At the Court of the Amîr: A Narrative

by John Alfred Gray

Then we turned north, and the next day was wearisome: not so much from the length of the march, it was only thirty miles, as from the incessant climbing. We had a mountain to cross, to which all that we had hitherto seen was a mere joke. The Afghans call the mountain the “Tooth-breaker” (Dandan shikan). I don’t mind trifling adventures, such as riding along the tops of walls, or foot-wide bridges, but when it comes to riding an iron-shod horse along smooth rock, slanting to a precipice of unknown depth—well, it is past a joke. We had to do it, and then descend a horrible “zig-zag.” I don’t call it a path, because the predominant features were boulders, smooth tilted slabs, and rolling pebbles. You lean back in the saddle, leaving your horse to make his own arrangements. He picks his way warily, lower and lower, and you thank Heaven you have got so far, when, just as you reach the end of one “zig,” and your horse’s nose is over the edge, there is a crunching slip of his hind feet: you catch in your breath and—think. But he does not make a plunge over the edge, he pivots round on his four feet, and goes down the “zag.” This is repeated frequently, and at last, after many years, you arrive with your nerves in a shattered condition at the bottom. The next time I came over this road, a year or two later, there were accidents; but that I will speak of later.

We travelled on, day after day, through valleys and over mountains—sometimes putting up at villages, sometimes camping in our tents. Rain and hail alternated with scorching heat. To blacken you properly, you want a dry scorching heat, alternating with icy winds and hail. Some of the soldiers looked exactly as if they had been smoked: the eyelids and creases of the face being white—the rest black.

Story of Ishak’s Rebellion.

We often had music when we camped, and one evening I played chess with Jan Mahomed. He beat me. We were then at Ghuzni guk, the valley where the armies of the Amîr and of his cousin Sirdar Ishak Khan met and fought. The story I heard was this: His Highness the Amîr and Ishak had always been friends, and when the Amîr ascended the throne, Ishak was made Governor of the Turkestan provinces. All went well for some years. Suddenly, news arrived in Turkestan that His Highness had had an attack of gout, and had succumbed.[3] Ishak called his officers around him, and discussed what steps to take. The chiefs urged him to seize the throne. He, however, was a nervous man, not a warrior by nature, and he hesitated. The chiefs seeing this, broadly hinted that unless he seized the moment while he could, they would place another on the throne, and Ishak, much against his will, was constrained to do as they wished. He sent his women-folk and children across the Oxus into Russian Turkestan, and marched with his troops and chiefs for Kabul. They had not advanced many days’ journey when news was brought that the Amîr was very much alive, and that his army was marching under Gholam Hyder, the less, to meet them. Ishak knew now that he must meet his Great Cousin, and in fear and distrust he posted relays of horses, so that, if the worst came, he could escape across the frontier. They met in this valley a few miles beyond Kamard. It is said that Ishak’s army at the outset had the best of it—the men knew they were fighting for their lives—but Ishak, neither Mahomedan nor Christian, did not wait to see the end of the day. He made use of his horses, and rapidly escaping across the frontier into Russia, he left his unfortunate followers to bear the brunt of the Amîr’s terrible vengeance. It appears that the rumour of the Amîr’s death had some foundation: His Highness had been seized with a sudden attack of syncope, in which he fell insensible to the ground.

One Sunday we had a very long march, thirteen hours, with two rests of an hour each. Going one pace all the time is tedious, and one’s bones ache abominably. We got into a ravine with a rapid stream roaring along it, and part of the path was undermined and slipping. We had to dismount and skip across on foot, the soldiers getting the horses over.

The ravine narrowed, curved to the right, and opened out into a valley. The river roared round the corner, figure S shape, in some places cutting away the path completely. Our horses had to plunge, and stumble, and splash through that river three times in twenty yards, before we could get out into the valley. It is at times like this that the beautiful song “One More River to Cross” becomes full of meaning. A mile or two more of hill and vale, and soon after dark we reached “Tash Kurghán,” or “Khulum,” the place where Lady Sale and her companions in captivity were to have been taken.

We put up at the citadel or fort, which is built on a rocky hill in the middle of the town. We rested here all day Monday, and I enjoyed the luxury of a hot bath. The Armenian waxed philosophical. He said, “It is good to rest a little. Tired is go away, and hungry is go away.” Also he suggested that a shave might commend itself to my judgment.

“But who is to shave me?” I said.

The Wounded Soldiers in Tash Kurghán.