LIFE OF EUROPEANS IN KABUL
Life in Kabul—Houses and gardens—Guards and danger from
“Ghazis”—Allowances given wives—Servants and swindling.
I have often been asked, “But didn’t you find it lonely in Kabul?” and in
giving an affirmative answer, the memory of the many weary hours spent
alone after worktime is always brought back to me. In the loneliness of
life in Kabul lies its worst feature, and the effect on one of living
such a life for several years is far from beneficial, but the extent of
the ill effect produced is not properly estimated until one returns to
civilization. There is no social intercourse between the Afghans and
Europeans, the utmost in this way being a ceremonious call, on some
feastday, by those who are well disposed towards the English, and this
is generally a compliment for which a substantial return is expected by
those who pay it.
The loneliness is worse in the winter than in the summer, for then the
days are short, and the evenings from four o’clock until bedtime seem
interminable, and it gets worse as the winter progresses, for there is
little to make time pass but read, and one gets tired of that when
there is nothing else to do for several hours each day, and especially
so when there is seldom a new book to read. I used to welcome work which
necessitated the preparation of plans and drawings, because I could do
these after nightfall and make the time pass more quickly; and when all
else failed as a means of amusement, I got one of the clocks and took it
to pieces and cleaned it, and otherwise damaged it. Another work I left
for the evening was the analysis of ores which were sent from all parts
of the country to the Amir, who passed them on to me, and I was glad of
them as a means of making time pass. Altogether it is very different
to what it is in India or England, where the evenings may be passed
pleasantly in so many ways.
In Kabul there is no amusement that one does not make for one’s self,
and there is not much to make amusement out of, unless one cares to
make a joke of tragedies. On Fridays and holidays the day may be spent
in shooting, for most of the summer months quail and blue pigeon can be
got in the fields outside the city, and in the winter there are plenty
of duck and snipe to be found on the chamans. The chamans are flat
stretches of ground in the valleys, which are partly covered with water,
where grass and weed abound for water-fowl. The birds, though, are very
much hunted, and are consequently very wild; but they afford the better
sport on that account, as being much more difficult to shoot. The late
Mr. Fleischer, who was in Kabul during the last three years I spent
there (he was murdered by the officer of his Afghan escort on his way
to India in November, 1904), used to join me on Fridays, and we made a
practice of spending the day on the chamans. We used to take eight or ten
sepoys with us, as a guard is always necessary, and the men were useful
for putting up the game, and we also had lunch brought out to us with
kettles and other things necessary to make tea, so that we could picnic
on the shooting-ground comfortably, and although we seldom got a decent
“bag,” the sport was a welcome variation to the daily routine of life.
In the springtime, when the duck and snipe shooting was over, and the
quail had not come in, we fixed up running targets for rifle practice.
The target consisted of a life-sized representation of leopard or deer,
roughly daubed on paper, which was nailed to an upright frame fixed on a
light trolly. A man using a long rope dragged this trolly over a short
length of narrow-gauge rail, while running at full speed, and in front of
the trolly run we made a fence of young trees, so that the target could
be seen at intervals only. This made very good practice at eighty to a
hundred yards for snap shooting. When tired of rifle practice, we used
to take the native circular net and go fishing up the river. The fish
obtainable in the river near Kabul are few and small, and one must go
up the river for some miles if decent sized ones are wanted, so that we
seldom got fish more than three inches in length, but although those we
netted were small, they were of a good flavour and resembled whitebait
when cooked. The larger the fish were the less flavour they had.
In the early part of my stay in Kabul I used to go for long rides about
the country, generally unattended, for those were the days when Amir
Abdur Rahman was full of vigour, and it was deemed unwise to meddle with
one of his “Feringhees.” I found, however, that I got enough riding in
the ordinary course of my work, so after a time, I gave it up. Then I got
a bicycle, and used to ride about the country around on that; but this,
too, eventually became uninteresting when there was nothing fresh to see
and the rides had no objective, and the day’s work also was sufficient to
keep me in good health so far as exercise went. I afterwards spent most
of my time during the evening in the garden, except when there was quail
shooting to be had in the fields close by, and I also found that for two
hours before sunset numbers of blue pigeon used to fly over the garden in
twos and threes, returning to their sleeping place from the fields and
mountains, where they had been out feeding all day, and as this offered
good amusement within easy reach, I spent most of the evenings, when I
had nothing better to do, sitting in the garden waiting until one or
another came within range. They afforded good practice, for blue pigeon
fly fast, and, coming from in front and flying over one’s head, they
were more difficult to hit than birds flying past on one side or the
other. We also made a tennis court, and during the last two years were
able to play most days until winter set in. One can play tennis in Kabul
until nearly the end of December, when the snow begins to fall and stops
further play until the following April.
