"On Tuesday night (June 14, 1842) their quarters were entered by

several men, who stripped them and carried them off, but I do not know

whether it was to the Black Well or to some other prison. In stripping

Colonel Stoddart a lead pencil was found in the lining of his coat

and some papers in his waist. These were taken to the Amir, who gave

orders that he should be beaten with heavy sticks till he disclosed

who brought the papers, and to whom he wrote. He was most violently

beaten, but he revealed nothing. He was beaten repeatedly for two or

three days. On Friday the Amir gave orders that Colonel Stoddart should

be killed in the presence of Captain Conolly, who should be offered

his life if he would become a Muhammadan. In the afternoon they were

taken outside the prison into the street, which is a kind of small

square. Their hands were tied across in front. Many people assembled

to behold the spectacle. Their graves were dug before their eyes.

"Colonel Stoddart's head was then cut off with a knife. The chief

executioner then turned to Captain Conolly and said: 'The Amir spares

your life if you will become a Mussulman.' Captain Conolly answered:

'I will not be a Mussulman, and I am ready to die!' saying which he

stretched forth his neck, and his head was then struck off. Their

bodies were then interred in the graves which had been dug."

For a long time the fate of these two officers was unknown in England,

and, indeed, overshadowed by the greater disaster in Kabul. Then a

missionary, the Rev. Joseph Wolff, undertook a journey to Bukhara,

and after many sufferings and dangers, ascertained that they had been

murdered two years before. He did not, however, come across the little

Prayer-Book, which appears to have been lying about in some shop in

Bukhara for seven years after the officers' death, when a Russian

officer, passing through the bazaar, happened to light on it. He

picked it up, and, observing its interesting nature, purchased it

from the shopkeeper. For another fourteen years the little book was

lying on his table at St. Petersburg, when a visitor who knew Captain

Conolly's relations saw it, and obtained leave to take the precious

relic and place it in the hands of the relatives of the deceased;

and thus, twenty-one years after her brother's death, Miss Conolly

obtained the full account of his sufferings, written with his own hand.

So far no vengeance had been exacted for the Amir's atrocity; now the

murdered man's sister thought she would like to have her revenge, so

when the Bannu Mission Hospital was inaugurated, she wrote out to the

medical missionary, expressing her desire to support a bed in memory

of her brother, and that bed has been supported in his name ever

since, and we tell the Afghans in it that that is the Christian's

Revenge. When I sit by the bedside of some sick or wounded Afghan

in that bed, and tell him and the others round him that it was their

co-religionists who killed this officer because he would not forsake

Christianity for Islam, and that now his sister is paying for them

to be nursed and tended, and praying for them that they may learn

of the Saviour who bid us forgive our enemies, and do good to those

who despitefully use us and persecute us, then it is easy to see that

the story has set them thinking. And when it is further brought home

by their experiences in the mission hospital, where they have been

lovingly tended by the very native converts whom they have abused and

perhaps maltreated in the bazaar, they return to their Afghan homes

with very different feelings towards Christians.

It is thus that the medical missionary gets his passport to all

their villages, not only in British India, but across the border

among the independent tribes. While visiting a Wazir chief once in

his border fort, he said to me: "You can do what we cannot possibly

do. I cannot go into that village over there, because I have enmity

with the people there. The chief of that tribe across the river a

few miles off has a blood-feud with me, and I have always to go armed

and with a guard lest he should waylay me; at night I cannot leave my

fort, but have to sleep ready armed in my tower. And I am like most

of us in this country: we all have our enemies, and never know when

we may meet them. But you can go into any of our villages and among

all the tribes, although you have not even got a revolver with you,

and, more than that, you get a welcome, too."

In some parts of the country across the border it is necessary to take

a fresh guide every few miles, as the various villages are on bad

terms, and might injure the traveller on the lands of the opposing

village merely in order to get their enemies involved in a feud, or

into trouble with the Government. These guides are called badragga,

and within the tribal boundary any member of the clan, even a child,

is often sufficient protection, as that is sufficient to show that the

traveller has received the sanction of the tribe to move about within

their boundaries. If, however, marauding bands are known to be about,

or if the tribe is at feud with a neighbouring one, then they will

send a fully-armed badragga of several men with you. I have, however,

seen a traveller consigned to the care of a boy of nine years or so,

and, no doubt, with perfect security.

On one occasion when it had been arranged that the badragga of a

certain clan was to meet me at a prearranged rendezvous, I arrived

at the appointed time and place under the care of the badragga of

the clan through whose territories I had just passed, but no one

was forthcoming. We waited an hour or so, but still no one came;

my badragga then accompanied us a little way forward till we came in

view of the first village of the next clan. Here they stopped and said:

"We can go no farther. If we were to go into that village, there would

very likely be bloodshed, as there is enmity between us and them;

but we will sit at the top of this knoll here and watch you while you

go on to the village, and if anyone interferes with you on the way

we will shoot." I went on with an Indian hospital assistant who was

with me, and when nearing the village a man came up and shook hands

with great heartiness, saying: "Don't you remember me? I brought my

brother to your hospital when he was shot and his leg broken, and

we were with you for two months." He brought me to the village and

to his brother, who hobbled out on a crutch to meet us, and was very

pleased. They insisted on our stopping while they called some of the

other villagers, who were anxious to see the doctor, and finally sent

us forward on our journey with a fresh escort and a hearty "God-speed."

CHAPTER VI

A DAY IN THE WARDS

The truce of suffering--A patient's request--Typical cases--A

painful journey--The biter bit--The conditions of amputation--"I

am a better shot than he is"--The son's life or revenge--The

hunter's adventure--A nephew's devotion--A miserly patient--An

enemy converted into a friend--The doctor's welcome.

As I have already said, the Afghans never forget their tribal feuds

except in the presence of foes from without. Then they may put them

aside for a while, especially if their foe be not Mussulman in faith,

but only for a while. The feuds begin again as soon as the danger

is past.

But in the wards of the mission hospital all this is changed, and

here may be seen representatives of all the frontier tribes chatting

fraternally together, who as likely as not would be lying in ambush

for one another if they were a few miles off across the frontier. But

it is generally recognized among them that feuds are to be forgotten in

hospital; and accordingly the doctor gets an audience from half a dozen

different tribes in one ward when he is drawing out the conversation

from the land of feuds to the Prince of Peace, and when he contrasts

the Gospel of loving your neighbour with their rule of "shoot your

neighbour and get his rifle." They say in a half-apologetic tone:

"True; but God has decreed that there shall always be discord among

the Afghans, so what can we do?" Sometimes a patient will say: "I

want to be in a ward that has no windows, because I am afraid that

one of my enemies may come at night when the lamp is burning in the

ward and shoot me through the window by its light."

Great as is the variety of physiognomy, of dress, and of dialect,

even more diverse are the complaints for which they come. Eye

diseases form more than a quarter of the whole, and few cases give

so much satisfaction both to surgeon and patient as these, in many

of which the surgeon is able to restore sight that has been lost for

years, and to send the patient back to his home rejoicing and full

of gratitude. Here is a Bannuchi malik suffering from consumption, a

not uncommon complaint in their crowded villages; next him is a Wazir

lad from the hills, Muhammad Payo by name, suffering from chronic

malarial poisoning. He is an old acquaintance, as he returns to his

home when he feels strong enough, and then, what with coarse fare and

exposure (for he is a poor lad), soon relapses and comes back to us

at death's door, as white as a sheet, and has to be nursed back again

to vigour. Just now he is convalescent, and is going about the ward

doing little services for the other patients, and telling them what to

do and what not to do, as though he had been in the hospital all his

life. Poor fellow! he has lost both his parents in a village raid,

and would have been dead long ago himself but for the open door of

the mission hospital.

In another bed is a fair-haired, blue-eyed boy of twelve from Khost,

suffering from disease of the bones of his right leg, which he has

not been able to put to the ground for two years. His home is eighty

miles away across the mountains, and he had no one to bring him to

Bannu, though he had begged some of the traders to let him sit on one

of their baggage camels; but who was going to inconvenience himself

with a friendless boy like that? He had heard such wonderful stories

of the cures effected in the Bannu Hospital from a man in his village

who had been an inmate for six weeks for an ulcer of the leg, that he

determined to get there by hook or by crook, and he had accomplished

the greater part of the journey crawling on his hands and knees,

with an occasional lift from some friendly horseman, and had been six

weeks on the road, begging a dinner here and a night's lodging there

from the villages through which he passed. When he arrived, his state

can be better imagined than described: the weary, suffering look of

his face; the few dirty rags that covered him; the malodorous wound

on his leg, full of maggots, bound round with the last remains of his

pagari; while now there is no brighter, happier boy in the hospital,

with his white hospital shirt and pyjamas, clean, gentle face and

pleasant smile, as he moves about from bed to bed with his crutch,

chatting with the other patients.

Passing on, we see a big swarthy Afghan, with fine martial features,

in which suffering is gradually wearing out the old truculent air. He

had gone armed with a friend one night to a village where there was

a Militia guard. He maintains that they had merely gone to visit a

friend, and had been delayed on the road till night overtook them;

but to be out armed at night is of itself sufficient to raise a

prima-facie case against a man on the border, and when the Militia

soldiers challenged him, and instead of replying he and his friend

took cover, it was so clear to the former that they must be marauders,

that they opened fire. The friend escaped, but our patient received

a bullet through the left thigh, which shattered the bone. He was not

brought to the mission hospital for some time, and when we first saw

him it was obvious that unless the limb were speedily removed, his

days were numbered. He, like all Afghans, had an innate repugnance

to amputation, but finally consented on condition that the amputated

limb should be given to him to take back to his home, that it might

ultimately be interred in his grave; only thus, he thought, would he

be safe from being a limb short in the next world. Once I tried to

argue an Afghan out of this illogical idea, and when other arguments

failed, I suggested that the unsavoury object might be buried in a

spot in the mission compound, and he might leave a note in his grave

specifying where it might be found. He answered at once: "Do you

suppose the angels will have nothing better to do on the Resurrection

Day than going about looking for my leg? And even if they would take

the trouble, they would not come into this heretic place for it."

So the limb was removed and carefully wrapped up and stored away

somewhere, so that he might on recovery take it back with him to

his village. His wound is nearly healed now, and he has sent off his

sister, who was in hospital to nurse him, to his home to fetch a horse

on which to ride back the forty miles to his village, where he will

wile away many a long winter's night with stories of his experiences

in the Bannu Mission Hospital, and how kind the feringis were to him.

Among Afghans a man's nearest relations are often his deadliest

enemies, and "he hates like a cousin" is a common expression. Thus

it came to pass that one day a wounded Afghan was brought to the

mission hospital on a bed borne of four, and examination showed

a serious condition. He had been shot at close quarters the night

before while returning to his house from the mosque after evening

prayers. The bullet had passed completely through the left side of

the chest, the left lung was collapsed, and the patient was blanched

and faint from the severe bleeding that had occurred. A compress

of charred cloth and yolk of egg had been applied, through which

the red stream was slowly trickling. He believed he had been shot

by his uncle, with whom he had a dispute about the possession of a

field, but had not seen his face clearly. A room was got ready, the

patient's blood-saturated garments were replaced by hospital linen,

and the wound was cleansed and dressed.

