had had fever for six months, was brought by His Highness’s orders: all she needed was quinine.
Shere Ali Khan, my friend of Mazar, called to see me one day while the Armenian was out, and we had a long and amusing conversation in Persian, supplemented occasionally by signs. We quite understood one another. We discussed anatomy, climate, diamonds, marriage; and I remember we compared the customs of European ladies with those of Oriental ladies. Shere Ali defended polygamy. We had an earthquake in the evening—not that it had anything to do with the conversation. At different times many people called. Some of them were ill and wished to be prescribed for.