THE KABUL BAZAARS.
The unpopular Governor and his toothache. The meeting in the Erg
Bazaar. Appearance of the Kabul Bazaars. The shops and their
contents. Boots, shoes, and cobblers. Copper workers. The tinning
of cooking pots. Impromptu tobacco pipes. Tobacco smoking by
the Royal Family. Silk and cotton. “Bargaining.” “Restaurants.”
Tea drinking. Confectioners. The baker’s oven. Flour mills. The
butcher’s shop. Postîns and their cost. Furs. Ironmongers. Arms.
“The German sword.” The Afghan tulwar. Rifles and pistols. Bows.
Silver and gold-smiths. Caps and turbans. Embroidery. Grocers: tea,
sugar, soap, and candles, and where they come from. Fruiterers.
Tailors. “The Railway Guard.” Costume of the Kabuli townsmen.
Personal effect of the Amîr on costume. Drug shops.
One day soon after I arrived in Kabul the Governor of the city--the
notorious Naib Mir Sultan--of whom I shall have more to say later,
sent to say he was very ill. He had been suffering for days from an
agonizing toothache. I was advised not to visit the Naib because he
was not in favour with the Prince. I therefore sent him some medicine
and directed the Armenian interpreter to go, and if he found a decayed
tooth to introduce a small pellet of cotton wool soaked in creosote. A
day or two after, as I was returning from the hospital, I met the Naib
in one of the bazaars. He was surrounded by a guard of the military
police, whose Chief he was, and by a great crowd of servants. At that
time he was execrated in Kabul. He did not, however, look very evil. He
had a dark skin but not a disagreeable face. I enquired how he was, and
he said the pain had entirely left him. He dismounted, and I examined
the tooth in the street. It was decayed and the socket inflamed. I
wanted to pull it out there and then with my fingers, but he would not
let me touch it.
[Sidenote: The Appearance of the Kabul Bazaars.]
The bazaar in which I met the Naib is a modern one built by the present
Amîr, the street is wider and the shops are better built than those of
the other bazaars.
There are three chief bazaars or streets of shops in Kabul. Two lead
from the direction of the workshop gorge eastward through the town.
One running near the foot of the mountains to the Bala Hissar, and the
other near the middle of the town. These two are for a considerable
distance broader, better paved, and more carefully roofed than the
others. In the best part the houses are two stories high. They are flat
topped, and beams supporting a roof to the bazaar extend across from
house to house. In other parts, where the houses are but one story,
the bazaar is not roofed in. The other chief bazaar extends from a
strong wooden bridge over the Kabul river, southward through the middle
of the town. This too is roofed over in a part of its course, but it
is neither so broad nor so carefully built as the others. There are
a few smaller bazaars and many narrow streets or passages striking
off in different directions from the others. They are badly paved,
undrained, and exceedingly dirty. The shops are small and open, like
stalls, with no front window. The floor of each is raised three or four
feet above the street, and the shopkeeper sits cross-legged among his
goods. At night he closes his shop with shutters, fastening the last
shutter with a chain and a curious cylindrical padlock. Some parts of
the bazaars are reserved for the sale or manufacture of particular
articles. There is, for instance, the shoe bazaar. This is in the
street leading from the wooden bridge south. The Afghan shoes are of
heavy make, are sewn with strips of leather and have the pointed toe
turned upwards. Some are elaborately embroidered with gold. The women’s
shoes or slippers are generally green in colour, and are made with a
high heel. They are almost sandals, having an upper only at the toe.
They are awkward things to walk in, I have noticed, for they drop at
the heel at every step. The native shoes are those most on show, but
one can buy English boots of all kinds, from the elaborate patent
leather of Northampton to the three-and-sixpenny army boot. There are
also long Russian boots made of beautifully soft leather: these are
the fashion among the highest class; and a cheaper Turkoman boot of a
similar shape with a high heel that cavalry soldiers who can afford
the luxury invest in. A shopkeeper is, however, none too ready to show
you his best goods. He does not exhibit them in the shop, for the
Government officials have a way of buying anything that takes their
fancy at their own price.