For a long time he hovered between life and death, constantly attended

by two brothers, who, if they had been as instructed as they were

assiduous, would have made two very excellent nurses. Gradually,

however, he recovered strength, and the wound healed; and one day

when visiting his ward I found him sitting up with a smile on his

face, and after the usual greetings, he said: "Please come to me,

Sahib; I have a request to make." I sat by his bedside, and asked

what I could do for him. He drew me closely to him, and said in a

subdued voice: "Sahib, I want you to get me some cartridges; see,

here are four rupees I have brought for them." "Why, what do you

want them for?" said I. "Look here," said he, pointing to the wound

in his chest; "here is this score to pay off. I am stronger now,

and in a few days I can go home and have my revenge."

I said to him deprecatingly: "Cannot you forego your revenge after all

the good counsels you have been hearing while in hospital? We have,

after so much trouble and nursing, cured you, and now, I suppose,

in a few days we shall be having your uncle brought here on a bed

likewise, and have to take the same trouble over him." "Don't fear

that, Sahib," was the prompt reply; "I am a better shot than he

is." Well, we never did have to deal with that uncle, though I never

gave him the cartridges; probably he got them elsewhere.

Another day a similar cortège came to the hospital. This time the

man on the bed was a fine young Pathan of about twenty summers, and

his father--a greybeard, with handsome but stern features, and one

arm stiffened from an old sword-cut on the shoulder--accompanied the

bearers, carefully shielding his son's face from the sun with an old

umbrella. His was a long-standing feud with the malik of a village

hard by, and he had been shot through the thigh at long range while

tending his flocks on the mountain-side. It had happened four days ago,

but the journey being a difficult one, they had delayed bringing him;

and meanwhile they had slain a goat, and, stripping the skin off the

carcass, had bound it round the injured limb with the raw side against

the flesh. Under the influence of the hot weather the discharges

from the wound and the reeking skin had brought about a condition of

affairs which made bearers and bystanders, all except the father and

the doctor, wind their turbans over their mouths and noses as soon as

the hospital dresser began to unfold and cut through the long folds

of greasy pagari which bound the limb to an improvised splint and

that to the bed. It was a severe compound fracture of the thigh-bone,

with collateral injuries, and I called the father aside and said:

"The only hope of your son's life is immediate amputation. If I

delay, the limb will mortify, and he will certainly die." The old

man, visibly restraining his emotion, said: "If you amputate the leg,

can you promise me that he will recover?" "No," I said; "even then he

might die, for the injury is severe, and he is weak from loss of blood;

but without amputation there is no hope." "Then," said the father,

"let it be as God wills: let him die, for, by our tribal custom,

if he dies as he is I can go and shoot my enemy; but if he dies from

your operation then I could not, and I want my revenge." After this

they would not even accept my offer of keeping the wounded lad in

the hospital to nurse, but bore him away as they had brought him, so

that he might die at home among his people, and then--well, the mind

pictured the stealthy form crouching behind the rock; the hapless

tribesman of the other village with his rifle loaded and slung on

his shoulder right enough, but who was to warn him of his lurking

enemy? And then the shot, the cry, and exultation.

A man of the Khattak tribe was out on the hills with a friend after

mountain goats; he tracked one, but in following it up passed over into

the hills of a section of the Wazir tribe. He was passing along one

of those deep gorges which the mountain torrents have worn through

the maze of sandstone ridges, where the stunted acacia and tufted

grass afford pasturage to little else than the mountain goats, when

his practised eye descried two heads looking over the ridge four

hundred feet above him. Seeing they were observed, the two Wazirs

stood up and challenged them.

"Who called you to come poaching in our country?" "I shall come

when I choose, without asking your permission," retorted the

Khattak. "Swine! has your father turned you out because there was no

maize in your corn-bin?" The Khattak retorted with something stronger,

and each proceeded to impugn the character of the other's female

relations, till the Wazir, thinking he had excited the Khattak to

give him sufficient provocation, sent a bullet whistling past his

head. The Khattak made a jump for the cover of a neighbouring rock,

but before he had time to gain shelter a second bullet had struck

him in the leg, bringing him headlong to earth. His companion had got

the shelter of a rock and opened fire on the Wazirs; but the latter,

thinking they had sufficiently vindicated the privacy of their stony

hills, made off another way.

The Khattak could do no more than lift his friend into the shelter

of a cliff, stanch the bleeding with a piece torn from his pagari,

and make off in hot haste for his village to sound a chigah and bring

a bed on which the wounded man might be carried home. The chigah, of

course, came too late to track the Wazirs, but they bore the wounded

man home, and next morning brought him to the mission hospital. He lay

there for three months, carefully tended by his father and a brother,

and there all three were attentive listeners to the daily exposition

of the Gospel by the doctor or catechist; but the wounded man got

weaker and weaker, and when it became clear to all that his recovery

could not be hoped for, they took him off to his home to die.

The next day a Wazir of the same tribe that had shot him was brought

in suffering from an almost identical gunshot wound, and we thought

at first it had been the work of an avenger, but it proved to have

been received in another feud about the possession of a few ber-trees

(Zizyphus jujuba). This Wazir submitted to amputation, and is now

going about the hills the proud possessor of an artificial limb from

England, which his father sold a rifle to buy, and which is the wonder

and admiration of his neighbours.

The devotion shown in some cases by relations who have accompanied

some sick or wounded man to hospital is very touching, and in pleasing

contrast to their frequent enmity. One case that imprinted itself on

my memory was that of a man from Kabul, who had been a sufferer for

several years from severe fistula; his nearest relation was a nephew,

and he was a talib (student). Both were poor, but the man sold up

some little household belongings and hired a camel-driver to bring

him down on his camel. The journey to Bannu occupied fourteen days,

and the sick man suffered much from the constraint and jolting of the

camel-ride. An operation was performed, but it was some months before

the patient was cured and discharged, and during all that time he was

assiduously nursed by the talib, who sat day and night by his bedside,

attending to his wants and reading to him either the Suras of the

Quran or some Persian poet, only leaving him to go into some mosque

in Bannu, or in a village near, where some charitable Muhammadans

would give him his morning and evening meal.

To save the patients from the danger of having their money stolen by

other patients or visitors, we advise them on admission to give up

their money into our charge, to be kept safely until they get their

discharge, when it is returned to them. Usually they readily agree to

this, but sometimes we have some wary characters, usually Kabulis or

Peshawuris, whose experience of the world has led them to trust no one,

and these refuse to let their possessions out of their own keeping,

usually securing their money in a bag purse tied round their waist

under their clothes. One such Kabuli came into the hospital terribly

ill with dysentery. Fearing, I suppose, we might take his money by

force, he swore, in answer to the usual question, that he had not

a single anna on him, and all through his illness he begged a few

pice from us or from other patients to buy some little delicacy he

fancied to supplement the regular hospital diet. He said he had no

relations or friends living; "all had died," and certainly none ever

came to inquire after him. His disease resisted all our efforts to cure

it--he had been worn out with exposure and hard living--and at last,

one morning, we found him dead in his bed; he had passed away quietly

in the night, without even the patient in the bed next him knowing

of it. We then found a bag containing eighty rupees bound round his

waist; he had kept it carefully concealed from everyone throughout,

and now died leaving behind him what might have purchased him so many

little delicacies. There being no claimant for the money, we made it

into a fund for helping indigent patients to get back to their more

distant homes.

There was once a Mullah in Bannu who was particularly virulent in

his public denunciations of the mission and everything connected

with it. He would frequently give public lectures which were tirades

against all Christians, and missionaries in particular, telling the

people that if they died in the mission hospital they would assuredly

go to hell, and all the mission medicine they drank would be turned

into so much lead, which would drag them relentlessly down, down

to the bottomless pit--and very much more in that strain. We were

therefore somewhat surprised when one fine morning we beheld four

white-robed talibs bringing a bed to the hospital, on which was a form

covered by a white sheet, and on lifting the sheet, there was this

very Mullah! We did not ask him awkward questions, but admitted him

at once, and I think our Christian assistants throughout his long and

dangerous illness showed him particular attentions, and nursed him with

special care. They never taunted him with his former attitude to us,

but strove, by the exhibition of Christian forbearance and sympathy,

to give him a practical exposition of what Christianity is. When he

left the hospital he thanked us in the presence of his disciples,

offered a prayer for blessing on the hospital, and is now one of our

staunchest friends.

Here is a very sad case in Bed 18, called "the Gleaners' Bed," because

it is supported by the Gleaners' Union of Lambeth: A young man of

twenty-five or thirty, blind from his birth, and yet brought to the

hospital cruelly slashed in several places with sword and knife; one

cut on the right shoulder went through the muscle down to the bone. And

this was done only to rob him of the few things he possessed. Had the

culprit known that the man was blind, let us hope he would not have

been so brutal, but poor Mirzada was on the ground asleep, covered up

with a sheet, as is the custom with the natives, and had been attacked

in this way before he could escape or beg them to spare him. It was

so sad to see him stretched moaning on his bed, with eyes that had

never seen the light or the beauty of God's creation, heart that had

never felt, ear that had never heard of the "Light of Life" or the

"glory that shall be revealed." Our Christian assistants sat beside

him day by day, and told him of Christ and His love; but he never,

so far as we could judge, seemed to grasp the truth for himself, and,

when his wounds were healed, left us to beg by the wayside. We pray for

Mirzada, "who sitteth by the wayside begging," that he may yet find

the Light! He at least has learnt to bless the mission hospital and

the Christian friends in England, through whose charity he can say:

"I was a stranger, and ye took me in; sick, and ye visited me."

The doctor or his assistants may go a long journey up and down the

frontier and both sides of the border without coming to a village

where they will not get a hearty welcome from some old patient. He

will be made to sit down for a little good cheer in the village chauk,

that the grateful patient may call his acquaintances round to shake

hands with the Daktar Sahib, whose patient he was while in the mission

hospital, and with stories about whom he has so often regaled them

in the winter evenings.

CHAPTER VII

FROM MORNING TO NIGHT

First duties--Calls for the doctor--Some of the

out-patients--Importunate blind--School classes--Operation

cases--Untimely visitors--Recreation--Cases to decide.

An Eastern day begins early. As the first streak of dawn lightens the

Eastern sky the slumberers are awakened by the long-drawn-out chant of

the Muezzin calling to prayer from all the mosques in the city. "God

is great, God is great. I give witness there is no God but God. I

give witness that Muhammad is the prophet of God. Come to prayer;

prayer is better than sleep." And forthwith every pious Muslim hastily

rises, performs the necessary ablutions, and commences the day with

ascription of praise to the Creator. The Hindus follow suit: little

bells tinkle in their temples as their priests rouse the slumbering

Gods, or as the Puritanical Arya Samajist offers his early sacrifice

of "Hawan," or incense. Meanwhile, the church bell calls the little

Christian community together for early morning worship, and they

unite in prayer and praise before separating, each to his or her

own sphere of work for the day. If the missionary desires a morning

"quiet time" he must get up early enough to get it in before this,

as after morning service the busy round of duties leaves him little

leisure till the evening shades close in.

Darya Khan, the "Lord of the Rivers," the hospital cook, is waiting

for the day's supplies, and reports fifty patients on full diet,

twenty on middle, and fifteen on milk diet. So many cases have left

the hospital, so many admitted; such a one died last night. And so

the supplies for the day are measured out and weighed, and orders

given for the purchase of fresh goods as needed.

Then come the ward clerks, with their tale of soiled linen and case

sheets to be checked, and clean towels, bandages, bed-linen, and

clothes for the in-patients have to be dealt out according to the

needs of each one.

