If a man were thirsty he drank whatever water was at hand: out of an irrigation ditch fouled with wayside filth, from a polluted well, or the Kabul river. So far from avoiding fruit and vegetables the townspeople ate of them largely.
When men dropped down in the Durbar, and the Palace attendants were seized, the Amîr and the Court moved from Endekki to Rish Khor, in the direction of the Paghman Hills.
As I was needed among the sick, His Highness did not withdraw me from the town. I was living between Chandawal and the gardens around Timur’s Tomb, and soon the cholera spread its wings over us. The houses near me were made desolate, and one of my servants lay dying in the garden.
This man was an Afghan hillman, a good fellow, cheery, and really, it seemed to me, honest. No one told me when he was first taken, for he said—
“Why should the Doctor Sahib be troubled for such as I, he has enough work with others.”
The next day when the pains and the cramps came on, one of the servants reported the matter to me. I went to the man at once, but it was too late; he was collapsed, with sunken eyes, his nose was peaky and blue, the skin of his body cold and his hands shrivelled. I looked at the other servants and asked why I was not told of this before.
None of them answered. The man seemed grateful that I had seen him, but he died in the night.
I visited a good many at their houses. It would have been absurd to wait for an order from the Amîr at a time such as this; sometimes I took the Armenian to translate, at other times I went alone, for I knew enough Persian to get along with. My guard—often a single or a couple of soldiers—waited outside the house while I went in. A guard was really superfluous, for no one was likely to hurt me: on the contrary, I was welcomed with every sign of gratitude.
As regards the form of treatment I had adopted, I found it successful in a great many cases, though the proportion of those who recovered, compared with the number of deaths in the town, was doubtless excessively small. Hundreds, however, took the medicine whom I never saw. Some would carry out the instructions I gave them to the letter, others would take the medicine but consult their friends as to the instructions. These cases did not do so well, and I ceased attending where I was not obeyed.
Exodus of the Court.