Howard Hensman

“ Nothing can be quieter than the city, which has always been so notorious for bloodshed and turbulence: the shadow of the scaffold is over it, and not one among the ruffians who throng its narrow streets, and hide in its filthy purlieus, but feels its influence. They have hitherto traded upon our known weakness—the worship of the quality of mercy,—and it is only now that they understand the new principle of retribution we have introduced into our policy. Like Pollock, General Roberts might have destroyed their bazaar and left Cabul to its fate ”

“ Is it any more wonderful that an Afghan tribesman, shut out from the wonders of the outer world, should believe the clap-trap of his priest, than that highly-cultured scholars in the full glare of civilization should accept the dogmas of Papal Infallibility, or a crowd of devotees watch with awe-stricken faces the liquefaction, periodically, of the blood of a saint dead and gone ages ago? ”

“ We talk less scandal; we are less covetous of other persons’ property, animate or inanimate; we do not turn night into day to the music of the trois temps or “Pinafore;” and we do our duty quietly, albeit with a little wholesome grumbling. But as news drifts up from the Khyber line, and we learn how the poor fellows between Gundamak and Lundi Kotal are grilling in their single-fly tents with manifold troubles on every hand, we grow placidly thankful that we are in Cabul, with good thick walls about us, and a foot of mud between us and the sun. ”

“ Not a sign of intelligence, nor an expression of approbation or dissent, was made in the assembly. From the Sikh and Ghoorka sentries standing in rear of the tent to the fringe of tatterdemalion retainers peering in over the sirdars’ heads, all were quiet as if cogitating upon the new policy enunciated. Our late envoys to the Sirdar, Afzul Khan and Ibrahim Khan, standing behind Sir Donald Stewart, stroked their beards silently and proudly; this was the outcome of their dangerous journey to Khanabad. ”

“ And the easy-going Sirdar answers so fully to this description, that it would seem as if the cares of life sat very lightly upon him. Such men are too characterless to repay observation; and though we see many of them here, we pass them by contemptuously, except when a mountain of flesh more than usually formidable looms upon us in cantonments. They are not men given to fighting or political intrigue; and such as we have now among us are anxious only as to their allowances which the “Great British Government” guarantees to them while they are faithful to its interests. ”

“ Inside the city one could not fail to be struck with the open display of force made at every available point. There was quite a crowd of European soldiers and Bombay sepoys filling the Shikarpur Gate as General Roberts and his Staff entered the city, and nearly every man seemed to have his bayonet fixed or sword drawn. No doubt Candahar bears an ill-reputation for ghazi-ism, and there were many discontented spirits within its walls even after the 18,000 Pathans had been turned out; but the display of naked weapons certainly struck us poor pilgrims from quieter Cabul as unusual and alarming. ”

“ Whatever has been necessary for the support of the army has been liberally paid for. Since I came to Cabul, I have been in daily intercourse with you; but I have never heard an Afghan make a complaint of the conduct of any soldier, English or Native, belonging to Her Majesty’s army.
“The British Government has always been well-disposed towards Afghanistan. You all know how it supported and assisted the former rulers of the country. It has no other wish than your happiness and prosperity; and it is with this object alone that to-day it recognizes Sirdar Abdur Rahman Khan as Amir of Cabul.” ”

“ An infidel army is in occupation of the country, and under the outward cloak of sudden submission is hidden deep hatred of the intruders on account of race and religion. In every village and hamlet the men listen eagerly to the preaching of the moollahs, who stir up their passions by lying stories of the coming time when their religion will be insulted and their zenanas violated by the Kafirs. The appeal is made first to the two objects most precious in the eyes of an Afghan or of any other Mahomedan—his faith and his women. ”

“ As we have had daily to watch the string of men passing along under escort to the Bala Hissar, many a keen regret has been felt that leaders like Nek Mahomed and Kushdil Khan have not been in their ranks. The demeanour of the men hanged has, in all cases, been one of stolid indifference: they accepted their fate as a matter of course, and, when surrounded by the bayonets of the Highlanders, tried to keep up a semblance of soldierly bearing, by marching in time and keeping shoulder to shoulder. ”

“ One enthusiastic writer, speaking no doubt from experience, asserts that the mind of an Englishman cannot imagine the extent to which intrigues are carried on in this forward city. Wife, daughter, or mother, could, according to his account, pass from the zenana into the narrow thoroughfares about, and with perfect confidence visit any lover upon whom her eyes had fallen. Every figure loses its identity in the folds of the white drapery which completely envelopes a woman from head to heel, and the yashmak covering the face blots out the features more thoroughly than a mask. ”