I noticed in the boot bazaar that in the three-foot space under the
floor of the shop the poorer men, the cobblers, did their business.
There was just room to sit, and there the cobbler sat stitching, with
his nose on a level with the knees of the passers by. A customer with a
shoe to mend squats down beside him and gives his orders. Cobblers who
can’t afford to rent even such a “shop” as this, sit by the roadside
in the shade of a wall or a tree and carry on their business.
[Sidenote: Copper Workers: Tinning of Copper Pots.]
There is a copper bazaar. Though copper is found in Afghanistan, most
of that used comes from India. This bazaar is in the street running
east through the middle of the city. Here, there is shop after shop
of men hammering out copper into the different shaped utensils: the
long necked vase for the chillim, or hubble-bubble pipe: bowls and
pots for cooking kettles: water vases with long neck and handle and
tapering curved spout. The shapes are all those made by their fathers
and forefathers; there is no new design invented. The pots used for
cooking are tinned over inside and out. Supposing the tin has worn off
your cooking pots, you send to the bazaar for one of these men. It is
interesting to watch how he sets to work.
He brings a pair of hand-bellows with him and a stick of tin. Settling
himself on the ground in the garden he digs a shallow hole six or seven
inches across. This is to be his furnace. From it he leads a little
trench about six inches long, which he covers over with clay, placing
his finger in the trench as he moulds each piece of clay over it.
Thus he has a pipe leading to his furnace. The nozzle of his bellows
is fitted into the distal end of the pipe. He begs a little lighted
charcoal from the cook with which to start his “furnace,” piles it
over with black charcoal, blows his bellows, and soon has what fire he
wants. A small boy with him having cleaned the pots with mud and sand,
he places the first one, supported on three stones, over his furnace.
When it is at the proper heat he rubs it round with a rag smeared with
wood ashes, touches it with the stick of tin, then rubs it round again
with his wood ashes, and the pot is tinned. If you are watching him he
may make it extra superfine with another touch of tin and another rub
with the wood ashes, and so he goes on till he has finished them all.
[Sidenote: Tobacco Smoking by the Royal Family.]
Supposing the pot to be tinned is a large one, the small boy, having
thrown in the mud and sand, stands inside the pot, and jerking it round
and round with his hands, cleans it with his bare feet. Describing the
way that the “furnace” is made reminds me that I have seen men prepare
an impromptu tobacco pipe the same way. The principle is exactly the
same, only instead of blowing air through the pipe they suck the smoke
from the tobacco which they have lit with a match. To lie on your
face on the ground in order to get a smoke seems rather excessive,
but if a man has tobacco, a match, and cannot get a pipe, this is one
way out of the difficulty. I have also seen a soldier use his bayonet
for a pipe. He filled the cylindrical part that fits on the muzzle of
the rifle with tobacco, and having put a lighted match on the top, he
fitted his two hands round the lower end and sucked the smoke between
them. Most Afghans are inveterate smokers. The tobacco they smoke is
not the American tobacco that we have. It grows in Kabul, Kandahar,
Herat, and many parts of Afghanistan, but the best comes from Persia.
The leaf is paler, apparently uncured and is not pressed, nor cut,
but simply broken up. I have smoked it, but it is very hot in a short
pipe. It smokes best in the chillim. The Amîr himself when he smokes,
which is not often, generally has a Turkish cigarette. The eldest
Prince, Habibullah, smokes cigars from India. Prince Usuf, the Amîr’s
uncle, one of the younger sons of Amîr Dost Mahomed, smokes American
birdseye tobacco. He is a courtly old gentleman, dresses exceedingly
well, and is of the bluest of the blue blood, and it strikes one as
very incongruous to see him puffing away at a short clay pipe; he never
smokes anything else.