This over, the head gardener, 'Alam Khan, or the "Lord of the

World," is standing by with the day's supply of vegetables and

flowers, and these have to be apportioned to the patients in the

hospital and to the various members of the staff whose families

reside on the premises. He follows with a string of questions, each

of which requires due consideration, such as, "Are the mulberries

to be shaken yet?" "Where are the young Pipul tree saplings to be

planted?" "Some oranges were stolen in the night; would I come and

see the footmarks?" "A hostel boy ('Light of Religion') was caught

among the plum-trees with some fruit in his pocket. Would I punish

him?" And so on, as long as one has leisure to listen and adjudicate.

The clock strikes eight, leaving just half an hour to visit the wards

before out-patients begin. There is the abdominal section operation

of yesterday to examine; the house-surgeon has come to report that the

case of tubercular glands has had a hæmorrhage during the night. We are

just hurrying over to see them, when up comes 'Alam Gul, the "Flower

of the Earth," to say his brother was coming down from the roof that

morning, when his foot slipped on the ladder; he fell on his head,

and was lying unconscious. Would I go and see him? The serious cases

seen, and 'Alam Gul's brother visited, the out-patient department is

demanding our attention. The verandahs are full of patients, the men

in one and the women and children in another, and while the catechist

is preaching to the former, a Bible-woman is similarly engaged with

the latter. Outside are some patients lying on the native beds, or

charpais, and a variety of other equipages which have all brought

patients--palanquins, camels, oxen, asses, and so on.

Let us see some of these. Here is a Wazir shepherd from the

mountains. He has been shot through the thigh while tending his flocks,

and eight rough-looking tribesmen of his have bound him securely on a

bed and carried him down, journeying all night through, and they have

left their rifles, without which they could not have ventured out,

at the police post on the frontier. Another of those on the beds is a

man of about fifty years, suffering from dropsy. He has been carried

sixty miles on this bed from Khost, a district in Afghanistan. A third,

who has been brought from another transfrontier village on an ox, is

suffering from a tumour of his leg, which will require amputation. And

so on with some half-dozen others. After this brief examination,

saying a word of welcome to the travel-stained Afghans who have borne

their precious burdens in with so much labour, and even danger, and

with a word of comfort and reassurance to the sick ones themselves,

the doctor enters his consulting-room, and the patients are brought in

one by one to be examined. Those requiring in-patient treatment are

sent off to the wards, and the remainder get the required medicines,

or have their wounds dressed and leave for their homes.

A great number of the out-patients are cases of eye disease, and

sometimes four or five blind men will come in a line, holding on to

each other, and led by one who is not yet quite blind. Very likely

they have trudged painfully upwards of a hundred miles, stumbling over

the stones in the mountain roads, and arriving with wounded feet and

bruised bodies. They sit together, listening, perhaps for the first

time in their lives, to the Gospel address, and eagerly awaiting

the interview with the doctor, when they will hear if they are to

receive their sight there and then, or to undergo an operation,

or what. For the stories they have heard of the power of Western

skill lead them to believe that if the doctor does not cure them on

the spot it must be that he is too busy or they are too poor. When,

therefore, as sometimes happens, the doctor sees at the first glance

that the case is a hopeless one, and that the sight is gone never to

be brought back, it is a painful duty to have to explain the fact to

the patient, and often the doctor needlessly prolongs the examination

of the eye lest the man should think that it was want of interest

in his case that makes the doctor say he can do nothing. And then

the beseeching, "Oh, sahib, just a little sight!" "See, I can tell

light from darkness; I can see the light from that window there." "I

have come all the way from Kabul because they said the feringi doctor

could cure everything. Why do you not cure me?"

One man refused to budge till I had taken him to see my mother; she

might be able to do something--she must have more skill than I, for

from whom had I learnt? Another went to her to beg her to intercede

with me for him, because he was sure it was want of will, not want

of power, that prevented him gaining his end. At last, when they

are convinced that nothing can be done, it is touching to see them

as they resignedly say, often with tears rolling down their cheeks:

"It is God's will. I will be patient." Then they may begin their weary

trudge home again, or stop in the Bannu bazaar for a few days to beg

some money to get them a lift on a camel for part of the long journey.

A commotion at the door, and a Bannuchi boy of about seven is

carried in on the shoulders of his father, with his hand tied up in

the folds of a turban. "We were crushing sugar-cane in our press,

when my beloved Mir Jahan got his hand in the cogs of the wheel,

and it was all crushed before we could stop the buffalo. Oh! do see

him quick--he is my only son, a piece of my liver!" And the father

bursts into tears. Mir Jahan is chloroformed at once, the bandages

unbound, and a terrible sight we see; the hand has been crushed into

a pulp, but the thumb is only a little cut. That will enable him to

pull the trigger of a rifle when he grows up, and that is what his

father and he consider of great importance. So the thumb is saved,

and the mangled remains of the other fingers removed, and a shapely

stump fashioned. It is fortunate that the Bannuchis have not much

machinery. This sugar-press is almost the only piece they have, and

we get several crushed hands every year as a result, usually because

they let their children play in dangerous proximity to the wheels,

and then leave them to "Qismet" (Fate).

Meanwhile, perhaps, some big chief has come in with several

attendants. He wants to have a special consultation with the doctor,

and has to be treated with as many of the formalities of Oriental

courtesy as the doctor can find time for. He gives some fee for the

hospital, or perhaps may send one or two ox-burdens of wheat or Indian

corn as his contribution to the hospital stores.

The patients are still coming, when a schoolboy comes to say that it

is time for the doctor to take his classes in school. It is not every

mission station that can provide a distinct European missionary for the

school, and Bannu is one of those where the supervision of the school

is one of the duties of the medical missionary, who takes the senior

classes in Scripture, English, and Science. So the consulting-room

is changed for the class-room, and the missionary finds himself

surrounded by a class of twenty to twenty-five intelligent young

fellows preparing for the matriculation at the Panjab University, and

waiting to be initiated into the mysteries of optics, or chemistry,

or mechanics, or to practise English composition, or he may have them

attentively listening while he goes with them through the ever-fresh

stories from the life of our Lord, hearing and asking them questions

as its inimitable teachings are brought home to them by precept and

by illustration. Class-work over, a visit of inspection is paid to

the other class-rooms, where the remainder of the school staff are at

their work, which the school principal must criticize and supervise,

giving some advice here, some correction there, and seeing generally

that everything is kept up to the mark.

Now we must go to see what progress has been made with the new ward

which is being built in the hospital. The beams must be selected and

tested. Here a carpenter has been putting some bad work into a lintel,

thinking it will not be noticed; there the bricklayers have been idle,

and have not finished the stipulated number of layers. The foreman

has a complaint to make of some of the coolies, who went away from

work without his permission. "We only went to say our prayers. Surely

you would not have us miss them?" they plausibly urge. Put them on

piecework, and their prayers are got over very quickly; but pay them

by the day, and even the ablutions seem interminable! But such is human

nature, and they have such an air of injured innocence it is difficult

to be angry with them. They are Mahsud Wazirs from over the border, and

work hard when well managed, so are let off with a warning this time.

This done, a visit must be paid to the mission press. Here not only

is printing in vernacular and in English carried on for the mission's

own requirements, but work is executed for the various offices and

merchants in the city. Accounts have to be checked, bills have to be

made out, proofs have to be corrected, and directions given for the

day's work.

Now it is time to visit the hospital wards, and perform the day's

operations.

Usually, patients are operated on the same day that they are

admitted. If this were not done, not only would the wards become

hopelessly congested, but in many cases the courage of the patients

would ooze out of their fingers' ends, and, instead of finding them

ready for the ordeal, one would be greeted by "I have just heard that

my father has been taken seriously ill. If I do not go home at once,

I shall never see him again." Another: "I quite forgot to arrange

for my donkey to get hay during my absence. I will go home and make

arrangements for it, and return in two days." Of course, one knows

that these stories are pure fabrications, but it would be useless to

tell them so, or to argue; one can only return them their own clothes,

take back the hospital linen, and let them go. Sometimes they come

back later on, and tell more fibs about their father or their donkey

in justification of themselves; more often they are not seen again.

While the operation cases are being prepared by the house-surgeon,

the doctor goes the round of the wards, examining, prescribing, and

saying words of cheer from bed to bed. This done, he is just about

to commence operations, when a man comes running up to say that his

brother was out shooting when his gun exploded, blowing off his hand;

would the doctor see him at once lest he bled to death? and close

behind him is the wounded man brought up on a bed. The doctor examines

him, sets a dresser to apply a temporary dressing, and perhaps a

tourniquet, so that the case may safely wait till the conclusion of

the other operations.

The operation cases to-day are representative of an average day in

the busy time of the year: they begin with five old men and three

women suffering from cataract, then two cases of incurved lids,

then an amputation, the removal of a tumour, and two cases of bone

disease. These over, the man with the injured hand is chloroformed

and the wound stitched up, except for two fingers, which were so

damaged that they had to be removed altogether.

The schoolboys are out now in the field playing football, and the

doctor, after refreshing himself with a cup of tea, thinks that nothing

would be more invigorating than a good hour's exercise with them; but

he has scarcely got his togs on before the servant comes to announce

that a certain big malik, or chief, has come to make a call. One would

like to put him off with an excuse for a more convenient time; but then

it was he who gave us lodging and hospitality when itinerating in his

neighbourhood six months ago, and this would be a poor return for his

courtesy; so he is ushered in, with four or five of his retainers,

and some minutes are spent in formal courtesies and talking about

nothing in particular. Then, just as one is going to suggest that

as one has something to do the interview might terminate, he comes

to the point and object of his interview. He has got a lawsuit on in

one of the local courts against a neighbouring malik. His case is an

absolutely just one; but as the other party have some relationship with

the head-clerk of the Judge's office, he fears he will not get justice,

unless--unless--- Would I just write a few lines to the Judge, asking

him to give his case full consideration? It would be no trouble to me,

and would confer a benefit on him which he will remember to his dying

day. One launches into an explanation, which is wearying because one

has so often given it in similar cases before, that the Judge would

be very angry if I adopted such a method of influencing his case,

that if his case is a just one there is no need of such measures,

that he must rely on the integrity of his witnesses, and so on; no,

he cannot or will not understand why you profess friendship with him,

and yet refuse so very humble a request as the writing of a note. By

the time the visitor has departed only half an hour is left for the

game of football, and there is a man waiting to take you to a case

of pneumonia at the other side of the bazaar, and two other calls

have to be made on medical cases in the city.

It is evening now, and once more the church-bell collects the

little Christian community together for the evening hymn of praise

and worship, and the pastor gives some words of instruction and

encouragement, specially intended for the catechumens and inquirers

who are present.

At last, however, these duties accomplished, dinner is

negotiated, and then the doctor can sit down to his newspaper

and his correspondence. He is not, however, long left free from

interruption. The first to come is the superintendent of the

boarding-house; he reports that some of the Hindu boarders have

been cooking meat in the school saucepan, and now the vegetarian

party refuse to eat food cooked in that vessel, which has ipso facto

become unclean.

The arguments of both sides are heard, and the case decided, that the

meat party are to provide their own saucepan. Then the house-surgeon

comes in with his nightly report of the wards, stating the condition

of the operation cases or of any other serious cases, and taking the

orders for the night. Following on him comes a catechumen who has a

quarter of an hour's instruction every night; then three of the senior

boarders, to ask some questions about the English composition for the

morrow, and get some hints for their essays. Lastly, the night-watchman

comes to report that, as there is a gang of Wazir marauders about,

special precautions must be taken for the security of the compound;

but he thinks that if I get him a new pistol and some cartridges all

will be safe.

