At the Court of the Amîr: A Narrative

by John Alfred Gray

I, of course, visited them, and they rapidly got well under quinine.

At this time His Highness requested me to visit one of the page boys, the son of a former Commander-in-Chief at Herat, who was sick. He was a smart lad of about fifteen; in appearance very like an English boy. His house was just opposite a low tower where the chief bugler took his stand morning and evening to sound the royal salute. As I visited the boy when my day’s work was done, I was generally in his house when the evening salute was sounded. The bugler was a stout red-bearded man with blue eyes: he looked just like an Irishman. But however much these men may look like English and Irish, closer acquaintance shows how strongly contrasted the Oriental is with the Occidental. The boy recovered in due time, but there is a story about him, an incident that occurred a year or two later, while I was in the country, which may be interesting.

The Page Boy and the Sirdar.

The boy was not a bad sort of boy—he looked English—and we were very good friends, so that I quite enjoyed my visits to his house—but he was an Afghan. One day the Sirdar Gholam Hussain, the dignified man who has charge of His Highness’s food, directed the boy to perform some slight task, I forget what, and the boy bluntly refused. The Sirdar spoke sharply to him, but the boy apparently resented being spoken to, for he at once drew his revolver and shot at the Sirdar; he missed, and whipping out his sword he rushed on him. The Sirdar warded off the blow and threw the boy down. He was brought before the Amîr. In consequence of his former behaviour—he had been rather a favourite with the Amîr—and on account of the services his father, who was dead, had rendered the Amîr—his punishment was remitted to the extent of a severe caning, and he was discharged from the Court for a time and sent back to Herat.

Some months later he was recalled. This was not the end of his adventures, for soon after his return he objected to the smallness of the pay he received as page. The Amîr increased it somewhat. The lad, apparently presuming upon the Amîr’s remarkable forbearance, again expressed discontent. His Highness is not a man to be played with. He was exceedingly angry, and the punishment was proportionately severe. The boy was degraded and sent to jail in Kabul. This is a horrible place, and they who enter it are often never seen again. However, when we returned to Kabul, I met a gang of prisoners in chains returning to jail after the day’s work in the arm foundry: the boy was among them; but he covered his face as I rode by. He was in prison about two years. I met him one day after he was released. He looked very haggard and old, not at all like the boy I had known in Turkestan. I pulled up to speak to him, but he seemed even then to wish to escape observation, so that I merely said, “Jour-asti? Are you well?” and rode on again.

The Chief’s brother, when he became quite well, came very often to see me. He was a handsome fellow, and I made a sketch or two of him in my note-book. He had a great desire to learn drawing, but he was never any good at it. I taught him how to write his name in English, and he learnt a few words also.

One Sunday morning, September 15th, 1889, I was surprised to hear a considerable uproar: there was the report of rifles, the playing of military bands, and there seemed to be an air of bustle and excitement with everyone. Presently a man came rushing breathlessly into my house to tell me the news. It was not an advance of the Russians, nor even an outbreak of the Hazaras: no, the Sultana, the favourite wife of the Amîr, had given birth to a son. Had it been a daughter the matter would probably have been hushed up.

The Bearer of Good Tidings.

“Why this hurry?” I said to the Armenian.

“This man, Dîn Mahomed, a little he is my friend; I know a child come into house of Amîr Sahib, but I know not when: better this, at once we go to Harem Serai and send in Salaam, and Her Highness made glad upon you.”