Among the Wild Tribes of the Afghan Frontier / A Record of Sixteen Years' Close Intercourse with the Natives of the Indian Marches

by T. L. Pennell

After he had heard the arguments of the Subadar, the Mullah relented, and said that he knew how to make a charm which, if it were always worn round the boy’s neck, would effectually prevent him from being contaminated by any heretical teaching which he might have in the school; and if ’Alam Gul were admonished to be careful always to wear this charm, he might safely be allowed to go with his uncle. So when the leave of the latter expired, ’Alam Gul was put into his charge, and went off with great excitement, filled with hopes of what he would do in the great school of which he had heard so much.

The day after his arrival in Bannu the Subadar sent ’Alam Gul down to the school in charge of a soldier of his regiment.

The soldier and ’Alam Gul came into the mission compound, and, seeing some boys standing about, told them their errand. One of the boys offered to take them to the head-master. They were taken to the school office, and here they found the head-master. He was an old gentleman with a grey beard and a kindly face, Mr. Benjamin by name. When a young man he had himself been converted from Muhammadanism to Christianity, so that he was able to sympathize with the religious difficulties of the boys under his charge, and he had been for thirty years head-master in this school, and was looked up to by the boys as their father.

’Alam Gul’s certificates were examined, and he was told what books he must obtain, and that if he came the next morning he would be enrolled as a scholar of the Bannu Mission School.

This being an Anglo-vernacular school, where English is taught in all but the very lowest classes, boys who come from the village schools have to spend one whole year in learning English, in order that the following year they may be able to take their place with the other boys in the class to which they are entitled; so ’Alam Gul was enrolled in this, which is called the “Special Class.”

The next day the soldier again brought him, and left him alone in the school. Here he was surrounded by a greater number of boys than he had ever seen before in his life—boys of all ages, all sorts, all sizes, and all religions.

There were some Muhammadans from his district, but none from his village, or that he knew, so he felt very nervous, and wished himself back again in the little village school on the mountain-side among his old playmates.

Then the letters of the English language seemed so uncouth and different from the euphonious sounds of the Arabic and Persian alphabet, to which he had been accustomed.

“A, B, C,” said the master, and “A, B, C,” repeated the other boys in the class; but he found he could not shape his mouth to these unfamiliar sounds, and tears began to flow at the apparent hopelessness of the task which he had undertaken with so much enthusiasm. However, day by day the work grew easier, and new friends and acquaintances began to be made among his class-mates. Every day there was some fresh astonishment for him.

In the village school he had played what they called Balli-ball, a village imitation of cricket, played with rough imitations of bats and wickets; but here he found that every class had its own cricket team, which played with real polished bats and balls brought all the way from Lahore. And above all was the School Eleven, composed of boys who were looked up to by young hopefuls of the lower classes, much as we might regard a County Eleven in England—boys who played in real wilayiti flannels, and had matches with the English officers of the garrison, and saw that the other boys in the school treated them with the respect due to their position.