A day such as I have described is not at all above the average during

the busy months of the year, and the doctor may consider himself lucky

if the soundness of his slumbers is not disturbed by any calls during

the night.

CHAPTER VIII

THE ITINERANT MISSIONARY

The medical missionary's advantage--How to know the people--The

real India--God's guest-house--The reception of the guest--Oriental

customs--Pitfalls for the unwary--The Mullah and the Padre--Afghan

logic--A patient's welcome--The Mullah conciliated--A rough

journey--Among thieves--A swimming adventure--Friends or

enemies?--Work in camp--Rest at last.

There is this difference between the medical missionary and the

preacher pure and simple: that while the latter has to seek his

congregation, the former will have his congregation come to him,

and often in such numbers that, like our Lord and His disciples,

he will not have leisure even so much as to eat. But even a doctor,

who finds his time at headquarters fully and profitably occupied,

will be committing a great mistake if he never itinerates. For it

is in camp and in village life that the missionary gets to know and

understand the people, and by travelling from village to village,

and living with them as their guest, he gets to know their real inner

life in a way that otherwise he never would, and for a missionary,

at least, such an experience is indispensable.

There are two methods of itineration. On the one hand, he may carry

tents and a full camp equipment, and pitch his camp near some large

village, or in the midst of several small ones, and may receive his

patients and do his daily work there, while visiting the villages

after his day's work is done. By this plan he is independent, and can

work at his own time, and can stay or move as his fancy dictates. On

the other hand, he may become the guest of one of the chief men of

the village, who will put his guest-house at his disposal and give

him hospitality. By this plan he is brought into much closer contact

with the people and will see more of them, but he will forfeit his

independence, will be obliged to consult his host in all his plans,

and must be prepared to put himself and his time at the disposal of

his host and the villagers, both by day and night.

Both methods have their advantages. For a new district, and where

the people are suspicious, the latter plan, though more exacting,

is probably the better; when the missionary has become well known

and has much work to do, the former is preferable.

The traveller who has spent a winter in touring India, but has only

visited the large towns and show places, and has never lived in

an Indian village, remains altogether a stranger to the deep inner

life of the Indian. The real India is not seen in the Westernized

bazaars of the large cities, but in the myriads of villages, wherein

more than 80 per cent. of the population of India dwell. Moreover,

a much better and more attractive side of Indian life is seen in the

villages than in the towns, and it is among their less sophisticated

population that the missionary spends his happiest hours.

When travelling without camp equipment, we generally follow the

Bible precept. We arrive at a village, and, "inquiring who within

it is worthy, abide there till we depart thence." This is usually

some malik, or head man, who possesses that great institution of

Afghanistan, a hujra, or guest-house. We are shown to this house,

usually a mud building with a low door and a few small apertures in

the walls in the place of windows, and a clean-swept earthen floor,

which may be covered by a few palm-mats. Hearing of our arrival,

the owner of the guest-house comes to receive us in the Oriental

fashion so familiar to readers of the Old Testament.

Thus, on one occasion I came rather late at night to one such

guest-house. The host had already retired, but rose from his bed

to receive me. I inquired if that was his hujra. He answered: "No;

it is God's, but I am in charge of it." Such expressions are not mere

form, as was shown by the cheerful and unostentatious way in which the

owner put himself out in order to insure my comfort. Once I arrived

about midnight at a village, the head man of which I did not know

personally, though it appears he knew me well. He was not satisfied

until I consented to occupy his bed, which he had just vacated for me,

while he went off to make himself a shift elsewhere. The acceptance

of such an offer might not always prove very attractive among those

Afghans whose ideas of cleanliness are not the same as ours, but to

refuse it would--at least, on the part of a missionary--be an act so

discourteous as to injure the attainment of those relations with the

people which he should desire.

The head man will at once call for some of his attendants, who,

except at the busy time of sowing and harvest, are probably lounging

about the chauk, and they at once bring a number of the plain wooden

bedsteads of the country, which are almost universally used, even

by the richer classes, in preference to chairs. Rugs and pillows are

brought, and perhaps a carpet may be spread on the floor. Tea is then

ordered, and an attendant brings in a tray on which is a very large

teapot and a number of very small saucerless cups, called in these

parts balghami, and used all over Central Asia for tea-drinking. The

whole is covered by an embroidered cloth, which is removed by the

attendant. Sugar is added to the teapot to a degree which to many

Western palates appears nauseating. Cardamoms, and sometimes other

spices, are also added. The milk, too, is usually added to the teapot,

although some hosts, who have learnt by experience the peculiarity of

Western taste, leave the milk and the sugar to be added by the guests

themselves. Tea is poured out and handed round, and drunk usually very

hot; and if the guests drink it with very loud smackings of the lips,

it is supposed to indicate that they particularly appreciate it. The

cups are filled repeatedly, and when the guest wishes to indicate

that he has had enough he turns the cup upside down.

By this time the news of our arrival has spread through the

village. There are probably a number of old patients there, who

have once or oftener been inmates of the base hospital, and they

help to collect all the blind, the halt, the maimed, and the sick

of the village, and we proceed to unpack our medicines and commence

prescribing and physicking.

Then will come the Mullah of the village, with his Quran under his arm

and his rosary in his hand, and with a very sanctimonious and superior

kind of air. He has come to see that the faith of the flock is not

endangered, and is followed by a number of his talibs, or students,

whose great desire is to hear a wordy battle between the Padre and

the Mullah, and to see the former ignominiously defeated.

Eastern ideas are cast in such a very different mould to Western, and

their system of logic and habit of mind are so unlike ours, that the

young missionary may consider himself fortunate if he is not frequently

held up to ridicule by some ignorant Mullah, who on such an occasion as

this, before an audience who are naturally inclined to side with him,

and can appreciate his language and arguments very much better than

ours, has all the advantage on his side. It is no doubt better to avoid

such discussions as far as possible. But this cannot always be done,

as the refusal to answer questions would be assumed to imply inability

to do so, and would be taken by the audience to indicate defeat. What

really impresses the people would not usually be our arguments, but

the patience and courtesy with which we meet, or ought to meet, the

endeavours of our opponent to make us lose our temper. According to

Eastern ideas, the mere stroking of the beard is supposed to indicate

irritation arising from the inability to answer the questions, and if

the inexperienced disputant incautiously puts his hand to his beard,

his opponent will most probably show off his advantage by pretending

to apologize to him for having made him lose his temper.

On one occasion, while touring among the frontier villages, I was

spending the night at a hujra, and after dark a Mullah had come in for

discussion, and a great number of the men of the village, attracted

by the hope of an interesting conflict between their champion and

the Padre Sahib, had collected to listen.

It was winter, and there was a fire of twigs burning in the middle

of the room, which was filling the place with its smoke, as there

was only one quite inadequate aperture in the centre of the room by

which it could find its exit. Round all four sides were a number of

the native beds, on which both disputants and audience were seated

cross-legged or reclining at their ease.

As the fire burnt low a boy would bring in some crackling thorns and

branches which were piled outside the room, and throw some on the

fire, which would blaze up and illuminate the faces of all around;

for the only other light was the little earthen oil lamp in a niche

in one corner, which only served to make the darkness visible.

The Mullah was evidently bent on making a display of his own dialectic

skill at my expense, and began in a rather condescending tone to

ask if I knew anything about theology; and on my replying that I

had come to the country in order to teach the Christian religion,

he turned to the audience, and said somewhat contemptuously:

"I do not suppose these Padres know much, but we will see." He then

turned to me and said: "Can you tell me the colour of faith?"

Rather puzzled by the question, I asked what he meant. He said:

"Why, is it white, or green, or red, or what colour?"

I replied that, as an abstract idea, it did not possess the quality

of colour.

Mullah: "Then can you tell me what shape it is? Is it round, or square,

or what?"

I: "Neither has it any shape. It is only an abstract quality."

Mullah: "It is evident that he does not know much about theology,

seeing he cannot answer such simple questions as the colour and shape

of faith."

At this time I did not know that the Muhammadans ascribed such concrete

qualities to all their abstract religious ideas.

Mullah: "Do you know anything about astronomy?"

I thought that here at least my knowledge might not be far inferior

to that of this Mullah, and said:

"Yes, I think I can answer you any questions on that subject."

Mullah: "Tell me, then, what becomes of the sun when it sinks below

the horizon every evening?"

I then proceeded to as simple and lucid an explanation as I could

of the revolutions of the earth on its axis, but could see from the

looks and ejaculations of the audience that they thought the idea

rather a mad one.

The Mullah himself made no effort to conceal his contempt, and said:

"That, then, is all you know about it?"

A little nettled, I said:

"Well, what explanation do you give?"

"We all know that the fires of hell are under the earth. The sun

passes down there every night, and therefore comes up blazing hot in

the morning."

I rather had my breath taken away by this explanation, which met with

ejaculations of approbation from the men around me, and I incautiously

asked the Mullah if he could explain the seasons.

Mullah (turning to the people): "It is evident that I shall have to

teach him everything from the beginning."

To me: "It is in the spring that the devil makes up his fires, and

piles on the firewood. Therefore the fires get very hot in the summer,

and cool down later on. That is why the summer sun is so hot."

Needless to say, the explanations of the Mullah appeared to

the audience as rational and lucid as mine were far-fetched and

incomprehensible, and they had no doubt as to which of the disputants

had won the day.

From this it can be seen that if a young missionary thinks that a

mere knowledge of Western learning and Western logic will enable

him to cope with the very limited learning of the Afghan Mullahs

on their own ground, he is vastly mistaken, and will before long be

put to ridicule, as I was on the above occasion, which was one of my

earliest experiences on the frontier.

Since then I have learnt how to argue with Afghan logic, and from

the Afghan point of view.

If it happens that the Mullah, or some friend of his, is in need of

medical or surgical advice, his attitude to you will undergo a great

change, and you will have much greater facilities for carrying on your

work among the people. Sometimes, when he sees the benefits accruing to

the poor people who had no other prospect of getting medical relief,

his attitude becomes unexpectedly friendly, as his better feelings

prevail over his religious animosity.

Once, having set out on an itineration, some Pathans came to tell me

I might as well save myself the trouble of going in that direction

because a certain Mullah, who had much influence in those parts,

had gone before us, warning the people not to accept our treatment,

listen to our preaching, or even come near us. I answered by the remark

which appeals to the Muhammadan mind under almost every conceivable

circumstance: "Whatever God's will has ordained will be," and told

him we should adhere to our original plan.

On the first two days the people certainly seemed suspicious, and

very few came near us. While we were on the march on the third day,

passing not very far from a village, a man who had apparently noticed

us from the village, which was situated on an eminence above the road,

came running down to us, and, after the usual salutations, said:

"There is an old patient of yours here who is very anxious to see

you; please turn aside and come to the house." On arrival we found

that it was a woman who, a year before, had been an inmate of the

Bannu Hospital for malignant tumour on the leg, which had required

amputation. Before she left the hospital we had made her a rough wooden

pin leg, on which she now appeared hobbling along to greet us. She

showed great delight at unexpectedly meeting us, and had apparently

been telling her fellow-villagers wonderful stories of what she had

seen and heard in the mission hospital, and of the unaccountable

love and sympathy which had been shown her there, for others of her

neighbours came crowding into her little courtyard, and among them,

though unknown to us, the Mullah who was supposed to be preaching a

crusade against us. He had apparently come in on the quiet to see for

himself what we and our work were like, and was greatly struck at the

undisguised delight with which we were greeted by our old patients; for

when the woman of the house begged us to stop while she prepared us a

meal, he came forward and disclosed himself, saying: "No; my house is

in the next village, and it is my prerogative to entertain the Padre

Sahib. He must come on to my house." At the same time he took up some

Pashtu Gospels which we had been giving away, but which the people, for

fear of theological displeasure, had been afraid to take openly, and

said: "This is Kalam Ullah [Word of God], and is a good book." Thus,

in a moment, by this providential presence of the Mullah, the whole

attitude of our reception was changed. Word was passed on from village

to village that we had become the guests and eaten the bread of the

Mullah himself, and that he had pronounced in favour of our books,

telling the people that we were Ahl-el-Kitab, or people of the Book,

the term which Muhammadan theologians apply to Christians and Jews

when they wish to speak of them in a friendly spirit.

