At the Court of the Amîr: A Narrative

by John Alfred Gray

Illness of Amîr.

In the beginning of September, I heard that His Highness was ill with gout, and I wrote to ask if I should come and see him. The answer came that I was to visit him the next day. Accordingly, I gathered myself together, mounted my horse, and rode slowly to the Erg Palace. The Armenian had brought me a walking-stick, so that I could get across the Palace gardens. I found His Highness was in one of the upper rooms. Getting upstairs was rather breathless work, and I had to take my time over it.

In the lobby outside the room were several Military Officers and Secretaries seated on the ground. Through the open door I saw His Highness lying on a couch. I bowed, and he called me in. The room was very small, and a chair was put for me near the head of the bed. Tea was brought for me in a glass mug set in silver. His Highness then described to me his symptoms. He had gouty inflammation of the right foot and knee; pains in most of his joints, and sciatica: he was feverish and shivering. I told him what treatment I should adopt if I had charge of the case. His Highness said that the Hakims, who were attending him, had bled him, and had leeched the inflamed joints. I said I hoped the treatment would not make him worse afterwards. By-and-bye I took my leave.

I went the next day to see His Highness, and he expressed himself as feeling much better. The pain was nearly gone. He told me that he had procured an oil from the colchicum plant, and this had been gently rubbed into the inflamed joints.

Two Page boys were in the room. One was “massaging” His Highness’s painful leg, and the other waving away flies with a fan. His Highness spoke very kindly to me, and suddenly asked if I intended to marry when I went to England on leave. I was rather taken aback when he asked, whereat the Page boys smiled; but, summoning up courage, I said yes. His Highness promised me a very substantial wedding present. Later on, after we had had tea, I heard the hubble-bubble going round in the next room, and mechanically pulling out a cigar I began cutting the tip off. Suddenly it struck me I was in the King’s bedroom. I felt somewhat ashamed, for I had not been invited to smoke. However, His Highness had seen me take the cigar out; and I rather lamely asked if he minded the smell of smoke. He said, “Not in the least,” and, seeing my confusion, he at once put me at my ease by calling for a cigarette, which he lit and smoked.

The next morning early my house was found to be on fire: fortunately it was discovered in time, and the neighbours were not fined for setting it alight.

The Earthquake.

That night I was awakened suddenly by an awful earthquake. The heaving of the floor, the creaking of the beams, and the rattling of the windows increased and increased. I sprang out of bed and tried to light a candle. I could not find the matchbox; then I found it, opened it, took a match hurriedly, and broke it: took another and tried to strike the wrong end, then another, and I began to think whether I hadn’t better make a bolt for it at once. At last I got a light and the candle caught: it was half-past one. I stood a moment or two with the candle in my hand, and presently I fancied the rocking and creaking was becoming less: then it occurred to me that, after all, the house had stood so many earthquakes, that may be it would stand another, and I waited a little longer: it really did become less, and finally died away. The shocks lasted several minutes. Afterwards I walked round with my candle to look for cracks. There was only one of any consequence; but that I could put my hand into. However, I did not think it mattered very much, for the beams went the other way, and if the worst came, only the end of the room would fall out: so I went to bed again.

After this I got to work again at the Hospital. I attended regularly at a certain hour in the morning; the patients daily increased so in number, to nearly two hundred a day, that at the end of the week I became feverish with a Hospital throat. This was very annoying, for I had to stop away for a couple of days. I was afraid His Highness would begin to think he had made a bad bargain in engaging a Doctor who was generally ill, or fancied himself so. However, I was soon better, and on the following Sunday went to the Palace to lay a report before the Amîr. His Highness had asked me to test the purity of the spirit, “Brandy, Whisky, and Old Tom,” that was being made in the Kabul Distillery.

I found His Highness downstairs in one of the small rooms of the Erg Palace that open from the Octagonal hall. He was lying on a fur-covered couch heaped with pillows. He looked better than he had done, though he still had some gouty pains in the right knee.