At the Court of the Amîr: A Narrative

by John Alfred Gray

CHAPTER XV.
The Amîr’s Conversation.

Sent for to the Palace. Fragility of Europeans. The Amîr’s postîn. The Bedchamber. The King’s evening costume. The guests. The Amîr’s illness. School in the Durbar-room. The Amîr’s conversation. Companies of Khans: the water supply of London: plurality of wives. The Amîr is bled. Further conversation. His Highness a physician in Turkestan: an iron-smith: a gold-smith. Drawing. Discussion as to the Amîr’s portrait. Amîr’s choice of costume. The Shah of Persia. Portraits of the Shah in ignominious places. The rupee and the Queen’s portrait. Cigar holders. Concerning Afghan hillmen. Dinner. The Amîr’s domestic habits. Amîr’s consideration for subordinates. Conversation concerning European customs. The new Kabul. Native drugs. Soup and beef tea. The paper trick. Page-boys with fever. The Kafir Page. European correspondence. Vaccination of Prince Mahomed Omer. Afghan women. The Prince’s house: his chamber: his nurse. The Prince. The operation. Abdul Wahid. Afghan desire for vaccination. The Armenian’s useful sagacity. An Afghan superstition. The dreadful old lady and her suggestion. The nurse’s remark. The Agent’s secretary. His comments upon Bret Harte: the meaning of “By Jove”: the Christian belief in the Trinity. European “divorce” from an Oriental point of view: plurality of wives.

That evening, about seven o’clock, a messenger came from the Palace saying that the Armenian was wanted at once by Amîr Sahib. I was a little startled, wondering if anything had gone wrong. About half-an-hour afterwards the Armenian, accompanied by a soldier with a lantern, returned, and said that His Highness wished to see me.

Sent for to the Palace.

Outside it was dark and freezing, and His Highness had been kind enough to send by the hand of the Armenian a postîn for me, lest I should take a chill again and have a return of fever. For, as the Armenian put it, “Highness say Afghan is stone man, heat is not hurt it, cold is not hurt it; but European very soft man, likes flower, soon cold is take it.”

The postîn, of crimson velvet lined with a valuable fur called in Persian, “khuz”—I think a species of marten—was made to fit the noble proportions of the Amîr. On my lean figure it showed to better advantage wrapped round as a cloak.

Guided by the soldier with his lantern, we reached the Palace and waited a minute or two in the anteroom: presently a Page boy came out and called me in. I wondered what could be the matter. But it occurred to me that it could not be anything disagreeable or His Highness would not have sent me his own postîn.

I was shown into His Highness’s bedroom—at least, so I conjectured, though it bore no resemblance to our ideas of a bedroom. It was a smaller room than the one I had been in at the Tuesday’s Durbar, and on the other side of the centre hall or passage.

At one end of the room was His Highness, seated on a divan or broad couch which was covered with furs. In front of him was what looked like a large ottoman covered with a quilt which was partly concealed by a cover of Indian embroidery. This was a “sandali,” and underneath was the charcoal brazier. On the divan were piled cushions and large pillows covered with velvet and silk brocades.