At the Court of the Amîr: A Narrative

by John Alfred Gray

The price of slaves varies according to their quality: ordinarily it is thirty rupees the span: by span I mean the distance from the outer side of one hand to the outer side of the other when, with the fingers closed, the thumbs are extended to their utmost, the tips touching. This is roughly about a foot, so that a baby that length would cost thirty rupees. However, in Kabul, a short time ago, a Hazara baby was bought for half-a-crown; the purchaser got the mother for fifteen shillings, and a little boy of six for five shillings. This woman, with her children, were the family of a Hazara of wealth and position. Unfortunately the tribe rebelled; the men were mostly killed, and the women and children became a glut in the market. Some time after the purchase I was asked to examine the small boy of six medically. He had been ill about ten days, and a Hakim had been called to attend him. The case had been diagnosed as typhoid fever—and the opinion given that the child was improving. I found the child had meningitis, or inflammation of the membranes of the brain. He died the same night: a sheer loss of five shillings to the owner.

I saw the mother during my visit, she was a good-looking woman for a Hazara. She did not make much disturbance at the death of the child, at any rate while I was in the house. She seemed more stunned than anything else.

Recently in Kabul it was a very common sight to see a gang of Hazara women, with their unveiled faces and their dingy blue dresses, ragged and dirty, conducted through the town by a small guard of soldiers with bayonets fixed. As the war progressed they became so plentiful that His Highness would often reward a faithful servant or officer by presenting him with one or more as an addition to his Harem.

I had been in Turkestan some three months when I was sent for one morning to see a young man, the brother of one of the few remaining powerful Afghan chiefs. Most of the others have been “expunged.” As a rule I did not visit the sick at their homes unless I received an order from His Highness to do so, or unless some one I knew personally sent for me to visit him. This young man, however, was a friend of the Armenian’s. His brother’s territory lay not very far from the British frontier, and he himself was a hostage with the Amîr for the good behaviour of his brother, the Chief. I found he had malarial fever very severely. When I returned home my neighbour opposite, the Mirza Abdur Rashid, sent for me to see him. He also was down with the fever. I prescribed for them both.

The next morning I felt rather ill myself, but started about eight to see the Chief’s brother again. The sun seemed frightfully scorching that morning, it was August, and presently the headache I had grew so intense that each step was agony.

I gave in at last, and turned my horse home again. I went into the inner room and sat on the charpoy. The Armenian shut all the doors and windows to keep out the heat, and propped me against the wall with pillows. Then the backache began. Oh, my bones! I was one great ache. The Armenian had seen the treatment I put others under, and he weighed out the medicines and brought them to me. I was too stupid with fever and aches to care what I took.

Just then the British Agent’s Secretary, Amin Ullah, was announced. He was an interesting man, but I was compelled to greet him with lugubrious groans. He brought me five home letters, which my aching eyeballs would not allow me to read.

Postal Arrangements for the British Agent.

I used to send my letters through the Agent’s post in those days. He had a separate compartment in the Amîr’s post-bag which, by arrangement between the Government and His Highness, was locked and sealed. Once or twice the letters did not reach their destination, and it was said that some of the wild hillmen had pounced on the postman and carried off his bag. They might do the same to anyone carrying a bag, but it was never found out who were the robbers. Afterwards, I did not send my letters through the Agent’s post, but sent them direct to the Amîr’s post-office. His Highness allowed me to send and receive three letters monthly, free of postage. This was not so small a matter as it seems, seeing that in Turkestan the postage of each letter came to rather more than its weight in silver. All I had to do, therefore, was to stick on an Indian stamp. I found my letters arrived about as safely through the Amîr’s post as through the Agent’s, at any rate for some years. Afterwards, when we came to Kabul, I found there an Interpreter, a Hindustani, who was in favour with the Prince. He tried hard to get on as Interpreter for me; thinking, probably, that baksheesh from the patients could be worked; as I would not have him, he proceeded to intrigue against me. I did not take much notice of the man, knowing that he could not do much harm. However, he succeeded in getting hold of some of my home letters, which was sufficiently annoying, and once he placed me and the other Englishmen in Kabul in a position of no little danger: how this occurred I will relate presently.

I got well of the fever in about a fortnight, and then I heard that both the Chief’s brother and the Mirza Abdur Rashid were still ill. I had thought that, of course, the medicine I had prescribed had been given them every day. No, everything was at a standstill, both with them and at the Hospital, just as I had left it a fortnight before; this is so truly Oriental.