There is the cotton and silk bazaar in the street leading from the
gorge to the Bala Hissar. The shops here are mostly kept by Hindus.
Every Hindu in Kabul, and there is quite a colony of them, has to pay a
poll tax, and is not allowed to wear a blue turban. It must be either
yellow or red--generally they wear red.
Besides the rolls of silk from India and Bokhara, and the plain and
printed cotton goods which come from India, there are many English
undergarments to be seen: for English clothing of every kind is very
fashionable among the upper classes in Kabul. There are cotton and
merino vests, socks, and handkerchiefs hanging on strings across the
little shops. The Hindu shopman in Kabul strikes one as oppressively
civil, he “salaams” so low with the hand on the forehead. The Afghan
trader does not. You can buy or not as you please. If he has a piece
with a yard or two more than you want, often he will not cut it for
you. You can take the lot or leave it, he is not particular. But Afghan
and Hindu alike ask you a much higher price than they will afterwards
take.
If you want to buy anything, you send for a shopkeeper to your house
and ask his price. He tells you. You smile derisively, and offer him
just a third. He is pained, he is indignant, the thing is absurd, he
gave a great deal more than that himself. You say, “Good morning.”
Then he says--Well, he will do what he can, for you are a friend to
the poor, but it will be a dead loss to him; and he knocks a little
off his price. You say, “No,” but add a little on to yours, and so
it goes on for a variable time, derision and sarcasm on your side--a
pained indignation on his. Finally, he takes less than half of what he
asked originally, and is well paid then; but when he goes away you feel
rather as if you had swindled the poor man.
Though shopkeepers in Kabul selling similar goods tend to congregate
in the same bazaar, they do not do so to the same degree as in some of
the towns of India. You find boot shops in other streets than the chief
boot bazaar; and so with other goods for sale.
In the tea-drinking shops you see a large samovar, about three feet
high, in one corner, where water is kept boiling hot by the glowing
charcoal in the centre pipe. Men drop in and seat themselves,
cross-legged, for a chat and a cup of tea. The shops will hold some
three or four. The Afghans like their tea very hot, weak, very sweet,
and flavoured with cardamoms, which are put unpowdered into the teapot.
They pay a pice, that is a little less than a farthing, for a cup of
tea. If a man has some tea with him, and he often has, he can always
send to one of these shops for a teapot and hot water. He pays a pice
for it. There is also a preparation they call “kaimagh-chai,” but this
is comparatively expensive, and is drunk only at festivals or times of
rejoicing. It is a mixture of tea, sugar, cream, soda, and cardamoms.
It is thick, curdy, pink, and very sweet--not at all bad to taste, but
very “rich.” The teapots, cups, and saucers in use are generally from
Russia. Some of the richer men have them from China or Japan.
[Sidenote: The Kabul Restaurant.]
Besides the tea-drinking shops there are the eating-houses. These have
no marble-topped tables or velvet-covered chairs. The shop is the same
as any other shop, except that it looks rather dirtier, probably from
the amount of fat or oil used in the cooking. The customer carries his
lunch away with him, or stands outside to eat it. The space inside
the shop is taken up by the cook and the cooking pots. They sell
kabobs--little cubes of meat skewered on a long stick and grilled over
charcoal. A stick of kabobs, with some bread, is uncommonly good if you
are hungry; you tear the meat off the stick with your fingers. They
have also meat, finely minced and mixed with fat, which they squeeze in
their hand round a thin stick and cook over charcoal. It looks rather
like sausage, I don’t know what it is called. They use any kind of meat
for this--mutton--or, failing that, the flesh of the camel or horse
that age or infirmity has rendered unfit for further service. There
are many kinds of pilau too. Rice, boiled skilfully till every grain
is soft without being soppy, is piled over the meat, stewed to such
tenderness that you can easily tear a piece off with the fingers. There
are chicken pilau, mutton pilau, sweet pilau with raisins in it, and
so on. Kourma is another dish--meat stewed in small pieces and eaten
with stewed fruit.