“ No better men than Sikhs could he found for such work, and in a few minutes Bahadur Khan’s villages were in flames, and volumes of dense black smoke pouring over the valley, a high wind aiding the fire with frantic earnestness. The villagers had carried off all their portable property, not even a charpoy remaining, but the Sikhs ransacked every place for hidden treasure, and smashed down the earthen corn-bins in hope of gaining a prize. ”

“ The mass of men, said variously to have numbered from 8,000 to 10,000, who had gathered in the orchards and been driven into the basin and towards the rear of the Baba Wali Kotal, were hopelessly broken by the steady wave of men which swept them backward. General Baker’s brigade harried them whenever they tried to cling to cover in the lower watercourses, and the 92nd were driven like a wedge between them and the slopes of the ridge, smashing into their midst when they tried to rally at the two guns, and utterly breaking what little cohesion they still possessed. ”

“ Waiting for the attack has grown so terribly monotonous, that we daily curse the tactics pursued by Mahomed Jan, who only sends out 200 or 300 sharp-shooters to blaze away their ammunition at our sentries. It has become so apparent that no real assault is likely soon to take place, that we are half-inclined to go out and deal with the enemy. But, fortunately for them, they are in Cabul, and street fighting with our small force would be almost a useless sacrifice of life. ”

“ To loiter before the goods which may charm her eye seems no part of her business, even when a more than usually brilliant display of silk or embroidered shoes attracts her. Her walk is hurried, her time, perhaps, is precious, and she glides among the crowd quietly, and as if shunning attention, though no one, unless he be a Kafir, pays the least regard to her presence. ”

“ Every man born in Afghanistan is born to a soldier’s life, not the life of camps and campaigns so much as the constant struggle of intertribal warfare, or time-honoured family feuds. Every man’s hand is familiar with the use of jhezail or rifle, tulwar or knife, and a successful leader is far more honoured and more faithfully followed than a chief who lives by intrigue and begs his way to power by lavish bribery. Abdur Rahman ruled in Cabul, after Dost Mahomed’s death and Shere Ali’s usurpation, by 418mere force of success in arms. ”

“ The people will give supplies when each village is visited by a purchasing party, strongly escorted by our cavalry; but otherwise they would gladly let us starve sooner than open their grain-stores for our benefit. The few days on which we had to fight, every villager who thought he could do so with safety to his own skin pulled trigger upon detached parties of our men; and if the headmen are now coming in, seeing Cabul is at our mercy, it is because they dread a visitation from our troops. They are as insincere in all their protestations of friendship as forty years ago ”

“ If we had not needed every man at Sherpur, why should we hurry away from our first outpost under cover of darkness? This was the argument which went home to the hearts of the men in the hills about Khurd Cabul and Tezin; and all the local chiefs, with one exception, turned out their fighting men, and thought of the slaughter of our army in the terrible defile of 1842. Padshah Khan, in his villages nearer the Shutargardan, was carried away by the same reasoning; and, with customary treachery, he hastened to Cabul to fight against the men he had pledged himself to support. ”

“ Government intends to keep the sword for its enemies and the money for its friends; and if you are wise you will count yourselves as our friends. Those people deceive you who preach a jehad, and say the English are the enemies of Islam. In India fifty million Mahomedans enjoy under the government of the Queen greater liberty, happiness, and security than in any country of the world; and it is the British Government which has many times, by a great expenditure of men and treasure, guarded and preserved the empire of the Sultan of Turkey against his enemies. ”

“ Not a man in the force that is now about to make the final advance would feel other than the keenest pleasure in seeing Cabul burn, for it is hopeless to expect an armed rabble, such as that which now holds the city, to show a steady front when General Roberts’s army closes with them. They lack leaders to direct their movements, and though arms and ammunition may be plentiful in their midst, their organization is about equal to that of a European mob suddenly placed in power after a long period of strict government. ”

“ All these shops belonged to Mahomedans; they had escaped looting, and their happy owners were now placidly returning to their every-day life, though, perchance, during the Mohurrum they ruffled it with the best, and swaggered about, threatening death to all Kafirs. They know our weakness for sparing a fallen foe, and they trade upon it systematically. They will take our rupees to-day, and be all subserviency or sullen independence—not so much the latter now—and will cut our throats and hack our bodies to pieces to-morrow as part of the beautiful programme drawn up by a far-seeing Providence. ”

“ We are a colony of men—chiefly young men; and Cabul society is so very select that 307we have not yet gained an entrance within its sacred limits. If we were to make ceremonial calls upon the zenanas, we should probably be confronted by some buck-Afghan, with a knife in his hand and an oath in his mouth. Love and war do not go hand in hand now in Cabul, although they did forty years ago; so we must sigh in vain for a glimpse of that beauty which the yashmaks hide so jealously when the Cabul ladies flit by us in the narrow streets of the city. ”