The house I had was one with six rooms below and six above. All the
windows faced an inner courtyard, round the other sides of which ran the
kitchen and servants’ quarters, stables, hamam, etc.; I had windows made
on the outer side of the house also, so that I could not only get a view
of the garden, but make the back rooms light enough to live in. The house
was originally the harem serai in which some of Amir Shere Ali’s wives
lived, and it is the custom in building houses intended for the use of
women to leave the outer walls without windows to ensure greater privacy.
The windows are therefore always on the side which faces the inner
courtyard. For the same reason the roofs of the houses, which are flat
and are used by the women to enjoy the air in the evening, have a high
wall round them so that they may not be seen by other men.
We all had gardens attached to the houses given us, and mine was a large
one; the house, too, was a large one, and was situated on the outskirts
of the city near Deh Afghanan, where there is land in plenty. I took a
good deal of interest in the garden, and grew all sorts of vegetables:
potatoes, cabbage, cauliflower, cucumbers, melons, celery, asparagus,
tomatoes, peas, beans, and other vegetables; all did well in it. I also
grew strawberries, of which fine crops of large fruit were yielded. But
I got little or no fruit from the trees in the garden, for the seven
Kotwali sepoys who formed the guard on the outer gate of the house most
of the time I was there, took care to make away with all fruit as it
ripened, and as they did so at night or while I was away on my work I was
unable to fasten the guilt on them, for although I cared little who had
the fruit I was annoyed at it being stolen.
On one occasion I saw a single apple left in the thickest part of the
foliage of one of the trees, and I sarcastically told the sepoys with
me that I looked upon that apple as my share of the fruit, but I would
leave it on the tree for a few more days until it ripened, and I asked
them to see that it was left untouched. They said, “Ba chashim” (on my
eyes be it); but the next day it was gone, and although all denied having
touched it, no one but themselves had access to the garden. I mention
this to show that the Kotwali sepoys cannot leave untouched anything they
can put their hands on, provided there is a probability of the thief
remaining undetected. On another occasion they stole the bridle of my
horse, and as this was serious, for I had but one, I summoned the guard
with their havildar (sergeant), and told them of the theft, but said
I would wait until the morning, and if it was not found by that time I
should report the matter to the Amir. Early the following morning one
of the sepoys found the bridle lying in some long grass in the garden,
and, as proof, showed me the spot where he had found it. I said that I
had long suspected that there was a shaitan (spirit or devil) about the
house who was in the habit of mislaying articles belonging to me, and it
was fortunate that I knew it, for otherwise I might think that the sepoys
stole the things, and bring “budnami” (ill reputation) on them. They
looked at me undecided whether I spoke sarcastically or meant it, but it
was a long time before anything else was stolen from the house.
The Kotwali guard with me gave a good deal of trouble through their
thieving propensities. When I tried to fix the theft on them, for they
never let themselves be caught red-handed, they would in turn accuse
one or other of my servants, and by all combining their evidence, would
show that one had seen the servant do it, and another one would bring
the man he had sold the stolen article to, and so on, until they made
up a strong case. That the servants stole things if left to themselves
I knew, but I had made a rule that each man was responsible for the
articles in his charge, and had to make good anything lost, and this I
enforced, so that a servant would not be likely to steal and sell that
for which he had to pay double the amount he could sell it for. About
this time, when I was endeavouring to stop the thefts which just then
were very frequent, a particularly bad lot of sepoys being on guard at
the time, the Kotwal was evidently informed of my endeavours, for one
of my servants was taken to prison accused of stealing two teapots from
a tea-seller in the public garden close by, and some of the Kotwali
sepoys with me gave evidence that they saw him sell the teapots to a
shopkeeper in the bazar, and brought forward the shopkeeper and the
teapots as evidence. The matter being taken before the Amir, the servant
was ordered to be put in prison, and the Amir wrote to me to be careful
what sort of men I got for servants, because, if a man was a thief, he
might on occasion become a murderer, and it was dangerous for me to have
such men about me. Having thus, as the Kotwal intended, prejudiced the
Amir’s mind against my servants, any complaint I was likely to make of
his sepoys’ stealing would not be listened to, when they would all swear
that one of my own servants was guilty. Concerning the theft of teapots
just mentioned, I knew the servant to be guiltless, for both before the
time of the supposed theft he happened to be with me for some hours, and
after that until late at night, helping me while I made a bookshelf.
