At the Court of the Amîr: A Narrative

by John Alfred Gray

“If the Feringhi,” they said, “gives a pinch of dust (jalap powder) or only water, the sick became well!”

The Durbar Hall and Guest House.

In the Palace gardens outside the moat, and about a hundred yards from the out-patient hospital, I saw a large white building with pillared verandah and corrugated iron roof. This was the “Salaam Khana” or Hall of Audience. It is a long high hall, with twelve lofty windows on each side draped with English curtains: two rows of white pillars support the ceiling, which is decorated in colours with stencilled and lacquered plates of thin brass. The floor is covered with English carpets, and when, as is frequently the case, a dinner is given by His Highness to the chief officers of his army, long tables occupy the aisles, and each guest is accommodated with a cane-seated wooden arm-chair. During a banquet or festival, the hall is lit in the evening by two big “arc” electric lamps, the dynamo of which is worked by a portable engine, which is brought from the workshop for the occasion. The building lies east and west, and is entered at the eastern extremity by a big doorway and portico. The western extremity is entered through a large vestibule with portico and steps. Here the building is carried up another story, and this part of the Salaam Khana constitutes the Amîr’s Guest house.

On the ground floor are the great hall, the vestibule or entrance hall which opens into the Palace gardens, and three smaller rooms. A stone staircase with wooden balustrades leads to the upper floor. Here there is in the centre a large pavilion, the Guest House, lighted by many large double windows, which open on to the covered balcony or terrace on the roof of the lower rooms. The Amîr and, sometimes, Prince Habibullah, are accustomed to spend a month or two in this house, living in the upper pavilion, or in one of the lower rooms.

A few days after my first appearance at the dispensary, I heard there was a military “In-patient” hospital situated in the Sherpur cantonment, which lies to the north of the town about a mile and a-half away.

I determined to visit it, and one afternoon, after finishing at the City dispensary, we started along the Old Mall which leads from the town, past the Erg Palace to the cantonment.

We passed first the Salaam Khana, and then, further on, at the extremity of the Palace gardens, I saw a small monument about twenty feet high. It was square at the base and carried upward like the spire of a church. On the square pediment was an inscription in Persian. This monument I learnt was erected by His Highness to the memory of those soldiers who fell in the last war against the British.

On the other side of the Old Mall, commencing opposite the Palace and extending as far as the monument, is a row of one storied buildings. These open not on to the road, but on the other side into vegetable gardens and fields at the back. This row of buildings which turns a corner opposite the monument and extends down a road running east to the Kabul river, the Amîr has built as a barrack for the soldiers of his body guard. About four feet from the doors of this row of buildings is a narrow stream of running water, artificially made and used, after the Afghan custom, both for ablutionary and for drinking purposes, as well as for the irrigation of the vegetable gardens.

The Sherpur Cantonment.

Proceeding on our way we approached the lofty battlemented walls surrounding the Sherpur cantonment. This oblong enclosure which lies nearly east and west a mile and a-half due north of the city, is a mile and a-half along its front, nearly three-quarters of a mile along either end, and backs upon two low hills about three hundred feet high, the Bemaru heights, at the east base of which, within the enclosure, lies the Bemaru village. The hills protect the north side: the other three sides are protected by the high walls, which are complete except for half the length of the east extremity just by the Bemaru village.