KABUL—_continued_
How streets are governed—City magistrate—Robberies and
murders—Bazar shops—Style of palaces and better-class
houses—Climate of Kabul.
Each kochee or bazar in Kabul (streets with or without shops are called
bazars) has a kilantar or headman whose duty it is to report to the
Kotwal (city magistrate) all births and deaths in his street, keep order
among the inhabitants, see that the street is kept clean, and to govern
it generally; and he is held responsible for any lawlessness that occurs.
Soon after the death of the late Amir there were many robberies in
different parts of the city, and all efforts to trace the thieves were
unavailing. In some cases a man who shut up his shop and house and
spent the night with a friend would return home in the morning to find
the whole contents of the shop looted. So many similar cases occurring
it was evident that the thieves were well informed of the movements of
the householder they intended robbing. In other cases the owners were
awakened by the noise made, and in an endeavour to protect their property
were wounded or killed by the thieves, and, at last, the inhabitants were
in a state of terror, while in the bazars nothing was talked of but the
robberies and murders. The Amir was petitioned, and he offered a large
reward to any one giving information of the robbers, but without result.
Eventually, a shopkeeper who was sleeping, as is usual at night in fine
weather, on the roof together with one of his relatives, both with swords
on account of the fear prevailing, was awakened by two of the robbers
stumbling over him after climbing up to the roof from the outside. He
sprang up and raised an outcry, and his relative jumping up too, they
made at the robbers with their swords; but the latter, firing their
pistols at them, ran off. The shopkeeper, although wounded, ran after
them and managed to cut one of the men across the arm with his sword and
then seized him, and in the struggle that ensued continued to call for
help, until at length some neighbours hurried in and helped him to secure
the thief. The relative, however, lay dead, shot through the heart. In
the morning the robber was taken to the Kotwal who, by the Amir’s order,
applied different tortures in order to make him confess the names of his
confederates. Some thirty names were so obtained, and the men were caught
and made prisoners, and among them was a kilantar (headman) and one or
two Kotwali sepoys (police). The latter, by giving the password of each
night to the gang, had enabled them to pass the street guards without
question, and made it easy for the robbers to visit any house they
desired, and get back to their own houses before daybreak.
[Illustration: THE MIHMAN KHANA (GUEST-HOUSE), KABUL.]
[Illustration: PORTION OF GARDEN ATTACHED TO MY HOUSE—SAINT’S GRAVE IN
THE CORNER OF GARDEN.
[_To face p. 48._]
The houses where the stolen goods were stored were also made known, and a
large quantity of jewellery, carpets, shawls, copper utensils, and other
articles were obtained, from which any of the persons robbed were allowed
to take those articles belonging to them on giving proof of ownership.
Of the robbers, five were blown from the gun, some were blinded, and the
others were imprisoned for life.
In Kabul a bugle sounds the “wardi” between eight and nine o’clock every
night from each police station, and it is sounded again in the morning at
sunrise. Between those hours no person is allowed to go about the streets
without giving the password for the night, and should any one be found
who is unable to do so, he is detained in the guard-room until morning,
when he is taken before the Kotwal, who fines or releases him according
to the quality of the excuse given.
The bazar shops are very small, the greater number of them being about
a huckster’s stall in size. The front of the shop is open, and at night
it is shuttered and padlocked. There are no glass doors or windows, for
glass is too rare and costly except for the Amir’s palaces. The plinth of
the wall projects in front of the shop into the street, and on this the
shopkeeper sits, with his goods ranged on the floor and shelves of the
room behind him. The goods offered for sale are principally grain, fruit,
vegetables, sugar, and other provisions, cloth and cotton goods, shawls,
boots, and articles of apparel, leather goods, copper, tin, and iron
utensils, etc. There are tea shops where a man can get a small pot of tea
for less than a halfpenny, but if he takes sugar with it he has to pay
about a farthing extra.
In the bazars are also letter-writers, for the use of those who cannot
write themselves, who charge a halfpenny to a penny for each letter
written, the stamp, of course, being extra. The principal bazars are
named after the article mostly sold there; such as Gandam Farosh (wheat
bazar), Zaghal Farosh (charcoal), Kunah Farosh (old curios), etc.
