One day I spent some hours in a shop where I had discovered a fascinating collection of Bokhara work, of skins, and of Afghan weapons. The shop was far back in a dark, barn-like building; it was more like an empty granary than anything else. The proprietor rolled up half a dozen skins for me to sit on; then he sent his servants climbing up bamboo ladders into the garret. They brought down huge rolls of temptation. When I came to pay for what I had bought, my purse was gone. A great excitement ensued, initiated by Ayah and my chokera, both of whom I had taken in with me. We hastened to the gharri, followed by the merchant and all his assistants. Both the gharri wallah and the sais were fast asleep, lying across the road some yards from the gharri. About fifty natives, men, women, and children, were crowded about the carriage. They were examining my wrap and a Maltese lace scarf I had carelessly left on the seat. They made way for me good-humouredly; and on the front seat lay my purse. Nothing had gone from it. That was the nearest to being mobbed I ever came in the East. Yet I was told by European women, who had lived for two years or more in Peshawar, that nothing would tempt them to venture into the native city, without half a company of soldiers.
You enter Old Peshawar through one of the picturesque, dilapidated gates, to which you become so used in the Orient. As you go on, the streets grow narrower and the natives thicker. There were streets where I saw nothing but pottery, most of it blue and green, all of it very common. It looked very rich and effective a few yards off, but when I went to the booths, in which it was displayed, it was unmitigatedly ugly. I bought one dish, because I thought it was the ugliest piece of pottery I had ever seen. It is made of mud and is very breakable. Strangely enough I managed to bring it safely home, and it even escaped the destructive fingers of the Custom House officers at Liverpool. There were streets, miles long, where I saw nothing but shoes and shoemakers. Most of the shoes were bright red or green, thickly embroidered with tinsel and mock pearls.
A queer zig-zag canal runs through Old Peshawar; it is crossed by bamboo bridges. On the banks, under the blazing sun, sat the sellers of mettie and other Indian sweets. There were piles of countless melons, some of them bursting with their own lusciousness, there were mountains of cocoanuts, and huge heaps of curry stuffs. I stopped to buy a bag of gram, of which I am as fond as an Indian. A high-caste woman came up, and bargained with the old man who had the stall, for a few pie worth of gram. She wore the graceful red trousers of her caste, and was hidden in the full folds of her white bourkha. A naked black baby toddled at her side. He had thick silver bangles on his ankles and a string of blue beads about his fat waist.
My husband and an officer friend arranged to take me to the Khyber Pass. By the way, the correct spelling of that is Kaibar, I think, but I haven’t the courage of my knowledge; I fear not every one would recognise the word. The “tum-tum” was packed full of ice, a hamper of provisions was slung beneath. The escort was ready; we were to start at midnight; to avoid, as far as possible, the fearful heat of the torrid place into which we were going. At ten o’clock we were having a wonderfully nice little supper with some officers who were going with us on horseback. I remember that I had an oyster on my fork when an orderly came in with a note saying that the commanding officer was extremely sorry, but he could not allow me to go. Only that day Afredeeds had fired upon a non-commissioned officer who was escorting a gun from near the Pass to Peshawar. I sent a return message, pleading very hard for permission to go; but it was refused. My husband might go, if he chose, but the commanding officer was a Queen’s servant, and he would not risk, in the slightest way, the life of a woman. I was so disappointed at missing the excursion that the men all gave it up and remained with me in Peshawar. We lingered on in Peshawar for two weeks hoping that the Pass would become safer; but it did not. The war cloud thickened, and I was forced to leave without getting even a passing glimpse of the land of the Ameer. One morning early I rode out with a young officer. We went as near the mouth of the Pass as I could induce my friend to take me. As it was, he said he would be cashiered if we were caught. I had one glimpse of a group of Afredeeds, however, and a fine, manly-looking lot they were, despite their cruel faces.
Peshawar—Peshawar of the cantonments—is dull and vapid. It is reiterated drifts of sand, and since I might not journey into Afghanistan I was glad to leave Peshawar.
CHAPTER XXXVIII
AN IMPROMPTU DINNER-PARTY IN THE PUNJAB
We had finished the last of several brief but delightful theatrical engagements in Rawal Pindi—if one may use the phrase “theatrical engagement,” in connection with so small a band of strolling players as we had been. The afternoon train was carrying the last of our little company to Bombay. In twenty-four hours we two were going on—by a pleasantly broken route—to Karachi. But, in the meantime, we are going to give a dinner-party. How it all comes back! We had played Caste the night before, with the kind help of regimental amateurs. Such a funny performance of Caste! (But that’s a story by itself.) At the close of the performance we had asked “Hawtree,” “George D’Alroy,” and the prompter to risk a dinner (so called) with us the next night. “Hawtree” was a popular subaltern in the 60th Rifles; his real name is a grand old English name. The prompter (also in the 60th) was no less a person than the son of his Excellency Lord Roberts. “George D’Alroy” was a young Irishman; his blood and his eyes were very blue, but they were the only blue thing about him. He was a Gordon Highlander, doing special duty at Rawal Pindi. Besides playing “D’Alroy” he had danced and sung “Ta-ra-ra-boom-de-ay” between the acts, arrayed in my “Polly” wig, all my jewellery (real and otherwise), and a specially-constructed costume.
India is, par excellence, the land of bad hotels. We were living in Rawal Pindi at one of India’s few not bad hotels. They gave us fruit,—they knew how to cook tomatoes, and (test of tests!) their ice never gave out. But the capable European manager, who had another hostelry at one of the hill stations, was away, and I felt that it behoved my hostess-ship to aid, though not abet, the khansamah.
At five o’clock, when the early Indian sun called softly all men to rise and pay Sabbath worship to lavish Nature, my ayah brought me my chota haziri. Chota haziri means little breakfast. Translated by an unsupervised khansamah or a mean European boarding-house memsahib, it means two small slices of cold toast and one cup of vile tea. But a well-trained ayah translates it: “one cup of good tea, one bunch of black grapes, one Bombay mango, red heart of one melon, and an egg just come.” Indian fruit in the early Indian morning! It is something even to remember it. I had my bath; there are three kinds of baths that can only be properly enjoyed in the Punjab: sun baths, mud baths, and water baths. I got into my gharri—a barouche, if you please, but a very shabby one; with a rather black, rather naked coachman, and a very black, very naked footman; and I was driven to the “bazaar”: driven through green picture bits of landscape, canopied by the marvellous blue of perfect sky, and clothed with the indepreciable silver of Indian lakes, where the pink water-lilies floated: driven through the native streets, with their fascinating panorama that was teeming with life primitive after many centuries,—streets dense with Oriental architecture, some rich, mostly squalid, all graceful—and all having matchless accessories: driven to a “bazaar” that beggars my description, and would, unless you have seen it, overtax your imagination.