This time there was ample accommodation for us, and after an excellent dinner, the last I had in British territory for many a long month, we turned in.
The Shenwaris: Caravan of Traders.
After Landi Kotal, the Khyber narrows up. We wound in and out round the fissures and water channels in the face of the mountain, and climbed up and down as before; but presently the guard unslung their carbines and closed in round us. It was the Shenwari country we were now traversing, and these Pathans, even by the Amîr’s soldiers, are considered dangerous; for what says the proverb, “A snake, a Shenwari, and a scorpion, have never a heart to tame.” The Amîr had, however, partly subjugated them even then, and a tower of skulls stood on a hill outside Kabul.
Then we came to a series of small circular dusty valleys surrounded by rocky mountains. There was nothing green, and the heat was very great, it seemed to be focussed from the rocks. Further on we caught up with a caravan of travelling merchants with their camels and pack-horses.
These men belong almost entirely to a tribe of Afghans called Lohani. They come from the mountains about Ghazni. In the autumn they travel down to India with their merchandise and go about by rail and steamer to Bombay, Karachi, Burma, and other places for the purposes of trade. In the spring they go northward to Kabul, Herat, and Bokhara. Under the present Amîr they can travel in Afghanistan without much danger, but in the reigns of Shere Ali and Dost Mahomed they had practically to fight their way.
They go by the name of Povindia, from the Persian word Parwinda, “a bale of merchandise.” When I was in Turkestan I became acquainted with one of these men. He was a white bearded old Afghan who had been, he told me, to China, Moscow, and even to Paris. He tried to sell me a small nickel-plated Smith and Wesson revolver.
We rode by the caravan of traders and reached Dakka, on the banks of the Kabul river. This is the first station belonging to the Amîr. The Colonel commanding came out to receive us, and conducted us to a tent on the bank, where we sat and drank tea. We were much interested in watching some Afghans swimming down the river buoyed up by inflated skins—“mussaks.” Grasping the skin in their arms they steered with their legs, the force of the current carrying them rapidly along. Two men took a donkey across. They made a raft by lashing four or five skins to some small branches; and tying the donkey’s legs together, they heaved him sideways on to the raft. Clinging to the skins they pushed off, and, striking out with the legs, they were carried across in a diagonal direction. By-and-bye some men floated by on a rough raft made of logs. They were taking the wood to India for sale.
The river here, though not very deep, is dangerous, on account of the diverse currents.
In the centre, to the depth of three or four feet, the current runs rapidly down the river; deeper it either runs up the river or goes much slower than the surface water.
A few years later I was travelling past here, one hot summer, with Mr. Arthur Collins, recently geologist to the Amîr, and we determined to bathe. Mr. Collins, who was a strong swimmer, swam out into the middle: I paddled near the bank where the current was sweeping strongly up stream. Mr. Collins, out in the middle, was suddenly turned head over heels and sucked under. He could not get to the surface, and, therefore, swam under water, happily in the right direction, and he came up very exhausted near the bank.