A strange fragment of frontier boyhood was Amal Khan. He was brought down to us from Afghanistan by a friendly Sardar, who had taken an interest in him. He was only about eleven years old, but his father and most of his family had been killed in vendettas, and his ruling passion was to grow big and strong, buy a rifle, and go in quest of the murderers or their relatives. His gentle little face and winsome manner seemed so out of keeping with the cold bloodthirstiness of the remarks he used to make with the greatest naïveté that he was looked on as a kind of curiosity. Later on, when he had made some acquaintance with Scripture, he used to like to hear the Gospel stories of the gentleness of Jesus—the Good Shepherd, the miracles of compassion, the parable of the Good Samaritan, and such like; but even then the passion for revenge seemed to dominate his little breast, and he finally went back to his village across the Afghan border in order to apply himself more seriously to the object of his fate.
Once a well-to-do Afghan brought down his three sons to place them in our hostel, and told me I might use any means I liked to discipline them, short of shooting them. He had evidently found them too much of a handful himself. They had been accustomed to run wild in a wild country, and any idea of sitting still in a classroom to learn lessons seemed to have never entered their heads. They seemed so accustomed to the use of knife and revolver that the other boys, Afghans though they were, came to ask me to take precautions for their safety. Finally, when I had to “discipline” them, and that was not before very long, they all three disappeared, and I never saw them till, some years later, I visited their village.
Once a Government civilian wrote asking me to take a young ward of court into my hostel. The account of him was not promising, as, though only sixteen, he had been turned out of two schools for misconduct. His family was of noble Afghan descent, but had been bereft of most of its male members owing to the wretched blood-feuds, and this boy was now the head of the family. Hoping to be able yet to save him and to make him a power for good instead of for evil, as he must by his position become one or other, I consented, and a day was appointed for his admission. The day passed, but the boy did not appear. I then got a letter from the officer responsible for him, saying that as he had just murdered his younger brother, the hope of his schooling must be abandoned.
Some of the masters of the little Government primary schools in the more remote parts lead very unenviable lives, especially if they happen to be Hindus. Their pupils often defy their authority, and they are afraid to chastise them. I have myself seen a boy allowed to sit in class with a loaded revolver in his belt. The unwillingness of the master to enforce his authority is excusable, yet, had he complained, he would merely have lost his place and his pittance. On another occasion I came upon a poor Hindu schoolmaster in a certain village who was about to send in his resignation. He had punished a boy for playing truant, and the father had just been round with a loaded rifle and dared him to touch his son again.
Mahsud Labourers at Work in Bannu Cantonment
In the mission school the work of the day commences with roll-call, at which a portion of Scripture is read by the headmaster, and the Lord’s Prayer repeated. During the latter the boys have to stand. They do not object to this, but I remember once a Hindu boy being accused of having become a Christian because he had shut his eyes and folded his hands during the prayer. He told me that many of the boys really joined in the prayer, and certainly they have got to value and appreciate prayer. On a Sunday evening the boarders come to my house to sing hymns from “Sacred Songs and Solos” and vernacular collections, and if I omit to offer the usual prayer at the close, they remind me of the omission; they do not wish to go away without it.
Bannu Mission. A Group of Students
Once, at a cricket-match with a rival school, when the issue of the game was hanging in the balance, and depended on the last man, who had just gone in, making four runs, a Muhammadan Afghan, one of the eleven, retired to a corner of the field and repeated the Lord’s Prayer, closing it with a petition for the victory of the school, and returned to find the winning run just made! At meetings of the schoolboys among themselves it is not uncommon for prayer to be offered by one of the number, and at a farewell dinner given me in 1908 by some pupils a very beautiful and touching prayer was offered by an old Hindu student, now reading in the Lahore Medical College, and all the other Muhammadans, Hindus, and Christians stood up for it.