For his pudding the Afghan goes to another shop, the confectioner’s.
Here there are sweets of many kinds: sugared almonds, “cocoa-nut
ice,” sweets made in the shape of rings, sticks, animals, or men;
gingerbread, soft puddings made of Indian corn, much sweetened. In the
summer different kinds of iced sherbet, lemon, orange, or rose are sold
in the street.
In the bread shop, the baker squatting on the floor kneads out the
dough into large flat cakes and claps it in his oven. The oven is a
large clay jar about three feet across and three feet deep, with the
neck a foot in diameter. This is buried beneath the shop, the mouth
being level with the floor, and is packed round with earth. It is
heated by making a fire inside. When the heat is sufficient, and the
fire has burnt out, the baker puts his hand in the mouth and flaps the
flat doughy cake against the wall of the oven, where it sticks. When
baked, it generally brings away some grains of charcoal or grit with
it. You pay two pice (a little less than a halfpenny) for a cake of
bread a foot and a-half long, a foot wide, and an inch thick.
Flour is ground in a water mill. A hut is built by the side of some
stream which has a sufficient fall. The water pours down a slanting
trough over the water wheel, and turns two circular flat stones which
are arranged horizontally in the hut. The miller, squatting down,
throws the grain into an aperture in the upper wheel and scoops up the
flour as it is ground away from between the stones on to the floor.
The bread made from the flour varies very much in grittiness, some is
hardly at all gritty. The Afghans are very particular about eating
their bread hot, they don’t care to eat it cold unless they are on a
journey. One of their proverbs is, “Hot bread and cold water are the
bounteous gifts of God,” “Nan i gurrum wa ab i khunuk Niamati Illahist.”
[Sidenote: The Butcher’s Shop.]
Butchers’ shops are not very common; meat is an expensive luxury.
Mutton is the usual meat eaten. By very poor people other meats are
sometimes eaten, especially in the form of mince. In the latter case
it is impossible to say what the meat is, so the impecunious Afghan
assumes it to be mutton. If there is any meat in the mince that is
unclean--on the shopkeeper’s head be it for selling anything “nujis” to
a True Believer.
There is very little meat to be seen hanging in the shops, for the
climate being a hot one and flies numerous, the meat will not keep more
than a few hours. What the joints are it is impossible to say, for
they cut the sheep up quite differently from an English butcher. At
one time I used to try and puzzle out when the joint came to the table
what it was: I gave up the attempt afterwards as futile. The mutton is
excellent in quality and very cheap. I wished to give a dinner one day
to a dozen Afghans--the Amîr’s palanquin bearers. I bought a sheep for
4s. 6d., some rice, butter, bread, and firewood, and the whole cost
less than 6s.
Kabul is famous all over Central Asia for the manufacture of the
postîn or sheepskin pelisse. While riding along the bazaar running
from the wooden bridge south, I used to wonder at one place what the
faint disagreeable smell was due to. I found on enquiry that there
was a manufactory of postîns there. I have not seen the whole process
of tanning. The skin of the sheep or lamb with the wool on it is
cleaned and scraped, then soaked in the river and pegged out in the
sun to dry; afterwards it is tanned yellow with pomegranate rind. The
leather is beautifully soft, and it is usually embroidered artistically
with yellow silk. The wool is, of course, worn inside. The better
ones are trimmed at the collar and cuffs with astrakhan. There are
several different kinds of sheepskin postîns. The long one reaching
from shoulder to ankle, with ample folds that you wrap yourself up in
on a winter night: there is nothing more cosy and warm to sleep in.
The sleeves are very long and are more for ornament than use. These
are but little embroidered, they cost from fifteen to thirty rupees.
There is a short one with sleeves, which is elaborately embroidered.
