Asiatic Motives from European Standpoint.
By whose orders had these things been done? I asked myself. Who was responsible for them? The Prince, whose service I had just entered? He whom I was to attend in sickness; to the preservation of whose health I was to devote all my knowledge and skill? I tried to believe not; that the deeds had been done without his knowledge; that the stories were exaggerated: anything than that they were true; but the horror of it all remained with me long. As the months went by, however, I perceived that to view the conduct of an Asiatic ruler over a turbulent country from the standpoint of Western nineteenth century civilization, is to commit not only an error, but an injustice. It is an error, for it leads one to quite wrong conclusions as to the character of the chief actor: the Amîr was simply proclaiming, in language that Asiatics understand, his determination of being king in Afghanistan. It is an injustice, for education and civilization cannot advance with such strides in an isolated Eastern country as in Europe; and without the progress of knowledge the sons cannot learn better than their fathers. Again, the Mahomedan religion—does it uphold forgiveness, long-suffering, pity, and humility, as virtues? On the contrary, it claims an eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth. It tends rather to encourage cruelty, for it spreads its very tenets by slaughter. With what justice, then, could I view these things from our Nineteenth century standpoint, seeing that less than two hundred years ago, with our religion, similar deeds were committed among us.
A fortnight after my arrival, Captain Griesbach departed for India. He was accompanied by the Interpreter who had translated for me before the Amîr: His Highness had desired the Interpreter to remain in his service, but the man refused.
During the interview when I was presented, His Highness had directed me to take charge of the military hospital in Mazar. Remembering the men in Tash Kurghán, I wondered what I should see. Early in the morning I rode off, accompanied only by the Armenian. His Highness had decided that in Turkestan it was unnecessary for me to be followed everywhere by a guard of soldiers. He was my guard, he said, “and the Mazaris are little likely to injure one for whose arrival they have been anxiously watching.” One or two precautions he directed the Armenian to take. He was not to conduct me out on the plains more than a mile from the city—this on account of Turkoman highwaymen; nor near a gang of prisoners, for they were dangerous men, and in spite of search carried concealed weapons; nor near a regiment of soldiers with fixed bayonets—for as he significantly put it, “They have attempted even my life!”
The way to the hospital was through the narrow, covered bazaar or market-place. This was crowded with people, and caravans of camels and pack-mules from Kabul and Bokhara.
Houses and Plains of Mazar.
The rough roofing of the bazaar forms a grateful shelter from the scorching sun. The shops are similar to those of Kabul. After the bazaar come winding streets among the houses. Space here is not so limited as in Kabul, and though the streets are no wider, the houses are less lofty. In style they differ much from the Kabul houses; generally, the rooms are square, eight or nine feet high, with a domed brickwork roof. One, two, or more rooms, side by side, for master, servants, and horses, constitute the house. Often there are no windows, light being admitted through the door and through an aperture in the centre of the domed roof. This last acts also, when a wood fire is lighted, as a convenient chimney. The sandali, however, is generally used in the winter. The houses stand in an enclosed yard or garden, but since the domed roofs of the houses are not used for the promenade as are those of Kabul, the garden-walls have no need to be more than seven or eight feet high. This style of house is peculiar to Turkestan, though there are, in the suburbs of Mazar, many houses precisely like those of Kabul. The walls, built of sun-dried bricks and coated with mud, become painfully white and glaring in the summer sun.
We reached one of the gates of the town and rode out. Here, in the suburbs, are the summer gardens of the richer men. Far away are the mountains, blue in the distance. Mazar lies on a malarious, almost desert plain in Turkestan, nine miles east of the ancient city Balkh, and thirty miles south of the Pata Kesar ferry, on the Oxus river, so that we were near the Russian frontier.
The plain is desert, because of the absence of water. When the snow melts in the warmth of the spring, the plain becomes a blaze of red flowers, wild tulips—poppies, my Interpreter said: but these shrivel up and die in the summer. The gardens of the town, and the fields immediately around it, are irrigated by an artificial canal, made, I was told, by the Amîr’s father during the few months he reigned. They said the water was brought south from the Oxus, but I fancy it must come from the mountains towards Malmul.
The hospital, a short distance out of the town, was once the suburban house and garden of a wealthy man.