Word was brought that His Highness would receive us the next day. Jan Mahomed then handed me over to the care of one of the court officials, the “Ferash-Bashi,” or “Keeper of the Carpets.” This was a short stout gentleman of few words, and with a sour expression.
He was dressed rather gorgeously in a cashmere tunic, gold-bedecked belt, trousers, high boots and turban. When I got to know him better, I thought he was not such a villain as he looked. This gentleman conducted me, accompanied by the Armenian, to a house near the Palace. We passed through a covered porch, guarded by a pair of heavy gates, into a garden surrounded by high walls: went along the stone-paved paths, up some steps into a suite of rooms on the north side of the garden. The rooms were beautifully carpeted, and looked very bright and handsome in the setting sun. The “Bashi” informed us that he had orders to send dinner from the Amîr’s kitchen; then politely saying “Binishinēd”—take a seat—he departed. Seeing there was no seat to take, I took the floor, and waited hungrily till dinner should arrive. I had not long to wait, and was delighted to see the servants bring a portable chair and table, with the dinner. I don’t remember what the different courses were, but the dinner was European—soup, joint, and entrées—and ended with a very delicious ice-pudding and fruit.
This house, which His Highness was kind enough to put at my service, is of interest. Here, His Highness himself lived, before he built the Mazar Palace. Here, too, Sirdar Ishak, in the days when he was Governor of Turkestan, kept the ladies of his harem; and here Amîr Shere Ali lived—and died—in the very room I was dining in.
Story of the Death of Amîr Shere Ali.
Amîr Shere Ali had been friendly with the British: troubles arose, and he turned to the Russians. The British occupied Quetta in 1876, and in 1878 the Amîr received a mission from Russia. A British mission being refused entry into the Kyber, war was proclaimed. I need not trace the outline of the war; it is enough to say that Amîr Shere Ali did not receive the help he expected from Russia, and he fled to Mazár-i-Sherif. Here he was seized with his old enemy, gout—a disease that is hereditary in this reigning family.[5]
They say that he was being attended by a Russian physician, and that the pain being very severe the physician introduced some medicine beneath the skin; then escaping by night to the Oxus he crossed into Russian territory. In the morning Amîr Shere Ali was found dead. For some days his death was concealed, but finally the fact was betrayed by a serving woman.
At once the soldiers of the regular army commenced looting. The Palace was stripped; then the bazaars and the wealthier people suffered, and soon there was a pandemonium of riot, robbery, and murder. This having occurred once, the fear is lest it may occur again. Many of the well-to-do natives of Afghanistan have that dread; and at the time when the present Amîr was severely ill, in 1890, there was such trepidation and anxiety in Kabul, that many of the well-to-do concealed their more portable valuables by burying them in the earth, and sought for safer retreats outside the town, to which they could hurry in time of need.
The House.
The house did not differ from those of the richer Kabulis. The windowless twenty-feet-high walls, in addition to ensuring privacy, enabled the occupant on closure of the massive doors to convert his house into a place of defence. It was partly overlooked, however, by one tower or observatory built on the top of a high house some little distance off. It was here, I was informed, that Sirdar Ishak lived. He could, therefore, catch a glimpse of the ladies of his harem when they were walking on the roof.
The large square garden was filled with fruit-trees and flowers: roses, wallflowers, sweet-williams; and in the centre was a movable wooden platform. In nearly every garden in Afghanistan you find, in some shady place, generally by the side of the stream that ripples through the garden, a platform a foot or two high, either of wood or carefully smoothed earth. Here the Afghan, in his loose native garb, loves to spread his carpet and sit in the hot summer afternoons lulled by the murmur of the water, lazily talk to his friends and drink unlimited tea. I have done it myself.