Revolver and rifle cartridges can be obtained also, but are expensive,
ranging from two to four cartridges for a shilling, according to size and
demand.
The better-class houses are usually built of sun-dried brick and mud;
there is a good deal of wood-work about them, and sometimes the whole
front of a house is built up of wood. There are two parts to each house.
The inner part is the harem serai, where the women are quartered, and
here the rooms are built in such form as to surround and look out upon an
inner courtyard; and an outer small house, which is built over the gate
of the harem and overlooks the street, for the use of the man, and where
male visitors are received and entertained by him. The largest houses
have also a garden attached to them, which is surrounded by a high wall
to insure privacy when the women walk in it, for no woman must allow
her face to be seen by any man excepting only her nearest relations.
The door leading to the women’s quarters in all houses has a kopchee or
door-keeper, and no one is allowed to enter any house until its master
has given permission, and no woman is allowed to leave the house unless
the kopchee has been told by the master to permit it.
The palaces of the Amir and princes are the only well-built houses in
Kabul. The Amir’s principal palace is Arak. Arak signifies “fort” in
Turki, and “palace” in Persian. It is a large fortified place, some
five hundred yards square, and is surrounded by a deep and wide moat.
The surrounding walls are double and very thick. The outer walls are
loop-holed for cannon and Maxims, while an earthen embankment, carried on
arches connecting the two walls, is sloped up from above the embrasures
to the inner wall, the top of which is slotted for riflemen. Under this
embankment are the rooms where the guns are worked. Inside the fort
offices and storerooms are built up against the inner walls, together
with rooms for the men of the garrison who form the Amir’s bodyguard, and
are specially selected and highly paid. In the Arak fort are also the
public and private treasuries, and all the modern rifles and cartridges,
of which there are many thousands, are kept in the storerooms there. The
Amir’s palace inside Arak, and the harem serai for his women, are both
surrounded by a high wall, which forms an inner defence when so required,
and besides these are other rooms for the Amir’s use, which have lately
been built alongside the north tower, and at other places inside the
fort. The inner area of the fort is laid out as a garden, and at one end
of the garden is a large glass-covered hothouse where the Amir sits very
often in winter, surrounded by shrubs and flowers, and with bulbuls and
other singing birds in cages suspended from the roof.
Outside Arak are situated the Boistan and Gulistan palaces. While of the
summer palaces, Shahrara (city’s adornment) lies about a mile to the
north-west of the city, and a couple of miles further on lies Baghibala
(high garden), which was the late Amir’s favourite summer palace and
where he died. More to the west, and about eighteen miles out of the
city, is the summer palace at Paghman, a green spot at the foot of the
Hindu Kush mountains. South of Kabul, and about one and a half miles from
the city, is Baber, where another summer residence has been built beside
the tomb of Baber Shah, the first of the Moghul emperors, who was buried
there in 1530. Six miles out in the same direction is Hindeki, where the
present Amir has a summer palace, which he used before coming to the
throne. A little to the south-west of Hindeki lies Kila Asham Khan, where
the summer palace of the Queen-Sultana of the late Amir is situated.
In the gardens outside Arak are two large salaam khana (audience
chambers) which were built by the late Amir to afford room for large
public durbars. These, in addition to the audience chambers proper,
have smaller rooms attached to them, and the late Amir was in the habit
of spending several days together in the new salaam khana, which is a
handsome building.
The Kabul climate is a good one, and very bracing. Situated as it is
some seven thousand feet above sea level, the air is rare, and it is, of
course, much colder than other places on the same latitude. At first, one
experiences a little difficulty in breathing when walking uphill, and
is inclined to doubt the efficiency of one’s lungs, but this wears off
afterwards. I once climbed up the Hindu Kush to the limit of the snow in
summer, and found the air very exhilarating and fresh; but I had to stop
frequently to recover breath, and the air I breathed seemed altogether
insufficient and not satisfying, like that at a lower altitude.
Although there is usually very little rainfall, during two of the summers
I spent in Kabul, thunder storms, with heavy downfalls of rain, were
frequent. In these storms the flashes of lightning were almost continuous
and the peals of thunder were deafening, and without cessation; but the
electricity was expended on the heights close to the city, and there are
very few cases on record of a house being struck.
