HERAT.
HERAT
ITS RUINOUS STATE
BAZAAR
AUTHOR'S DESTITUTE CONDITION
THE SERDAR MEHEMMED YAKOUB KHAN
PARADE OF AFGHAN TROOPS
INTERVIEW WITH SERDAR
CONDUCT OF AFGHANS ON STORMING HERAT
NAZIR NAIM THE VIZIR
EMBARRASSED STATE OF REVENUE
MAJOR TODD
MOSALLA, AND TOMB OF SULTAN HUSEIN MIRZA
TOMB OF KHODJA ABDULLAH ANSAEI, AND OF DOST MOHAMMED KHAN.
[Greek text]
---Isidori Characeni, _Mansiones Parthicae,
17, apud Müller. Geograph. Gr. minores_.
[Herat; Its Ruinous State]
The traveller approaching from the north will certainly be surprised
when, on turning round the mountain Khodja Abdullah Ansari, he sees
lying before him the beautiful immense plain called Djölghei Herat,
with its numerous canals and scattered groups of villages. Although
trees, the principal ornament of every landscape, are here entirely
wanting, he cannot but be convinced that he has reached the bounds of
Turkestan, and with it of Central Asia, properly so called; for of
this Herat is rightly named the gate, or key. Without going so far as
the Orientals, in styling it 'Djennetsifat' (like Paradise), we
cannot, nevertheless, deny to the surrounding country the character of
loveliness and of fertility. Its natural advantages, {270} united with
its political importance, have unhappily made it an apple of discord
to adjoining nations, and when we consider the wars that have here
been carried on, and the frequent sieges that the city has had to
support, it is astonishing to us how rapidly the wounds inflicted seem
to have scarred over. Only two months before we arrived, hordes of
wild Afghans had here housed themselves, scattering desolation and
devastation in every direction, and yet, even now, fields and
vineyards looked flourishing, and the meadows were covered with high
grass mixed with flowers.
Like all cities in the East, it has both ancient and modern ruins; and
here, as everywhere else, we must pronounce the former the more
beautiful and the nobler. The remains of the monuments on the Mosalla
(place of prayer), remind us of the ruins of the ancient city of
Timour; the round towers lying scattered singly about look like the
immediate environs of Ispahan; but the city, and the fortress itself,
in the state in which I saw it, form a ruin such as we rarely meet
with, even in the East.
[Bazaar]
We entered by the gate Dervaze Arak. The houses which we passed, the
advanced works, the very gate, looked like a heap of rubbish. Near the
latter, in the inside of the city, is the Ark (citadel) having, from
its elevation, served as a mark for the Afghan artillery; it lies
there blasted and half demolished. The doors and windows have been
stripped of their woodwork, for during the siege the inhabitants
suffered most from the scarcity of fuel. In the bare openings of the
walls are perched here and there a few wretched-looking Afghans or
Hindoos--worthy guards of such a ruin. Each step we advance, we see
greater indications of devastation. Entire quarters of the {271} town
remain solitary and abandoned. The bazaar--that is to say, the arched
part of it, where the quadrangle of the bazaar is united by its dome,
and which has witnessed and resisted so many sieges--alone remains,
and affords, in spite of its new population, dating only from three
months ago, a really interesting sample of Oriental life--a blending
of the characteristics of India, Persia, and Central Asia, better
defined than even in the bazaar of Bokhara. It is only from the
Karavanserai Hadji Resul to that of No that a throng, rightly so
called, exists; and although the distance is small, the eye is
bewildered by the diversity of races--Afghans, Indians, Tartars,
Turkomans, Persians, and Jews. The Afghan parades about, either in his
national costume, consisting of a long shirt, drawers, and dirty linen
clothes, or in his military undress; and here his favourite garment is
the red English coat, from which, even in sleep, he will not part. He
throws it on over his shirt, whilst he sets on his head the
picturesque Indo-Afghan turban. Others again, and these are the _beau
monde_, are wont to assume a half Persian costume. Weapons are borne
by all. Rarely does any one, whether civil or military, enter the
bazaar without his sword and shield. To be quite _à la mode_, one must
carry about one quite an arsenal, consisting of two pistols, a sword,
poniard, hand-jar, gun, and shield. With the wild martial-looking
Afghan we can only compare the Turkomanlike Djemshidi. The
wretchedly-dressed Herati, the naked Hezare, the Teymuri of the
vicinity, are overlooked when the Afghan is present. He encounters
around him nothing but abject humility; but never was ruler or
conqueror so detested as is the Afghan by the Herati.