This is worn in the winter by the soldiers--cavalrymen, for instance,
if they can afford the necessary ten or fifteen rupees. Similar but
cheaper ones with less beautiful wool and no embroidery, can be bought
for four or five rupees. There is the waistcoat postîn of lamb’s
wool, which is made without sleeves, this costs two rupees six annas
Kabuli, or half-a-crown English. These waistcoat postîns and the long
sleeping postîns are used by all classes, rich and poor. The others
are used only by the poorer classes, the peasants and the soldiers. A
gentleman or a man of position would no more think of putting one on,
were it ever so beautiful and elaborate in its embroidery, than would
a resident of the west of London think of appearing in the “pearlies”
and velvet embroidered coat of the coster. The rich men wear, in the
winter, coats of cashmere, velvet or cloth, lined with beautiful furs
from Bokhara and other parts of Asiatic Russia.
[Sidenote: Furs: Their Cost.]
The most valuable fur that is imported I have not seen, only the Amîr
wears it, and he rarely; from the description they gave me I conclude
it is sable. The next most valuable is the “Khuz,” a species of Marten.
There are two kinds, the Khuz i Zulmati, which is dark, and the Khuz i
Mahtabi, which is much lighter and of an inferior quality. These can
be bought sewn together in the sheet, either with or without the tails
of the animals attached. There were twenty-four skins in the sheet I
bought. The shopman asked £10 for it, but he let me have it the next
day for £6.
Then there is the “Altai,” a beautiful fur taken from the inner side
of the leg of the red fox. A sheet consists of many pieces, each with
a deep black centre surrounded by a dark red margin. I bought one in
Turkestan for £6, which I was told was cheap. Squirrel fur made into
the sheet, with or without tails, either grey or grey and white, is
very popular. It is called “Sinjab,” and is less expensive than the
others. There are several other cheaper furs--a white one they call cat
skin--though of what cat I do not know, the fur of it soon rubs off;
and a short brown fur, the name of which I never heard. Astrakhan, of
which the Amîr has the monopoly, is exported largely to Russia and in
small quantities to India. It is used chiefly to cover the round or
straight-sided Russian hats that Afghan Colonels and Captains wear. It
is difficult to get hold of any in the Kabul bazaars.
In the ironmongers’ shops are nails, hammers, locks, knives, and
horse-shoes. The last are made broad, flat, and rather thin, in the
Russian style. I was told that this pattern is considered to protect
the frog of the horse’s foot from the numerous stones and pebbles he
has to go over on a journey. Shoes in the English pattern are more
expensive. I heard that the Amîr had imposed a small tax on the sale of
them.
[Sidenote: Weapons: Their Nature.]
In the “arms” shops are swords, guns, and pistols of various kinds.
There is the curved “shamshir,” or scimitar, with a cross hilt. Most
of these come, Mr. Pyne told me, from Birmingham, some, I suppose,
from Germany. They can be tied in a knot if necessary. The Armenian
interpreter one day brought me a sword to examine; he was thinking of
buying it for eight rupees. It looked like an English sword, and was
brightly burnished. I put the point on the ground and bent the sword to
try its spring. It seemed easy to bend. I raised it up and it remained
in the position to which I had bent it.
“Wah!” said the Armenian, “and he is English sword!”
“Oh, no,” I said, “German.”
Then I had to explain where Germany was. But I don’t know, it may have
been English; I hope not. I advised him not to buy it for eight rupees.
He said, “I not have him at one pice.”