Eventually I got the man released from prison, but he would not come back
to my service, fearing, he said, the enmity of the sepoys. However, they
followed their vindictive custom of not letting a man alone whom they had
once accused, and got him back in prison some short time after, where,
like many another, he disappeared.
The guards of sepoys given to the European servants of the Government
are called guards of honour, but they have also to report all that the
European does, where he goes, who visits his house, or his servants, and
all pertaining to him. This is principally to find out if he is a spy,
and sending reports to the Indian Government, but it also enables the
Amir to find out what manner of man he is. The guard is a necessary one,
to prevent Europeans being attacked by fanatics, or ghazis, as they are
called, of whom there are plenty about, and from whom there is now more
danger of attack than when the late Amir was in his prime.
These fanatics care little, provided they kill a Feringhee, whether they
themselves are killed the next moment or not, for they are then sure of
Paradise, and the houri, and the rivers of milk, etc. I was attacked
by one of them one afternoon in the workshops, while I was squatting
on my heels, directing some masons below me, who were putting in the
foundations of a furnace. The ghazi came behind with an empty 9-pounder
iron shell in each hand, and threw one at me with all his force from
close behind; he aimed at my head, but fortunately I stood up at the
moment he threw the shell, and received it between the shoulders instead
of on the head, and the edge of the shell struck me about half an inch
from the spine. The force of the blow took all power from my body for a
time, but the sepoy with me—there was but one of the guards with me that
day, strangely enough—seized the man before he could throw the second
shell, and pinioning his arms, got him on the ground, while the workmen
gathered as if by magic, and kicked and beat the ghazi so roughly that
he was soon in a semi-conscious condition. I afterwards sent for the
captain of the regiment on guard in the workshops, and had the man made
prisoner, and put in the guard-room there, pending the Amir’s orders. He
was punished by being kept for six months with his hands chained together
with a stick between, so that they should remain about twelve inches
apart, and the punishment included being kept in prison for life. To try
and kill a Feringhee is not a very great crime among Mussulmans, and the
man’s friends very nearly succeeded in getting the sentence annulled a
year or so later, but I used the influence I had, and their efforts were
not successful. For some days after being attacked I was unable to move
about much, and paralysis was feared, for the spine was injured a little;
but Mrs. Daly, the lady doctor, attended me with so much care and skill
that I was soon going about as usual, though for a year or two the place
was tender. The Amir sent his own hakeem (doctor), with many expressions
of sympathy, to examine my hurt. He came for three days to inquire how
I progressed, and then rejoined the Amir at Paghman, where he had moved
his court, to escape the cholera, which broke out the day I was injured.
There were other attempts, but none where I escaped so narrowly, and
these happened in the last three years of my stay in Kabul, that is, when
the late Amir was feeble, and during the reign of the present Amir, who
is not yet a prophet in his own country.
One attempt, which illustrates the narrow-minded jealousy of the Kabuli,
was in the powder-shop, where I went in accordance with instructions from
the Amir to put matters in order, the Amir saying that the powder made
in Kabul fouled the bore of the guns much more than foreign powders did.
The man in charge of the powder-shop was a member of the royal family,
which is a large one in numbers, and he resented my appointment over his
head to the extent of putting flints with the powder in the incorporating
mills and starting them as soon as I entered the shop they were in. There
is always a possibility of powder exploding while incorporation is going
on, and, seeing that he and all the others with him remained outside and
left me to go alone into the shop, I suspected that all was not right,
so, going out, I gave orders for the mills to be stopped, and then I
found out the reason I was allowed to inspect them alone. I said nothing
of this to the authorities, as my report which showed that the quantities
of the ingredients were so arranged as to prove a source of revenue to
those in charge, would, I knew, be sufficient for all purposes.