We were not always equally fortunate, especially in our earlier years

on the frontier.

About two years after I first went to Bannu I went out on a short

itineration with my assistant Jahan Khan, an account of whom is given

in Chapter XVI.

We came to one village where the Mullahs had been exciting the feelings

of the people against us, and telling them that any food or vessel

we touched was thereby defiled. We found it difficult to get food or

drinking-vessel even on payment, and some of the patients who came

to us were induced to go away, and in some cases to throw away the

medicine they had already received.

With some difficulty we got a lodging for the night, and early next

morning we started off to look for a village where we might get a

more hospitable reception. But the minds of the people had already

been poisoned against us.

We went into the courtyard of the Patwar-Khana (village bailiff),

and sat down and opened our medicines. Some Hindus came for treatment,

and we got one of them to bring us some food; but the Muhammadans were

universally hostile, and stationed one of their number at the gate to

prevent any Muhammadan communicating with us. They then apparently

became annoyed with the Hindus, that they should be participating

in benefits from which they had excluded themselves, and stones

began to fall into the courtyard where we were seated; and as the

Hindus in these villages are not only in a small minority, but live

in dread of the fiercer Muhammadans, even they who had already come

to us disappeared, and we were left alone. It seemed useless to stop

in a village where we were not welcomed, so we saddled our animals

and departed.

Many years have passed since this experience. Patients from both

these villages frequently come to the Bannu Hospital, and now I and

my assistants get a welcome and hospitality whenever we visit them.

At other times the difficulties of itineration are not so much from

the people as from the hardships of travelling among the frontier

mountains, where the roads are nil, and the bridle-tracks such that

it is often impossible to get a loaded camel through.

I will therefore give a short account of a journey from Bannu across

the Wazir Hills to Thal, which we made in the summer of 1904.

As our route lay chiefly through independent territory, it was

difficult to procure camel-men for so trying a journey.

The men with the first camels we hired ran away when they found we

were going into the hills, as not only is the road very difficult for

laden animals, but they are afraid of being attacked by Wazir robbers,

the Wazirs having the worst reputation of all the tribes of Afghans

who live on the border. With some difficulty we got four more camels,

and as their owners were themselves Wazirs, we prevailed on them

to accompany us. We loaded up our tents, medicines, and bedding,

and about 9 a. m., when the sun was already very hot, we finally

started. Besides the two camel-men, there were a hospital assistant,

two servants, a Muhammadan inquirer, whom I was taking along for the

sake of instructing him, and one of the schoolboys, who had persuaded

me to let him accompany us, so that we were quite a large party. After

toiling for some hours along a mountain defile we came to Gumatti Post,

one of those frontier forts that line the North-West Border. This was

built close to an old Wazir fort, in capturing which, two years ago,

Colonel Tonnochy and Captain White lost their lives, as described in

Chapter I. We passed through the wire entanglement, and spent the heat

of the day talking to the native officer and soldiers in charge. In the

afternoon we set out again, and marched along the bed of the Kurram

River, which we had to ford six times, so that before we reached our

night camp it had become quite dark. Taking advantage of the dark,

some light-fingered Wazir thieves managed to steal the tent carpet

off the back of a camel without our catching sight of them. Our camp

was in a Wazir village, built on a cliff overhanging the river. The

people were rather excited, as another Wazir clan had been up during

the day and made off with twenty head of cattle. However, there were

some old patients among the people, so we got a hearty welcome. They

made us some tea, and set some of their number to watch round our

beds with their Martini-Henrys ready loaded in case enemies should

come during the night. The Mullah of the place came and had a talk

with us, and then we were soon all fast asleep.

Next morning we were up betimes, and I found my bed surrounded by a

number of women with squalling babies. One mother wanted me to see her

baby's eyes, another the stomach of hers, another the ears; in fact,

all the babies seemed to have made common cause to delay my departure

as long as possible. However, after doling out various lotions and

pills, and giving the mothers many instructions, which, I fear, were

only heard to be forgotten, we managed to get the camels loaded and

started. Now, however, a new difficulty confronted us. During the

night there must have been heavy rain higher up the valley, for the

river was in flood and unfordable. I knew by experience how strong

yet deceptive the currents of the river are when it is in flood, for

a few weeks before I had been out on a bathing excursion with some

of our schoolboys in another part of the same river. I had dived

into a deep pool, when I found myself in a return current, which

was carrying me back under a small waterfall, where the water was

sweeping over an obstruction like a mill-race, with a fall of about

four feet. As soon as I got to the fall I went down, down, down, till

I thought I was never coming up again. However, I did come up, only,

however, to be pulled back at once under the waterfall and down into

the depths again. The third time I came up I got a momentary glimpse

of two of the boys trying to throw me the end of a pagari. They were,

however, much too far away for me to reach it, and I was pulled under

again before I had time to get even one good breath. As I went down

I wondered if I should ever see the boys again, and how many times

I should come up before it was all over. Then all at once it struck

me that I was very foolish trying to get out at the surface, where

the current was beyond my strength, and I must change my tactics; so

I turned over and dived down till I felt the boulders at the bottom,

and then crept along the bottom with the aid of the current--which

there, of course, was flowing downstream--as long as I could. When I

could do so no more, and had to strike upwards, I found, to my delight

and thankfulness, that I was out of the eddy and going downstream. So

it was clearly impossible to keep along the river, even if we had

not had laden animals with us. We were obliged, therefore, to make a

long détour through the hills, which took us nearly all day. So rough

and precipitous was the path that we had the greatest difficulty in

getting the camels along, and had several times to unload them in

order to get them over bad places.

During the afternoon we saw a party of fifteen or sixteen armed Wazirs

hastening towards us. At first we thought they were coming to loot us,

and one of the Wazirs with us told us to stop, while he went forward

and called out, "Are you friends or enemies?" When they replied

"Friends" he went up to them, and then called us on to join him,

when I found that they were a party of outlaws who had fallen foul

of the Government, and, therefore, had made their escape across the

frontier. They got me to sit down with them in the shade of a rock and

write down a list of their grievances for them, so that they might

propitiate the Political Officer and obtain permission to return

to British India. I was very happy to render them this service, and

we parted good friends. I noticed, however, that the Wazirs with us

seemed uncomfortable, and kept their rifles ready cocked till they

had disappeared behind a turn in the defile. I make it a principle

never to carry any arms myself, and think I am much safer on that

account, but the villagers who accompany me always go well armed;

in fact, across the border few Afghans can go out of their houses

without their rifles on their shoulders ready for use, so terribly

prevalent are the blood-feuds and village quarrels. We spent that

night in a Wazir village, where we saw a number of patients and

made fresh friends. The head man of the village apologized next

morning for not accompanying us more than half a mile. He said that

he had blood-feuds with most of the villages round, and could not,

therefore, venture farther. The fame of the Bannu Mission Hospital,

however, was our best escort, and passport too, and we got a welcome

at almost every village we passed, through the mediation of numerous

old patients, who had recounted in all the villages the kind treatment

they had received at the hands of the feringis (Europeans) in Bannu.

Progress was somewhat delayed by frequent calls to visit a sick person

in one or another village, but openings for the Gospel were at the same

time secured, and the lessons of the parable of the Good Samaritan

imparted. By midday we reached Thal, which was for some days to be

our field hospital. Here we pitched our tents, under the shade of some

willows, by a small stream outside the town, and early the next morning

started work. A large crowd of sick and their friends had collected

from Thal itself and the villages round. I first read a passage out of

the Pashtu Testament, and explained it to them in that language. The

Gospel address over, I wrote out prescriptions for each one in order,

which my assistant dispensed to them. After a minor operation or two,

a fresh crowd had collected, another address was given, and they,

too, were seen and attended to. In this way five lots of patients were

treated, and about 200 or 300 people heard the Gospel story in their

own language. Then, as evening was drawing on, we shut up our books

and our boxes, washed off the dust of the day's work in the brook hard

by, and proceeded to interest ourselves in the operations which the

cook was conducting over an improvised fireplace, made of a couple

of bricks placed on either side of a small hole in the ground. Dinner

over, we had family prayers, and then fell soundly asleep.

An interesting town where we have sometimes stopped in our itinerations

is that of Kalabagh. It is situated on the right bank of the River

Indus where it finally breaks forth from the rocky gorge that has

hemmed it in with high, often precipitous, sides, which rise at Dimdot

to a sheer height of four hundred feet above the surging river, on

to the boundless alluvial plain of the Panjab. In some of the bends

between Attock and Kalabagh, it rushes at a great speed over rapids,

where the boatmen warily guide their heavy river boats, lest they be

drawn into some whirlpool, or dashed against the precipitous sides;

at others there are deep, silent reaches where the bottom is two

hundred feet from the surface. During the hot weather, when the river

is in flood, it is an exciting experience to be ferried across its

dark grey surging stream. At Kalabagh there are extensive quarries

of salt of a beautiful pink and white colour and great purity; these

bring in a considerable revenue to the Government. The town itself

is built on the side of a hill of red salt marl, some of the houses

being quarried out of the salt itself, so that the owner has only to

chip off a bit of his own wall in order to season his cooking-pot. It

is a standing grievance with the inhabitants that their own walls are

Government contraband, and they are subject to a fine if they sell

a brick from their wall without paying duty on it. The streets are

narrow and winding, and being, many of them, roofed and even built

over, are very dark, and in the hot summer nights insufferably close

and hot, and at all times distinctly insanitary and malodorous.

The people are pale and anæmic, and nearly all suffer from goitre in

a greater or less degree. They form a great contrast to the hardy

mountaineers of the Bangi Khel Khattak tribe on the hills behind

them. These form one of the great recruiting grounds of the Pathan

regiments of the frontier, while from Kalabagh itself it would be hard

to find a score of men who could pass the recruiting officer. In the

sultry summer weather the inhabitants spend the day under a number of

large banyan-trees (Ficus Indica) which are scattered along the edge

of the river. Here, too, the civil officers of the district hold their

courts, and I was encamped under a spacious banyan. Its spreading

branches not only sheltered me and all the sick and visitors who

thronged around me, but also the Deputy Commissioner of the district

and his court, together with the crowd of suitors and applicants that

always followed in his train; and the District Judge, with his court,

and a crowd of litigants, pleaders and witnesses--and this all without

incommoding one another.

The land away from the river is pulsating with the fervid heat of

the summer sun, and the town itself is like an oven; but there is

nearly always a cool breeze blowing on the bank of the river, and,

when heated and dusty with the day's work, one can throw off one's

clothes and cool oneself with a swim in the river, where the young men

of the place are disporting themselves all their leisure time. They use

the inflated skin of a goat or of a cow, and, supporting themselves

on this, can rest on the deep, cool bosom of the river as long as

they like without fatigue. The river is too rapid for them to travel

upstream, but when business takes them downstream, they simply fasten

their clothes in a bundle on their heads, lie across their inflated

skin, and quietly drift downstream at about four miles an hour as

far as they desire. On returning, they simply deflate their skin,

and sling it over their shoulders.