There is the straight-pointed Afghan sword, the blade of which broadens
to three inches at the handle. The back from point to handle is
straight and thick. There is no handguard. The best of these are made
in Khost, a frontier district south of the Kurram valley. The blades
are often beautifully damascened, and the handles of ivory or horn are
carved and inlaid with gold or silver or studded with jewels. They
are very sharp, the steel is of good quality, and they are rather
expensive. For one of good quality without a scabbard, and which was
not elaborately ornamented, I gave sixty rupees. I had a scabbard made
in Kabul. The scabbard is made of two long pieces of wood thinned and
hollowed out to receive the sword; these are fastened together and
covered with leather. Formerly they were covered with snake skin. Mine
was covered with patent leather and mounted with silver. I weighed out
rupees to the silversmith, and when the mounts were finished he weighed
them out to me before they were attached to the scabbard. The scabbard
is made longer than is usual in England, for it takes the handle
all but about an inch, as well as the blade of the sword. In these
shops are also rifles for sale--the native jezail with a curved stock
ornamented with ivory, and with a very long barrel fastened on with
many bands. The Afghan hillmen and the Hazaras make these, and they
are good shots with them. They make their own powder also. There are
old-fashioned English rifles, flint locks and hammer locks: some very
heavy, with a two-pronged support hinged on to the barrel, presumably
to rest on the ground and steady the rifle when taking aim; native
pistols and old English pistols of various kinds; old shirts of chain
mail and small shields with bosses on. These are not used now except
for ornament. Lance or spear heads, old Indian and English helmets,
firemen’s helmets; powder flasks made of metal or dried skin; and heavy
tough very strong wooden bows, with a straight handpiece in the middle
of the bow: these were used in the time of Dost Mahomed. I never saw
any arrows, and the bows were sold merely as curiosities. Boys and
lads, now-a-days, use a bow with two strings which are kept apart by a
two-inch prop. They use it to kill birds, shooting small stones from a
strip of leather attached to the two strings.
The silver and goldsmiths make native ornaments similar to those one
sees in India: broad, thin perforated bracelets; studs for the nostril,
that the hillwomen wear--this custom, however, is not so common as
among the Hindus; necklaces of coins and discs, amulet boxes, belt
buckles, and so on. Nothing original or peculiar to Afghanistan seems
to be made.
[Sidenote: Turbans and Caps.]
In the cap shops there are rows of small conical caps, hanging on pegs
and on bars across the top of the shop. The Afghan turban is wound
round the cap which is jammed on the back of the head. If put more
forwards the weight of the turban causes a painful pressure on the
forehead.
There are several different kinds of caps. The Kabul cap is thickly
quilted with cotton-wool. Inside, at the top, a little roll of paper
enclosed in silk is sewn. This is supposed to have a sentence from
the Koran written on it to protect the wearer from harm. I opened a
roll one day to see what was written, but found the paper blank. The
best caps are embroidered all over with gold thread from Benares. Some
are but little embroidered, have simply a star at the top, and others
not at all. Some are made of velvet, and some of cloth. Those from
Turkestan are not quilted. They are not so heavy as the Kabul caps, are
of very bright colours, and are worn indoors or at night. The caps are
of all prices, from three or four pice to fifteen rupees. The lungis,
or turbans, are also of many different kinds: the commonest being
cotton dyed blue with indigo--these are of native make: or of white
cotton or muslin from India. A better kind are of blue or grey cotton,
embroidered at the ends with gold thread, in wider or narrower bars,
according to the price. These come from Peshawur, and they look very
handsome on a tall dark-skinned Afghan. Others are from Cashmere, most
beautifully embroidered, and are fawn-coloured, turquoise-blue, black,
green, or white. The ordinary length of a lungi is nine yards; the
cashmere, being thicker, are not so long. The only white cashmere lungi
I ever saw was the Amîr’s. He gave it me one day; but that is a story I
will relate further on.
In the cap shops are also Kabul silk handkerchiefs for sale. They are
of beautiful colours--purple, crimson, and green. I do not know what
dyes are used, but they are not fast, they wash out; and the silk is
of poor quality, not to be compared with English or French silk. In
these shops, too, are gold brocades of various kinds, mostly from Delhi
or Agra. Some, however, are made in Kabul, the design being copied
from English or European embroidery that has been imported. Many of
the workers imitate European embroidery with wonderful exactness,
though they do not seem to be able to originate any new designs. If one
bolder than the rest attempts to do so, the design is greatly wanting
in beauty of outline. The brocades are used for tea-cloths, and by the
Amîr and richer men for table-covers. The skill of these men is also
called into use to decorate the dresses of ladies, and the tunics of
pages and gentlemen.