Europeans are allowed to take their wives to Kabul, and the wives are
generously given a living allowance by the Amir; but Kabul is no place
for a woman to live in, for there are no amusements, and there is
practically no society for her, and few women can live happily who see
no one but their husbands from one month to another; consequently women
are forced back on themselves, and get into a low condition of health,
which soon brings out all the ailments they are subject to. For children
the climate is a good one, and they thrive well. The Afghans are fond of
children, and as they believe that all of them, no matter of what race,
are Mussulmans until they arrive at the age of reason, European children
are well looked after wherever they go, and are admired to the extent
of a large crowd following them about the roads and public gardens when
they take their daily outings. Toys are given them, and their every wish
is a law, so that they are very much spoilt, and usually yell when they
have to be taken from their guards and go into the house to their father
and mother. The change from despot to subject being one little to their
liking.
European women servants are not desirable in Kabul, for they require
looking after too much, and are, besides, of little use except as
companions for their mistresses. They are treated familiarly by
the native servants and others they come in contact with, and form
acquaintances which are not to their credit. Those who were brought to
Kabul in the early part of my stay there by the wives of the English
residents were mostly sent away in more or less disgrace, while the
German nurse, who was taken up there by Mrs. Fleischer, left her when
her services, for which she was engaged, were immediately required, and
went to the present Amir’s harem and placed herself in the hands of his
chief wife, saying that she wanted to become a Mussulman, and although
Mr. Fleischer went to the Amir’s palace late that night to get the woman
to return, if only for a day, or until the trouble was passed, the Amir
said he could not use force to make her do so, but she could return for
a time if she wished, and this the woman refused to do. Consequently
Mrs. Daly had her hands very full looking after Mrs. Fleischer and the
baby all that night and the next day unattended by any nurse. The German
nurse eventually got a husband, which was apparently the chief reason
of her apostasy, although at first it seemed likely to be a difficult
matter, for when the Amir called together his attendants and asked who
would marry her, her face had unfortunately been seen by them, and none
volunteered. In this we see one advantage of the Afghan marriage custom.
The Amir at last bestowed her on a Kafri officer, whose pay he raised,
and a house was given them to live in.
As there are no Christian churches or clergymen in Kabul, Mrs.
Fleischer’s baby was christened by her husband, Mrs. Daly and myself
standing as sponsors, and the Amir, in a _firman_, giving the child its
name. Any written order of the king is called a _firman_.
The English who formerly lived in Kabul were not unfortunate in having
their social status at home fixed. One lady, the wife of one of the
English _employés_, on stating that her father was a minister, had the
admission promptly translated by the native interpreter as “the daughter
of the _Prime Minister_,” and the other ladies had to keep up to this
standard to prevent themselves being put down as nobodies; consequently
it was a rather well-connected bevy who graced the Queen-Sultana’s court
on occasions.
The servants to be obtained in Kabul are unfit for anything but the
commonest sort of housework, and know nothing of English cooking
or waiting at table. I took a Hindustani cook and a khitmatgar
(table-servant) up with me, and engaged Hazara coolies to carry water,
sweep, and clean things, and to look after the horses. After several
months’ service these men got to know their work, but by the time they
had done so and were becoming useful, they had invariably saved enough
money to return to their own country and start as farmers in a small
way. Some of the Hazaras I had from time to time who worked as cook’s
assistant, were soon able to cook several English dishes, and do it well,
and, no doubt, if they could have been induced to stop long enough, they
would have become good cooks. The Hazaras, however, are a truculent lot,
and quarrels with the sepoys on guard were frequent. In consequence of
this quarrelling there was a good deal of enmity generated, and several
of my servants disappeared, and I found out afterwards that they had
been put in prison by the Kotwali sepoys on a charge of being spies, and
supplying me with information, and while in prison were put out of the
way by one or other of the methods of murder in common use there.
