At the Court of the Amîr: A Narrative

by John Alfred Gray

The educational influence on the Afghans of the Amîr’s Kabul workshops must be, and is, immense. The natives work in great numbers in the shops, being taught by the English engineers who have from time to time been in the service of His Highness, and by the Hindustani mistris, who have been introduced from Lahore and Bengal.

Not only is war material produced in the workshops, but various handicrafts are practised there. One body of men is doing leather work—copying English and Russian boots of various kinds; making saddles, bridles, belts, and cartridge pouches, portmanteaux, and mule trunks. There are workers in wood—from those who manage the steam saws to those who produce beautiful carved work for cabinets and chairs. There are workers in brass, making vases, candelabra, lamps, and many other things both useful and ornamental. There is another department where they produce tin ware—pots, pans, and cans. The most artistic are perhaps the workers in silver. They make for the Amîr or Sultana very beautiful things: cups, beakers, beautifully embossed tea-pots, dagger and sword handles, and scabbards. Their work is, however, rarely original. The Amîr shows them a drawing or gives them a good English model to copy from.

Everything European is now fashionable in Kabul, and European clothing has become more universally worn by the Kabulis than it used to be even at the time I entered the service of the Amîr. His Highness, therefore, finding that his tailors, though they soon learnt the shape of European garments, had not mastered the difficulties of “fit,” sent for an English tailor to teach them. Classes were held on the subject in the workshops and demonstrations given, with the result that such of the Kabuli tailors who attended greatly improved in their system of “cutting,” and obtained much better prices in the bazaars.

I have already related how that the Amîr desired me to start an Art class, and with what success the artists learnt to draw.

It would be tedious and almost impossible for me to enumerate all the different kinds of work carried on in the shops; but I think I have said enough to show that the effects of the workshops, apart from the output, must be immense. There are some thousand or fifteen hundred men at work in them; these scatter to their homes at night and carry the wonderful stories of all they see and do to their friends. In fact, the most popular song of the day is one depicting the life of a lad in the shops. It is supposed to be sung by the mother; but it ends somewhat significantly by the workman being caught in the machinery and killed.

One must remember that this educational system of civilizing is being carried on among a race of men who have been known hitherto simply as fighters and robbers, semi-savages, and who, unlike so many of the races of India, have shown but little if any sign that they were capable of being converted into useful producers.

When I say, finally, that the Amîr offers prizes, and of considerable value, for the best or most original work produced either in the shops or elsewhere, it will be easily understood how much he has at heart the desire to advance his people in knowledge and civilization.

Personal Fascination of the Amîr.

For a man of ordinary intelligence, such as myself, to attempt to analyze the Amîr’s character would be both presumptuous and futile. His intellect, though perhaps more subtile than profound; and his wide knowledge, though more superficial than real, raise him high above those by whom he is surrounded, and by contrast he shines as a brilliant light among the dull flames of his Courtiers. European in appearance, hearty in manner, with a robe of educated civilization, His Highness is Afghan—an Afghan of the Afghans, and perhaps the finest specimen of his race—but yet an Oriental.

We English in his service, dazzled by the glamour of his strong personality and charmed by the kindly courtesy of his manner, grew to feel an attachment strong and personal to His Highness; but there were those among us of the more observant who felt, as the years passed, that we were but as “Pawns” on the chess-board of this Prince, to be swept off with an unshrinking hand when a move in the game might need it.