We were usually thronged with patients here from morning to evening,

and I have seen as many as three hundred in one day, the work

including a number of operations. One day a noted Muhammadan Sheikh

visited the place. He was a convert from Hinduism, and was travelling

about the country preaching Islam and decrying the Christian and Hindu

religions. He sent us a challenge to meet him in a public discussion on

the respective merits of the Cross and the Crescent. I was reluctant,

as such discussions are seldom conducted fairly or sincerely; but,

finding my reluctance was being misunderstood, I consented, and we

met one evening, a Muhammadan gentleman of the place being appointed

chairman. It was arranged that we were each in turn to ask a question,

which the other was to answer. He was given the first question, and

asked how it was that we had not miraculous powers, seeing that the

Bible said that those who believed in Christ should be able to take

poison or be bitten of snakes without suffering injury. The catechist

with me gave so lucid and categorical a reply that the Muhammadan

disputant and chairman changed their tone, and said that, as the

time was getting late, it would be better to postpone my question

till another time. Needless to say, that more convenient time never

came, and we were not again challenged to a discussion at Kalabagh,

and the Sheikh left for fresh pastures a few days later.

CHAPTER IX

AFGHAN MULLAHS

No priesthood in Islam--Yet the Mullahs ubiquitous--Their great

influence--Theological refinements--The power of a charm--Bazaar

disputations--A friend in need--A frontier Pope--In a Militia

post--A long ride--A local Canterbury--An enemy becomes a

friend--The ghazi fanatic--An outrage on an English officer.

Here we are met by an apparent paradox. There is no section of the

people of Afghanistan which has a greater influence on the life of

the people than the Mullahs, yet it has been truly said that there

is no priesthood in Islam. According to the tenets of Islam, there

is no act of worship and no religious rite which may not, in the

absence of a Mullah, be equally well performed by any pious layman;

yet, on the other hand, circumstances have enabled the Mullahs of

Afghanistan to wield a power over the populations which is sometimes,

it appears, greater than the power of the throne itself. For one

thing, knowledge has been almost limited to the priestly class, and

in a village where the Mullahs are almost the only men who can lay

claim to anything more than the most rudimentary learning it is only

natural that they should have the people of the village entirely in

their own control. Then, the Afghan is a Muhammadan to the backbone,

and prides himself on his religious zeal, so that the Mullah becomes

to him the embodiment of what is most national and sacred.

The Mullahs are, too, the ultimate dispensers of justice, for there

are only two legal appeals in Afghanistan--one to the theological law,

as laid down by Muhammad and interpreted by the Mullahs; the other to

the autocracy of the throne--and even the absolute Amir would hesitate

to give an order at variance with Muhammadan law, as laid down by

the leading Mullahs. His religion enters into the minutest detail

of an Afghan's everyday life, so that there is no affair, however

trivial, in which it may not become necessary to make an appeal to

the Mullah. Birth, betrothal, marriage, sickness, death--all require

his presence, and as often as not the Afghan thinks that if he has

called in a Mullah to a sick relation there is no further necessity

of calling in a doctor. Thus the Mullah becomes an integral part of

Afghan life, and as he naturally feels that the advance of mission work

and of education must mean the steady diminishing of his influence,

he leaves no stone unturned to withstand the teaching of missionaries

and to prejudice the minds of the people against them.

The great religious fervour of the Afghans must be evident to anyone

who has had even a cursory acquaintance with them, whether in their

mountain homes or as travellers through India. I remember once

sitting in a village chauk while a religious discussion was going

on which threatened to launch the two opponent parties into making

bodily attacks on each other, and the whole of the matter under

discussion was whether prayers said by a worshipper on the skin of

a jackal were efficacious or not. According to the tenets of Islam,

if a worshipper were to perform his genuflections on the bare ground

they would be of no effect, because the ground might certainly be

assumed to be ceremonially polluted. Ordinarily, the worshipper will

spread a piece of clean cloth, or mat, or skin on the ground, and,

removing his shoes beforehand, will perform his prayers thereon. It

might be contended, however, that even though the skin of the jackal

were absolutely clean, yet the unclean nature of the animal still

attached to it, and rendered the prayers ineffective. The matter in

this case was referred to a renowned Mullah who lived some way off,

and to whom both parties had to send deputations several days' journey.

Then, in the mission hospital the question has frequently been

raised by the Afghan patients as to whether it was lawful to say

prayers in the clothes provided by the mission for the patients,

even though these may have come direct from the washing; and we have

been unable to persuade patients to put on clothes, however clean,

which might possibly prevent them from saying their prayers until

they have brought the case before some Mullah who was willing to

give an ex cathedrâ pronouncement in our favour. Mullahs sometimes

use the power and influence they possess to rouse the tribes to

concerted warfare against the infidels, as they tell them that the

English are; and often a prelude to one of the little frontier wars

has been some ardent Mullah going up and down on the frontier, like

Peter the Hermit, rousing the tribes to come down and fight. Often

they lay claim to magical powers whereby those who submit themselves

to their incantations become invulnerable, so that they are able to

stand up before the bullets of the English troops unscathed. Before

the war of 1897, a Mullah, known as the Mullah Povindah, was reputed

to have this power; and many of the Afghans I met maintained that

they had put it to the test, and seen with their own eyes the

bullets fall harmless off the people to whom he had extended his

protection. It was useless to say that they were trying to impose

upon them, for they thoroughly believed it themselves, as was shown

in many cases by the reckless daring with which they charged down on

the British troops. Even those who may be supposed to be free from

the superstition of the ignorant believe with equal fervour in this

power of the Mullahs and holy men. An instance of this occurs in the

Memoirs of the late Amir Abdurrahman, who relates that once during a

military review a soldier deliberately shot at him as he was sitting

in a chair. The bullet passed through the back of the chair, and

wounded a page-boy standing behind. He attributes his escape entirely

to a charm written on a piece of paper which a holy man had given to

him when a boy. He says: "At first I did not believe in its power to

protect; I therefore tried it by tying it round the neck of a sheep,

and though I tried hard to shoot the animal, no bullet injured her."

One of the commonest experiences of the open-air preacher on the

borders of Afghanistan is the wordy warfare in which he is obliged

to engage with some bellicose Mullah. The Mullah has heard that

the missionary has begun to preach, and he regards it as his duty

to come down and champion Islam. He brings a big volume of the Quran

ostentatiously under his arm, and is followed by four or five students,

or talibs, ready to applaud all his thrusts, while ridiculing in a very

forcible way the replies of the preacher. Such arguments can hardly

be expected to bear any reasonable fruit, because the object of the

Mullah is not to ascertain what your views on any doctrine really are,

but only to gain a strategical victory and hold you up to ridicule;

but it is equally impossible to refuse the challenge, for then not

only would the audience conclude that you had no answer to give,

but the Mullah would take care that no one remained to listen to

you. Frequently the object of the Mullah is to egg the people on to

acts of open violence, and then, when they see that the row is well

started, they suddenly make themselves scarce, and leave their flock to

take the risk of any subsequent police investigations which may result.

On one occasion I had a providential deliverance from an unpleasant

incident. On proceeding to the place in the market where I usually

preached, I found a Mullah in possession preaching to a scowling crowd

of townsmen. As we had always preached in that particular place for

years, I saw it was only a ruse to oust us from preaching first there

and then anywhere else where we might go, so I promptly took my place

by the Mullah's side, and commenced preaching to the same audience. The

Mullah vociferated, and the audience scowled more and more, and then

the Mullah, turning to me, said: "Look here, you had better get out of

this, as these people here are up to mischief, and it may go hard with

you." I felt much like Micah when the Danites said to him: "Let not

thy voice be heard among us, lest angry fellows run upon thee." But

I told the Mullah that I held him responsible for the acts of his

followers, and I did not intend to forsake the place to which long

custom had given us a right. Just as the storm seemed about to break,

and I momentarily expected to be pitched across the street, a stalwart

smith, a well-known Muhammadan, himself respected by the people,

pushed through the crowd, and, taking the Mullah by the arm, said:

"Now, Mullah Sahib, you know the Padre Sahib never interferes with you

in your place, and that this is not your proper preaching-place. Why

do you want to make a row and injure him?" So saying, he took the

rather unwilling Mullah off to his usual place, and the more unruly

portion of the crowd, after hurling a few imprecations at me, followed

him, too. Our friend the smith was an old hospital patient, so this,

too, may be set down, under the overruling providence of God, to the

mollifying influence of a medical mission.

One of the most influential Mullahs on the British side of the Afghan

border is the Mullah Karbogha, so called from the village which forms

his Canterbury. In some respects his influence was directed towards the

moral improvement of the people, while in others his religious schools

became hotbeds of fanaticism. Thus he set his face steadily against

the evil practice, which is so prevalent among the frontier Afghans,

of selling their daughters in marriage to the highest bidder. Not long

ago a Mullah of considerable power, who had himself sold his daughter

in marriage, had to make the most abject profession of repentance

lest the Mullah Karbogha should excommunicate him, and he should have

to fly the country. He regards the smoking of tobacco as one of the

works of the devil, and when the Mullah makes his visitation to some

village there is a general scramble to hide away all the pipes; for

not only would any that he found be publicly broken, but the owner

would incur his displeasure. As the Afghans do not confine themselves

to the soothing weed, but mix it up with a number of intoxicating and

injurious substances, such as Indian hemp or charras, this attitude

of the Mullah may be regarded in the light of a reform. Unfortunately,

he regards it as a heinous sin for any Muhammadan to take service with,

or to receive pay from, the British Government. Often on the frontier

a grave crisis has threatened to result from the refusal of one of

his underlings, or Sheikhs, as they are called, to grant the rites

of marriage or burial to some unfortunate Pathan who has enlisted in

one of the regiments of the Indian Army. The missionaries, of course,

are regarded by him and his Sheikhs as the embodiment of the heresies

of an infidel Government.

For many years the Mullah Karbogha apparently ignored me, but finally

I had information that his attitude was going to become more distinctly

hostile. I thought it better, therefore, to act on the Biblical adage

to "agree with thine adversary quickly, whilst thou art in the way with

him," and to seek to modify his attitude by a personal interview. It

was one hot August day that found me and an Indian medical assistant

riding to this frontier Mecca. It was a part of the district notorious

for deeds of violence, and after riding some ten miles, when the hot

summer sun made us feel the need of some refreshment, we came to one of

those villages where is posted a guard of some twenty Militia Sepoys,

who represent the army of the Government in their midst. It was only

a roughly-built house, loopholed and strengthened in some parts to

simulate a fort, and the soldiers themselves were only removed by

a few months' military training, a simple uniform, and the salt of

the Sarkar, which they had eaten, from the families of brigands and

highwaymen from which they had been enlisted. There had been a double

murder that morning in a village a few miles off, and most of the

soldiers were scouring the country round in quest of the marauders;

but, as usually happens, the murderers had got a good start, and

were already probably well across the frontier. When the soldiers who

remained in charge found that it was the Bannu Daktar Sahib who had

come so suddenly upon them, they were all attention. Tea was brewed,

and milk and unleavened cakes were fetched from the village, while

men suffering from ague and women bringing their children suffering

from various ailments to which Afghan children are liable soon came

crowding in, and a little store of medicines that we had carried on

our saddles was in great request.