“ We are going so roundabout a road that civilization seems a long way off: our friends are within twenty days of Peshawur, where the untold luxuries of dak-bungalows and gharries begin. Sir Donald Stewart’s march will, it is expected, be a very peaceful one, for the chief Ghilzai leaders are with the Amir, who has been quietly warned to keep them with him and out of mischief until the troops have got to the east of Gundamak. What may happen to Sir Frederick Roberts between Cabul and Candahar no prophet, Kafir or Mahomedan, can venture to say. ”

“ Perhaps the explanation is that Abdur Rahman has not in Cabul itself a faction worthy of the name. His prestige lies not so much in the sympathy of the citizens as in the support the hardier tribesmen are willing to give him as a soldier and a ruler. There is something in his success in Eastern Turkistan which has drawn the independent and reckless spirits of Kohistan, Koh-Daman, and Logar to him: it may be the boldness with which he has declared himself claimant to the throne, or that his old fame as a successful general still lives in the hearts of the people. ”

“ But beyond the immediate exercise of military power in Cabul and its neighbourhood, we can do nothing. There is no responsible Government which could take out of our hands the task of hunting up the men who have been guilty of treachery and murder; and as our first duty is to our dead Envoy and not to the living Amir, it follows that our present work is that of judges and not of king-makers. That work has to be done, and we are doing it unflinchingly, and until it is completed, the Amir must be content to accept his position as a sovereign in leading strings. ”

“ The time has gone by for weak sentimentality: military law alone should now guide Sir F. Roberts in his dealings with the people, for it has been proved beyond question that to act humanely is merely to encourage the Afghans in their belief that we are unequal to controlling them. Instead of leaving an indelible mark upon Cabul, we have enriched it by our purchases of winter supplies, and have poured lakhs of rupees into the purses of the very men who had nothing to expect but the fate of a conquered race. ”

“ The sentries are on the alert, and have, of course, had to endure cold and discomfort; but the great body of men have rested quietly. To-day also, no attack has been attempted; and while we are settling down to the new conditions imposed upon us—for we are now practically in a state of siege—our spirits are as high as ever. We chafe under the delay which must necessarily ensue before we can once more disperse the enemy; but we hope that the troops from Jugdulluck and Gundamak will soon put us in a position both to hold Sherpur and to have a few thousand men outside, dealing with the Ghazis. ”

“ Prestige is such a delicate plant in Eastern soil, that it should be carefully guarded. Our military preparations in and about Cabul—the building of strong stone towers on the Bala Hissar Heights and the Asmai Hill, the cutting of military roads to the Cabul gorge, the re-occupation of the Bala Hissar, the clearing of the country about Sherpur of forts and walls—do not convey much to these Hindus. “You want more men if you are to hold Cabul, and keep out your enemy. ”

“ They are mostly Kizilbashes and Cabul-born Hindus, many of whom have travelled far and have seen most of the cities of Central and Western Asia. As traders they are as keen as Jew pedlars: as visitors they make themselves as much at home as our intimate friends. To bargain with them is an exercise in chicanery that would quicken the wits of a Shylock: to listen to their soft flattery as they extol the benefits of British rule is to believe that we are the finest race in the world. ”

“ Our great hope is that no exigencies of party politics at home will cause a modification; it would be fatal to our prestige if we had to withdraw from resolutions now made public. The Cabul chiefs had already been told what they had to expect; and the Barakzai sirdars now learned what decision the Government of India had arrived at—Candahar to be the fief of an independent prince; an Amir to be elected by the voice of the people, who should be friendly to the British; and the withdrawal of our army when such a man had been found—these were the main points. ”

“ But the true ghazi is a phenomenon—he at least deserves the scientific and sonorous title—and even Afghan fanaticism cannot bring forth many, however great may be the eloquence of the moollahs. Of the more despicable ghazi—the man who runs amuck in an infidel camp or waylays a Kafir in the streets of a city—I have nothing to say. Cabul has been free from such pests, and we do not wish to hear the cry of “ghazi!” raised. The fanatic generally takes so much killing that our revolver ammunition would run short were he to put in an appearance periodically. ”

“ In the bazaars all is life and hustle. Entering the city by a side-road from Sherpur, one sees the bed of the Cabul river lying waterless on the left, save for a few stagnant pools, where the dhobies are at work, or a vendor of atchcha salad is washing a donkey-load of lettuce preparatory to the day’s business. ”