In the grocer’s shop the most prominent things to be seen are the big
loaves of white sugar from India and Austria. The native sugar is made
in small conical loaves--about a pound each. It is very sweet, but
not so white as European sugar. The loaves of native sugar are always
wrapped round with coloured paper--pink, red, or blue--so that the shop
looks quite smart. The tea for sale is chiefly green tea from Bombay.
It is brought by koffla--camel and donkey caravan, from Peshawur
through the Khyber Pass, by the travelling merchants or carriers. Many
of the rich men of Kabul own trains of camels, which they hire out for
carrying purposes. There is black tea also, but in small quantities and
expensive. It is said to be brought from China through Asiatic Russia
and Turkestan. The Afghans always call black tea “chai-i-famîl.”
[Sidenote: Lamps, Candles, and Soap.]
The candles are of two kinds, tallow and composite. The tallow are of
native manufacture--dips--with cotton wick. They are not used very
much, as they gutter and melt away very quickly. There is a much better
tallow candle made in Afghan Turkestan, thicker than the Kabul candle,
which burns exceedingly well. The composite candles are much more
popular, and are not very expensive. They come from Bombay or Peshawur,
and are used largely by the Amîr and the richer men. The poorer people
use an oil lamp, very much the shape of the old Roman lamp. It is of
clay or terra-cotta, saucer-shaped, with or without a handle, and with
a spout. The cotton wick floats in the oil, and extends a quarter of
an inch beyond the spout, where it is lighted. The oil they use is, I
believe, almond oil: it is called “Têl-i-kûnjit.” It has a smoky flame,
and gives a poor light. Some lamps on the same principle are larger,
elaborately made of brass, and hang by chains from the ceiling; they
have four or five wicks. Others, also with three or four wicks, are
made of tinned iron; they stand on the ground supported on an upright
about a foot high. Paraffin oil from Bombay can also be bought, and
some of the richer men occasionally use cheap paraffin lamps “made in
Germany.”
Soap is both native and imported. The native is in saucer-shaped lumps.
It is not used for washing the hands and face--an Afghan rarely uses
soap for this purpose; but for washing clothes or harness. It is rather
alkaline and caustic. A soap “plant,” with its tanks, has been erected
in the workshops, and doubtless when the working of it is better
understood the soap will be of usable quality. At present it does not
sell. Other soap in the form of tablets is imported from India, Russia,
and Austria. By what route it comes from Austria I do not know, unless,
like so many cheap German goods, it comes through India. Russian soap
is the cheapest and worst, it crumbles up in your hands the second time
you use it. Next is the Austrian, which is not at all bad; the best and
most expensive is the English. The native salt--powdered rock salt,
pinkish in colour--is not very good. You have to use so much before you
can taste it. I don’t think any salt is imported. Spices of most kinds
can be bought--pepper, nutmeg, cloves, and so on; but these are bought
at drug shops.
Fruit shops are in great numbers, for fruit and vegetables form
important items in the diet of the poorer people: in the summer fresh
fruit and vegetables, and in the winter dried fruits, particularly the
mulberry, are largely used. The fruit shops are, as a rule, arranged
very tastefully. Grapes of different kinds are in great quantities and
exceedingly cheap--a donkey load for a rupee. Melons and water melons,
apples, quinces, pomegranates, pears, and various kinds of plums,
nectarines, peaches, and apricots. Dried fruits, almonds, roasted peas,
pistachio nuts, dried mulberries, apricots, and raisins, are sold by
the grocers. Fresh fruit, as soon as it is ripe, and even before, is
eaten in large quantities, far more than is good for the health of the
people.
The Englishmen in Kabul had to be exceedingly careful in eating fruit.
Unless taken in very small quantities it produced, or predisposed to,
troublesome bowel affections. The natives, though, as a rule, not so
susceptible as the English, were affected in the same way, sometimes
dangerously, occasionally fatally.