After refreshing ourselves with their simple hospitality, and

chatting with them on the various subjects which come most naturally

to travellers and to missionaries, we tightened our saddle-girths,

which had been loosened to give the horses a feed, mounted, and rode

on. The road lay through a wide and picturesque valley. A small river

was dashing into silver spray over the boulders on some steep descent,

and elsewhere deepening into some pool overshadowed by acacias and

oleanders, where the fish could be seen disporting themselves on

the shingly bottom. The sides of the valley rose up to right and

left in rough escarpments, where the olive and the gurguri-berry

gave a clothing of green to the bare rocks, while here and there

the hills receded sufficiently to enable the thrifty husbandman to

clear a little piece of land from stones and to plant it with millet,

which in good seasons would supply his household with bread through

the winter months.

After a couple of hours of such riding, we approached the watershed

of the valley, northward of which the streams flowed in the opposite

direction towards the Miranzai and the Kurram. It was one of those

wide stony plains called in Afghanistan raghzas, covered for the

most part with stones stained black by oxides of iron and manganese,

and called by the people dozakhi kanrai, or "hell-stones," from their

tradition that they were thrown there in some ancient conflict between

the devils and the angels. The coarse grass springs up in tufts between

the stones, and affords a pasturage to the flocks of hardy goats and

sheep. Shepherds may be seen here and there guarding and attending

them, while in parts there may be sufficient soil to give in a rainy

season a fair crop of millet or of barley. Before long we descried

four tall minarets rising up beyond an undulation of the plain. This

was our first view of the famed cathedral of this Canterbury of the

frontier where the Mullah Karbogha held his court and issued his

decrees and excommunications, which carried dismay into any hapless

chief's home or village against whom they had been fulminated. As we

drew near we met various other travellers, who had come, it may be,

to bear the Mullah their respects and some votive offerings, or it

may be to bring some long-standing dispute for settlement. We wondered

within ourselves what the result of our pilgrimage would be.

As we drew near we got a fine view of the really beautiful and artistic

mosque which the offerings of the faithful had enabled the Mullah

to build at no little cost in this wild region, where both skilled

labour and building material were at a premium. There was a beautiful

tank of clear limpid water, supplied by a fountain in the hill above,

and here the faithful performed their ablutions before worship. Some

of the talibs and Sheikhs were sitting round the tank and in the

courtyard of the mosque, and appeared not a little surprised to see

the Bannu Daktar Sahib come to their own Mecca. We were informed

that the Mullah himself had gone to a neighbouring village to decide

some dispute, but two of the sons came out to receive us, and led us

into a verandah, where we were soon surrounded by the curious of the

place. They led our horses away with the promise to look after their

needs, and inquired as to the reason of our unexpected arrival.

We told them how the fame of the Mullah Karbogha had reached Bannu,

and how we had long been desirous of ourselves making his personal

acquaintance. After some hesitation, the Mullah's eldest son, who was

the chief in authority during his absence, asked if he should bring

us refreshments. This was what we wished, not so much because the hot

August sun had made us both tired and thirsty, but because it had a

deeper signification; for, after having once offered us hospitality

and broken bread with us, we should be recognized as guests of the

Mullah, and any opposition which he might have been contemplating

against us would be seen at once by the observant Afghans around to

have been laid aside in favour of the reception due to an honoured

guest. We therefore accepted the offer without demur, and tea sweetened

with plenty of sugar and flavoured with cardamoms was brought, with

biscuits, for our refection. Our repast over, and various questions

asked and answered, we were left for a time to ourselves, for in the

hot summer days of India the noonday hours are as sacred to retirement

and repose as those of midnight.

After a few hours' interval, wherein we were left to rest ourselves,

the Mullahs returned and commenced conversation somewhat more

affably. They had no doubt found themselves between the horns of a

dilemma, for their outward rejection of our advances might have led

to acts of open violence on the part of the fanatical inhabitants of

the town, the responsibility for which would ultimately have come home

to themselves in a way far from pleasant; while, on the other hand,

our reception as guests broke down their attitude of hostility,

as at once it would be noised all down the countryside that the

great Mullah had broken the bread of friendship with the Daktar

Sahib from Bannu, and among the Afghans the relationship between

host and guest is inviolable. Thus, it came about that on our host

making inquiries as to where we intended to spend the night, and

finding that we had no other plans, he insisted on our stopping as

his guests, and there and then sent his servants for the preparation

of our lodging and our evening repast. The ice thus broken, we were

able to proceed from general topics to the more abstruse theological

speculations, in which his reverence excelled, and, like a summer

shower, this friendly interchange of ideas washed away the dust of

many old prejudices and misunderstandings, and as the evening hours

drew on our talk continued under the starlit canopy of the glorious

Eastern night, and we were vowing mutual friendship, and he promising

on his own behalf and on that of his father himself to become our

guests on the next occasion of a visit to Bannu. When at last we lay

down to rest, we first thanked God, who had so prospered our journey,

and broken down the great barrier of prejudice, and opened a way for

us to carry on our work in the villages round.

Many of the people still looked askance at us, and spoke of us as

"infidels" and "blasphemers," and would, no doubt, have been led to

proceed further at a hint from the Mullahs; but our mission had been

accepted, and we knew it was only a matter of time that we should

be actually welcomed. Even now, grown bolder by the attitude of the

Mullah, some old patients appeared, and insisted on our accompanying

them to various houses in the village where there were patients in

need of medical help and advice. One cannot overestimate the religious

influences emanating from a place like Karbogha. Numbers of religious

students are attracted there by the fame of the Mullah even from

distant places on both sides of the border, and the offerings of the

faithful enable the Mullah to give a free-handed hospitality to one

and all, and in Afghanistan there is no quicker road to influence than

the ability to do this. It was a tradition in the villages round that

when the Mullah daily prepared his saucepans of rice and cakes of

unleavened bread in his kitchens, the amount was always found to be

sufficient for the pilgrims of that day, even though hundreds might

come in before night, unexpected and unprepared for.

After imbibing not only his theological teaching, but his religious

and political ideals, these students are scattered far and wide

from Kabul to Peshawur, and from Zwat to Waziristan, where they

become his staunch adherents against rival Mullahs or against a

materialistic Government. The more fanatical of these Mullahs do

not hesitate to incite their pupils to acts of religious fanaticism,

or ghaza, as it is called. The ghazi is a man who has taken an oath

to kill some non-Muhammadan, preferably a European, as representing

the ruling race; but, failing that, a Hindu or a Sikh is a lawful

object of his fanaticism. The Mullah instils into him the idea that

if in so doing he loses his own life, he goes at once to Paradise,

and enjoys the special delights of the houris and the gardens which

are set apart for religious martyrs. When such a disciple has been

worked up to the requisite degree of religious excitement, he is

usually further fortified by copious draughts of bhang, or Indian hemp,

which produces a kind of intoxication in which one sees everything red,

and the bullet and the bayonet have no longer any terror for him. Not

a year passes on the frontier but some young officer falls a victim

to one of these ghazi fanatics. Probably the ghazi has never seen

him before in his life, and can have no grudge against him as a man;

but he is a "dog and a heretic," and his death a sure road to Paradise.

One summer afternoon in Bannu I went out with some of our schoolboys

who were training for the mile race in the coming school tournament. I

was accompanying them on my bicycle as they were running round the

polo-ground, where some officers of the garrison were enjoying a game

of golf. Suddenly a young Afghan of some eighteen summers, who had been

able to arm himself with no more formidable weapon than a sharp axe,

rushed up to one of the officers, and, before he could realize what

was coming, dealt him a violent blow across the neck. The officer

partly shielded himself with his golf-club, and probably thereby

saved his life, for the axe came within a hair-breadth of severing

the main arteries, and before the fanatic could deal another stroke

he was felled to the ground by a blow from another officer with his

golf-club. He was only a village youth, with little knowledge of the

world, but had been incited to this act of suicidal fanaticism by a

Mullah, who, without the grit to become a martyr himself, thought

it an act of piety to incite the ignorant boy to the murder of an

innocent fellow-creature at the sacrifice of his own life. In this

case it became known who the Mullah in question was, and which was the

mosque in which he had given this teaching, and while the boy himself

suffered the extreme penalty of the law, the Mullah and the mosque

were not exempted from its operation. The former was transported to

the Andamans and the latter dismantled. Still, it is well known that

other Mullahs are daily engaged in the same teaching on both sides of

the frontier, and other young bloods are equally desirous of obtaining

the sweets of martyrdom.

CHAPTER X

A TALE OF A TALIB

Early days--The theological curriculum--Visit to Bannu--A public

discussion--New ideas--The forbearance of a native Christian--First

acquaintance with Christians--First confession--A lost love--A

stern chase--The lost sheep recovered--Bringing his teacher--The

Mullah converted--Excommunication--Faithful unto death--Fresh

temptations--A vain search--A night quest--The Mullahs

circumvented--Dark days--Hope ever.

Muhammad Taib was born in the village of Thandkoi, in the Peshawur

district. His father was a small farmer, a good example of the better

sort of Muhammadan of the Yusufzai tribe, thoroughly religious, yet

not fanatical, and honest withal. He was careful not only to bring

up Muhammad Taib in a knowledge of his religion, but to preserve

him from the vices which are rife among the youth of the Pathan

villages. Taib's inclinations were towards study, and he showed a

great aptitude for books. His father, however, was of the old school,

which looked with suspicion on the education of the feringis; so it

happened with him as with most young men in Afghanistan who desire

to cultivate their minds: he became a religious student, or talib.

There happened to be a Mullah in the village known as the Khani

Mullah, who took a great fancy to young Taib, so he was placed under

his tutelage, and passed his days studying Arabic and Persian in the

village mosque, while at the same time all the tenets and rites of

the religion of Islam were inculcated and explained. A talib could,

however, never attain the knowledge and experience expected of a

Mullah if he were to remain in his own town; he must travel and sit

at the feet of several at least of the Mullahs most renowned for

their sanctity and learning. So, when young Taib was fifteen years

of age, he tied up his few books in a shawl, and set out from home

to sit at the feet of the renowned Manki Mullah. The learned man

himself would not condescend to teach so immature a pupil, but he

was surrounded by his Sheikhs, who acted as his staff, and taught

the talibs who flocked there from all parts of the country. Besides,

here Taib met with Mullahs from Delhi, Lucknow, Bukhara, Kabul, and

other far-famed seats of learning, contact with whom could not fail

to widen the horizon and enlarge the experience of the pupils who

sat around them, and listened to their arguments and dissertations on

the various schools of thought, and engaged in wordy polemics, which

practised the budding Mullahs in the art of drawing fine theological

distinctions on the interpretation of a Hadis or the difference of

a vowel point in the Quran.

Of a night the talibs would wile the hours away by telling tales

of their respective countries or capping verses from the Persian

poets. But Taib must travel and visit other Mullahs, too; so it

happened that, when seventeen years old, he visited Bannu, and

lodged in the mosque of a noted Mullah near the bazaar. One day,

when passing down the Bannu bazaar, he saw a crowd, and, going up,

he found an animated discussion going on between two Afghans. While

one was obviously a Mullah, the other seemed not to be; but with him

was a companion dressed as a Mullah, whose face struck Taib as not

quite that of any of the Afghan tribes he knew. He began to listen

to see if the enigma would be solved, but was still more surprised

to find that the argument was as to whether the Ingil (Gospel) and

Tauret (Pentateuch) should be read by Muhammadans or not. The Mullah

was arguing that the books had been abrogated by the mission of

Muhammad and the descent of the Quran on that Prophet, saying that,

though it was right to read them till Muhammad came, since then it

was only lawful to read the Quran. The stranger, on the other hand,

pointed out that Muhammad himself expressly referred his followers

to the perusal and study of the "former Scriptures," and clinched

his argument by quotations from the Quran itself.