One Hindustani servant who was with me on the journey up to Kabul through
Kandahar, some months later developed into a drunkard, drinking the raw
spirit which is distilled in the Government shops and sold to Hindoos in
the bazars, as well as being used in different manufactures. I put up
with it for a long time, but when I found that matters got worse daily,
and not only the work was not properly done in the house, but a good deal
of swindling was going on, I wrote to some friends in India, and had
another man sent up to replace him. I had kept back part of his pay for
some time to prevent him wasting it in drink and women, as he was fond of
doing, and had given orders to the sepoys on the gate to stop him going
out at night to other Hindustanis’ houses where cards were played, drink
supplied, and loose women were kept; but all this failed to stop the
man’s misbehaviour, and when the other servant at last arrived I obtained
a passport to enable him to return to India, and told him to arrange by
which caravan he would travel, and to see me the day before he started,
when I would give him the wages I had kept in hand. In the mean time he
went to live with some friends, and two or three weeks passed before he
came to me one evening to say good-bye, and tell me that he was starting
for India the next morning. I said good-bye to him, gave him his money
and his road permit, and he went away. A short time after I found that
he had not gone back to India, but had used the money to get married to
a widow—a rather notorious character—and had been paying daily visits
to my old enemy, the Kotwal, who tried to compromise me before the Amir
through this man. He had told the Kotwal many lies to revenge himself on
me; but as nothing he said could be proved, the Amir refused to listen,
whereupon the Kotwal clapped the man in prison as the best means of
preventing his tongue wagging about his own part in the matter of getting
up a case against me, and some few weeks later had his throat cut at
night, and the body disposed of. Of the sequel I knew nothing for some
months, but eventually a man told me the particulars related to him by a
Kotwali sepoy, of how this sepoy had been one of those appointed to cut
the servant’s throat late one night, and how the body had been stripped
of its clothing, and then thrown into a ditch and covered with earth. He
said the man’s screams were fearful when he saw they had come to kill
him, and, knowing his timid nature, I can believe it.
The Hindustani servants I had in Kabul all swindled more or less, and
generally more toward the end of their service, when I was forced to
dismiss them and get others. I had little time to attend to household
affairs, except at night, and then I was, as a rule, too tired to go
into matters properly, and it is not at night that one can thoroughly see
to such things, and I had perforce to accept their statements, such as
the quantity of cattle and horse food bought and used, without knowing
whether the animals had received all that was charged for, and being
morally certain they had not; so the servants, seeing the position, took
advantage of it, as natives ever will. Thrashing servants does little
good, and it besides engenders in them a spirit of retaliation, which
shows itself in small things, such as forgetting trivial household
duties, while pretending to do their utmost to please the sahib, and
though these offences are so trivial, yet when one has other worries
which are irritating they loom large, and are very trying to bear. In
retaliation of this sort the natives are past masters, and mention
of the small duty forgotten sends them into apparent fits of abject
contrition. Both the servant and one’s self know it is all humbug, but
there is nothing of malice aforethought to be proved, so the servant
retires gracefully with, when far enough off, a smug smile, while his
master stands and fumes at his impotence to punish without losing
dignity. Those who do not know the native, and he seems to be much the
same in all Eastern countries, may think that they would find means of
counter-retaliation, but rather than let matters go so far as that,
it is better to get rid of the servant and try a new man, and this
has its drawback, for one who changes servants frequently will soon
find it difficult to get a good one, and in native servants there are
many degrees of quality. The general experience of Englishmen in the
East seems to be much the same, except that some fare worse with their
servants than others, and if those who do not understand the native were
present on some occasions, it is extremely probable they would think the
master most unpleasantly unjust to poor servants, who were doing their
best for him.
If one wants to buy cheaply from the bazar, it is better to send a
native of the country to do the buying, rather than a Hindustani, for
the latter, being known to be an Englishman’s servant, is charged double
the price asked from any one else. When a native of the country does
the buying, he always adds something on to the price when rendering
the account, and so does a Hindustani, but generally the amount of the
commission he charges is less than the other one, and one also saves
the extra price asked by a shopkeeper from the Hindustani servant. I
have tried sending the latest engaged, and therefore the poorest, Hazara
servant to the bazar to buy things, and in his innocence the man has
charged me the prices asked by the shopkeeper, who thought he was dealing
with a poor Hazara, and from the prices so obtained, I was able to keep
some sort of a check on the other servants, and prevent their commission
becoming too excessive. This dustoori, or commission on things bought, is
recognized as quite the right thing by all servants when buying for a
foreigner, and the poor Hazara, who charged me no more than what he paid,
used to have a bad time from the other servants when they found out that
he had made nothing for himself; but a few months’ service and advice
from, and the example of, other servants always corrected such stupidity.
However, I always found the Hazaras more reasonable in their dustoori,
and therefore cheaper to send to the bazar than Hindustani servants, for
the latter were always grasping to the last degree, and generally managed
to kill the goose with the golden eggs by their avaricious tendencies,
and it was a great blow to their pocket, to say nothing of their dignity,
when I would take the purchase of requirements from their hands and
appoint some poor servant to do the work instead, much to the latter’s
importance and swagger before the others.