[Sidenote: Tailors. “The Railway Guard” Costume.]
In a tailor’s shop you see one man sitting on the ground hard at
work with a sewing-machine, another cutting out or stitching. There
are no ready made clothes in a tailor’s shop, these are to be bought
elsewhere. A rich man has, as a rule, a tailor attached to his
establishment. Those less rich having procured their material send
for a tailor from the bazaar. He cuts out the material in front of
the employer and takes away the garment to his shop to make up. This
is a check upon the tailor, so that there can be no purloining of
material. Ready-made clothes, new or secondhand, are for sale in many
shops. English coats of all kinds sell readily, especially old military
uniforms. One day a man walked into the hospital evidently thinking
himself rather smart. For the moment I was startled: I thought he was
an Englishman. He was dressed in the complete costume of a railway
guard.
The costume of the hillmen and peasants is the same as that worn by
the Khyberi Pathans, which I have described. An Afghan in typical
native town costume--say a mirza, or clerk--is dressed somewhat more
carefully than the Pathan. He wears the loose oriental trousers, or
pyjamas, gathered in at the waist and hanging in multitudinous folds
draping from the hip to the inner side of the knee and ankle, the band
at the ankle fitting somewhat closely. The native shoes with turned
up pointed toes are worn without socks, that is, unless the wearer
is wealthy. The embroidered camise, or shirt, falls over the pyjamas
nearly to the knee. A waistcoat with sleeves is worn reaching a little
below the waist and slit at the hip. Finally, a loose robe or coat
worn unfastened and with long sleeves, reaches midway between the knee
and ankle. The waistcoat is of velvet or cloth, quilted and generally
embroidered with gold. The coat is of thinner material, and, as a
rule, of native cloth. The townsmen, however, generally, though not
always, modify the native costume with European innovations. As a rule
the higher they rise in the social scale the more Europeanized they
become--in costume if in little else. The Afghans, though invariably
spoken of as religious fanatics, are far less “conservative” than the
Mahomedans of India. You never see one of the latter with an English
hat on: a very great many refuse to adopt even European boots. In
Afghanistan the readiness to become Europeanized, at any rate in
appearance, probably depends upon the personal influence of the Amîr.
After European weapons and knives--these are readily adopted by all
who can afford them--the first thing taken is the belt with a buckle,
instead of the cummerbund or waistshawl. It is, however, open to
question whether this innovation is an improvement, for in a climate
with such great variations of temperature as that of Afghanistan the
cummerbund is an excellent protection to the abdominal organs. Socks
are readily adopted even by the conservative. Then come European
coats, which are worn by a great many of the townsmen. After the
coats, European boots. Trousers are worn, as a rule, only by the
upper classes, including the court pages and by some of the soldiers.
They are made somewhat loosely and are worn over the pyjamas. When
a gentleman or Khan arrives at home after the business of the day
is finished, he throws off his European garb and appears in native
costume. First, the belt and tunic are removed, and he dons the loose
robe. Then his boots and trousers, and he can curl his legs up under
him once more in the comfortable Oriental way, as he sits on his carpet
or cushions on the floor. To sit on a chair for any length of time
tires an Oriental very much more than a European can realize.
Finally, English felt hats, or solar helmets, are worn by the more
liberal minded, or those who are more ready to imitate the Amîr.
Russian astrakhan hats, semiglobular shape, and those wider at the
top, have been worn for many years by gentlemen and officers in the
army. This was not such a striking innovation, for the somewhat similar
Turkoman hat of astrakhan has been familiar to the Afghan for ages.
[Sidenote: Drugs.]
In the drug shops are native drugs for sale. Some few English drugs can
be bought: quinine, of which the Afghans are beginning to realize the
value; and chloral hydrate, of which some are beginning to learn the
fascination. The native drugs are such as manna, camphor, castor oil,
and purgative seeds of various kinds.
[Illustration]