Finally, the Mullah, finding himself getting into a dilemma, obtained a

release by the artifice with which we are very familiar by now. "It is

time for afternoon prayers. I must hurry off, or my prayers will lapse

by default," he said; and, folding up his Quran in his shawl, hurried

off. Finding their champion gone, another in the crowd called out:

"All who are Mussalmans go away; he is no true Mussalman who stops

to listen to these kafirs. There is no God but God, and Muhammad

is the Prophet of God." And then with one voice all the crowd took

up the last sentence and shouted in unison: "La ilaha ilia 'llahu,

Muhammadun rasulu 'llah!" till the bazaar echoed with the sound;

and then, with jeers and curses at the two preachers, in which Taib

thought it the proper thing to join, the crowd dispersed.

"Who were those two kafirs?" said Taib to a Bannuchi talib who was

walking away with him.

"The one in the dress of a Mullah is a feringi whom we call the

Padre Sahib. He has built a hospital here, where he preaches to the

people about Hazrat 'Esa, and he has, indeed, misled many; in fact,

the other kafir who was with him was led astray by him: he is an

Afghan from Laghman, and has brought disgrace on the Prophet. May

God destroy them both!"

Taib thought here would be good opportunities for acquiring the art

of theological polemics, so he came regularly every day with other

talibs to support the Muslim champion and jeer at the Christians if

they appeared at all discomfited. He could not help, however, being

struck by the forbearance of the Laghmani, who preserved an equable

temper, though the talibs tried to excite him by all the opprobrious

epithets with which their repertory is so well supplied. He saw,

too, that the more difficult their champions found it to answer his

arguments, the more they resorted to the expedient of crying him

down with derisive shouts and jeers, and he began to have a feeling

of sympathy, if not admiration, for him.

Then one day he waited behind till the talibs with him had gone,

and the Afghan preacher, seeing him lingering, took him by the arm

and entered into conversation with him. They went on talking till

they reached the mission compound, and Taib accepted the invitation

of the preacher to stop the night with him. Instead of finding him a

reviler of the Prophet and a miscreant, as he expected, he found that

all he said was quite reasonable and free from the rancour which his

talib friends always introduced into their theological arguments. Then

the peace and comfort of a Christian home, where the wife, instead

of being a chattel or a drudge, was a real helpmate, opened up new

trains of thought in his mind. The Laghmani, too, was a Pathan,

like himself, with the same Afghan prejudices and predilections,

and yet there was an undefinable something in him, a spirit of

self-control and self-abnegation and inward peace of mind, that he

did not remember having met with in any Pathan before. In short,

Taib, instead of being the guest of one night, as he had at first,

not without misgiving, consented to be, stopped on to learn more of

the new doctrine and discover the secret of the change that had been

effected in the Afghan preacher.

Taib proved an apt pupil, and the natural gentleness and fairness

of his character made Christianity all the more attractive to him,

and he applied himself with assiduity to the study of the Christian

Scriptures, and attended the Christian worship. There were struggles

without and doubts within to contend against. His former talib

companions came in a body to see whether the Padre Sahib had kidnapped

him, and when they found him stopping in the mission compound of

his own freewill abused him and threatened him, but did not succeed

in getting him away. One of the chief Bannu Mullahs came and argued

with him for hours, telling him he was guilty of mortal sin in even

allowing himself to entertain doubts about the truth of Islam. But

Taib had become fascinated with the Scriptures, and especially with

the teaching of the Gospels, as is often the case with those who have

never read them till adult life, and he had no intention of forsaking

his host till quite decided one way or the other.

Ultimately he decided that the Prophet Christ must indeed be the

Son of God, the very Saviour that He claimed to be, and he asked for

baptism. It was thought better to let him wait a few months till he had

a maturer knowledge of the doctrines of Christianity, and had shown his

sincerity by standing some of the fire of persecution. There was no

lack of the latter. When he accompanied us to the bazaar preaching,

the foulest abuse was showered on him, and sometimes stones were

thrown, and on one occasion, when he was caught alone, he received

a beating from some talibs and others.

The Bishop of Lahore visited the station about that time, and Muhammad

Taib was baptized under the new name of Taib Khan, and was radiant with

delight at having been at last admitted to the Christian Church. I was

going on a long medical itineration about that time, and he accompanied

me, and was zealous in his new-found faith, taking every opportunity

of drawing Mullahs and others into conversation about the claims of

Christ and the witness of the Quran to Him. Those were perhaps the

happiest days he ever experienced.

Then came a new trial. Taib had been betrothed to a girl in his

village, and his relations, having heard of his baptism, came to

Bannu. In nothing is the honour and sharm of the Pathan more nearly

touched than in his marital relation, and the taunt that he had lost

the sharm which every Pathan so dearly loves, came nearer home to him

than persecution or loss of land and patrimony. One morning I found

that Taib had disappeared. No one knew exactly when or how, but he

had been seen with the people from his village the night before, and

nothing more was known. I assumed that by inducement or force they had

taken him away to his village, and therefore would have gone by the

Kohat road; but they had already had at least eight hours' start,

and the sun was now declining. However, no time was to be lost,

so I got an ekka, or native pony-cart, and, taking with me a young

Bannuchi convert, Sahib Khan by name, started off in pursuit.

For a long time we could get no news of the fugitives; then, at a

village thirty-five miles from Bannu, I was told that some Pathans

answering to the description of Taib and his captors had said their

afternoon prayers in the mosque there and then gone on. Our pony

was too tired to go farther; it was already midnight; the next

stage was eleven miles on, and they would certainly leave there

before daybreak. What was to be done? While we were debating this,

we heard the bugle of the tonga with the mails. This runs between

Bannu and Kohat every day in the winter and every night in the summer,

and accommodates three passengers. If the seats had not been taken,

we might go on in this. It so happened that two seats were vacant, so

we got in, and soon arrived at the next stage, a village called Banda.

Here we alighted. It was 1 a.m. The village was silent and dark except

for the light of the half-moon. On the side of the hill above the

village was the village mosque, and we knew that was the most likely

place for travellers to lodge; so we passed through the silent village,

and, removing our shoes, entered the courtyard of the mosque. Thirteen

men were stretched on the ground fast asleep and covered with their

chadars, the sheet or shawl which an Afghan always carries about

him and uses as a girdle or shawl during the day, and wraps himself

up in cap-à-pie at night. As Afghans always sleep with their heads

covered in their sheet or quilt, we could not recognize the object

of our search, and to wake all would mean certain defeat. But the

Bannuchies are at home in any night-work requiring stealth, so by

the light of the setting moon my companion lifted the corner of the

sheet from off the faces of the sleepers without waking any of them,

and the last one was Taib himself.

A touch on his shoulder and he was roused, and recognized us. I merely

said to him: "Will you come back with me to Bannu?" He answered,

"Yes, Sahib," and got up, wound on his turban, and left with us

without another word. We had to walk back to Khurram, the village

where we had left our pony-cart, and, finding it still there, drove

back to Bannu with the lost sheep, found none too soon.

Months now passed in study and in learning the work of a ward

assistant in the mission hospital, so that he might be able to earn

his own living, and use the opportunities of the mission hospital

in working among the Afghans attending it. There was a Mullah in a

village not far from Bannu, where he acted as the imam and village

schoolmaster. At one time Taib had himself been his pupil, and was

much attached to him. He had long been desirous of getting this Mullah,

his quondam teacher, or ustad, to study the claims of Christ, and one

day he had visited him with this object. When the Mullah mentioned

that he had been suffering from some deafness for some months past,

"Come to the mission hospital," said Taib; "the Padre Sahib there

will certainly cure you."

The Mullah hesitated at first when he heard that every day an address

on Christian doctrine was given to the assembled out-patients before

they were treated. He thought it hardly seemly that he, a Mullah and

an ustad, should sit and listen to heretical teaching without being

able to protest. However, tales of others who had been under treatment

and recovered won the day, and he decided to go. "After all," he said,

"I need not listen, and I can say extra prayers to atone for any sin

there may be in my going."

He came regularly till the cure was complete, but he did not keep up

his intention of not listening to the preacher; in fact, some things

that were said riveted his attention, and made him go home and search

his Quran, and his curiosity was aroused, and he talked over many

things with Taib Khan, and finally came to me to ask me if I would

read the Gospels with him. He was careful to say that he had not any

intention of becoming a Christian, but merely desired to read them

because every Muhammadan regarded them with veneration as the word

of God.

The Sermon on the Mount entranced him, and he used to kiss the book

and place it on his head, as Muhammadans do with their Quran. He would

read by the hour, but as I had not much time to devote to him, he used

to betake himself to the room of Taib Khan, and sit there half the day

studying the Scriptures. This could not go on, of course; the people

of the village heard of it, and said that they must have an imam who

was free from the suspicion of heresy; he lost his pupils, and at

last a Synod of the chief Mullahs of Bannu formally excommunicated him.

He then came to live in the mission compound, and spent some happy

months in study, while supporting himself as custodian of the mission

bookshop. Seldom have I seen so remarkable a growth of the Christian

graces in the character of any of our converts as in this man, and

it was a great delight to see him admitted to Christian baptism,

already more mature in Christian character than many who had been

in the visible Church for years. He bore the most scurrilous abuse

with exemplary forbearance, and even when struck, as happened several

times when going through the bazaar, forbore to retaliate, which for

an Afghan is the acme of self-control.

He was a Seyyid--that is, one who claims descent from Muhammad--and

when he came with us to the bazaar preachings, and stood by our side,

the people were furious with him, saying that it was bad enough

that he, a Mullah and a Seyyid, should have become a Christian, but

to parade it there in the bazaar in that shameless way was too much,

and if he did not desist they would certainly kill him. I recommended

him to abstain from accompanying us to the bazaar preachings, because

I feared that the people would indeed put their threat into execution,

but he would not hear of it. He had read, he said, that our Lord said

He would be ashamed of those who were ashamed of Him before the world,

so how could he refrain from showing publicly that he had become a

Christian? He would think it an honour if he could obtain the crown

of martyrdom for the sake of the Saviour in whom he had believed.

One morning he found an Afghan dagger lying outside his door. We

thought perhaps his enemy had come in the night, but had been startled

by the night watchman and escaped, dropping his weapon; or it might

be that it had been left there to scare him, as much as to say, "That

is what is waiting for you if you do not desist." As a precaution

I told him not to sleep there any more, but gave him a bed in the

house of a native Christian near where I slept myself; for it was

summer, and we were all sleeping in the open. Three nights later I

was awakened about one o'clock in the morning by the report of a gun,

and, running over instinctively to Seyyid Badshah, found the enemy

had indeed come and shot him through the stomach.

Everything possible was done for him, but the wound was mortal, and

that evening he passed away, his last words being: "O Lord Jesus,

I am Thy servant!" There were many moist eyes as we carried Seyyid

Badshah to his last resting-place in the little cemetery at Bannu. His

had been a very lovable character, and in his short Christian life

he had been the means of influencing more than one Afghan towards

Christ. One in particular was a Mullah from the Yusufzai country,

Abdullah by name; and we sometimes spoke of the "four generations,"

as in these few years Taib had been brought by the Afghan preacher

from Laghman, whose story is given in Chapter XVI.; then Taib had

been the instrument in bringing Seyyid Badshah; and through Seyyid

Badshah's influence this other Mullah believed.