In the winter heavy falls of snow are common, and when the wind drifts
it, the smaller houses are sometimes covered. After a fall of snow,
hazara and other labourers are called in with their wooden shovels to
clear it off the roofs, as it would otherwise melt when the sun came out,
and, percolating the mud covering, make the rooms below uninhabitable,
and the added weight of snow is often the cause of a roof falling in. The
snow is shovelled off the roofs into the streets below, where it piles
up and takes months to melt, and keeps the roadway near by in a muddy
condition; but the Afghan cares nothing for a little extra mud or dirt,
and no one takes the trouble to clear away snow which will melt away
itself in time—that would indeed be wasted labour. Latterly, arrangements
have been made for carting it away from the principal thoroughfares, and
in time the people may see the advantage of clearing all thoroughfares
alike.
When the summer is dry, dust storms are of almost daily occurrence, and
are very unpleasant when one is out walking or riding, and in the house
it is also unpleasant, for all doors and windows have to be kept shut,
and the rooms become very hot, and everything one touches has a gritty
feel. In hot weather the air is usually still until about three in the
afternoon, and then a wind rises, blowing from the north, and, coming
in gusts and eddies downwards, lifts up columns of dust so effectively
that in a short time it is difficult to see, and this wind continues to
increase in violence until about an hour after sundown, when it gradually
dies away, and then, in the stillness that follows, the noises of the
night sound very loud.
The winter of 1901-02 was an exceptional one, for no snow fell the whole
of the winter. I was told of a similar winter about twelve years before,
which had been followed by cholera, and in this case history repeated
itself, for in the spring the rivers and streams from the mountains dried
up, the crops failed for want of water, and famine set in, and in the
summer following, when food was scarcest, cholera broke out and raged for
three months, and owing to the impoverished bodies of the people, the
mortality was exceptionally high.
During the winter the days are mostly bright, and the sun shines
brilliantly on the snow, causing it to thaw. In the evenings it freezes
again, and then the roads are like polished glass, and men, horses,
and camels fall and are injured, the animals often breaking their legs
and having to be destroyed. The sun, shining on the snow, also causes
a good deal of snow blindness. But the most trying time in winter is
when the skies are overcast, and a great wind rises which nothing will
shut out of the house. Then at sundown the temperature falls below zero,
and continues to fall as the night advances, and even with a huge fire
burning in the room, one is warm only on the side nearest the fire, the
other side of the body being chilled with the continuous draught which
comes in at every crevice as the wind surges against the house in seeming
heavy waves. Those outside who have to bear the brunt of this wind,
suffer considerably, and often lose feet, hands, or nose with frostbite,
and soldiers on guard frequently die of cold, for they are very
insufficiently clad to stand such weather. At this time, too, wolves come
down at night from the mountains, driven by hunger from their natural
fastnesses to seek food near the city, and attack and kill men whom they
find helpless with cold and fatigue, and carry off children, sheep, and
goats when they can get them.
One peculiarity about the climate is the quantity of electricity in all
things. If one walks across a room in the dark, dragging the feet along
the carpet, sparks of electricity follow the feet; also, if one strokes a
dog smartly down the back, the same thing is noticeable. When undressing,
the shirt, as it is pulled over the head, causes a crackle of electricity
as it drags over the hair, and women, when brushing their long tresses,
find each hair electrified and standing out straight from one another as
the brush leaves it.
The clear, rare air makes distances very deceptive to the eye, and
mountains at a considerable distance appear quite close. Once, when
riding one of the longest day’s journeys I have done in the country, I
was told in the morning that we should camp under a conically-shaped
mountain in the distance, which could be seen rising between the dip of
two ranges of mountains, and, looking at it, I put the distance down at
twenty to twenty-five miles, and looked forward to early lunch that day;
but evening was well advanced before we reached our camping-ground, and
we travelled at a steady pace the whole of the day.
The clear atmosphere also makes the moonlight very brilliant, and the
effect of the sleeping city bathed in the white light of the moon as
seen from the roof of the house at night, the harsh outlines of houses
and mountains toned down, and the domes of palaces and tombs rising
above the other buildings is very beautiful. Day dispels the illusion,
for the clear atmosphere and absence of vapour makes the colouring of
the landscape very dull, and the brilliant green of the trees here and
there appears objectionable as out of keeping with the rest of the colour
scheme.