{272}
The bazaar itself, dating from Herat's epoch of splendour, the reign
of the Sultan Husein Mirza, and consequently about four hundred years
old, deserved still, even in its ruins, the epithet beautiful. It is
said, in earlier times, to have formed an entire street, from the
Dervaze Arak to the Dervaze Kandahar. [Footnote 81] Of course, at
present, the shops in the bazaar begin to open again, but only by
degrees. The last siege and plundering of the city could not fail to
prove a great discourager. Indeed, under the rapacious system of
duties introduced by the Afghans, trade and manufacture have little
prosperity opened to them; for it is extraordinary, indeed incredible,
what taxes are extorted from both seller and purchaser, upon every
article that is sold. They seem, besides, to be regulated by no fixed
scale, but to be quite arbitrary. One has to pay a duty, for instance,
for a pair of boots that has cost originally five francs, one and a
half francs; for a cap, worth two francs, one franc; for a fur that
has been purchased for eight francs, three francs; and so on. Every
article imported or exported is stamped by tax-collectors, having
offices in the bazaar and in different parts of the city.
[Footnote 81: Unlike the other gates this one suffered little during
the siege. The Herati pretend that it can never he demolished,
because built by the English, who lay brick over brick only as
justice directs, unlike the Afghans, who mix the mortar with the
tears of oppression.]
The original inhabitants of the city were Persians, and belonging to
the race that spread itself from Sistan towards the north-east, and
formed the ancient province of Khorasan, of which, until recent days,
that remained the capital. In later times, the immigrations, of which
Djenghis and Timour were the cause, {273} led to the infusion of
Turco-Tartaric blood into the veins of the ancient population. The
collective name Char-Aimak is the result, as well as the subdivision
of the people into the Djemshidi, Firuzkuhi, Teïmeni or Timouri. These
are races of different origin, and can only from a political point of
view be regarded as one single nation. Thus far of the inhabitants of
the Djölghei Herat.
The fortress itself is inhabited, for the most part, by Persians, who
settled here in the last century, to maintain and spread the influence
of their own country. They are now principally handicraftsmen or
merchants. As for Afghans, one cannot find in the city more than one
in five. They have become quite Persians, and are, particularly since
the last siege, very hostile to their own countrymen. A Kabuli, or a
Kaker from Kandahar, is as much regarded by him in the light of an
oppressor, and therefore is as much detested, as by the aboriginal
natives of Herat.
The diversified throngs I encountered in Herat produced a pleasing
effect upon me. The Afghan soldiery in the English uniform, with
shako--a covering for the head contrary to the prescriptions of the
Koran, and the introduction of which into the Turkish army is regarded
as impracticable [Footnote 82]--seemed {274} to lead to the
conclusion that I had fallen upon a land where Islamite fanaticism had
lost its formidable character, and where I might gradually discontinue
my disguise. And when I saw many soldiers moving about with moustaches
shaved off, and wearing whiskers--an appendage regarded as a deadly
sin in Islam, and even in Constantinople as a renunciation of their
religion--the hope seized me that perhaps I might meet here English
officers; and how happy I should have considered myself to have found
some son of Britain, whose influence, without doubt, from political
circumstances, would have been here very great. I had, for the moment,
forgotten that the Oriental is never what he seems, and my
disappointment was, indeed, bitter.
[Footnote 82: The Osmanli insist that according to the Sunnet
(tradition), Siper (a head-covering with a peak), and Zunnar (the
cord round the loins of monks), are most rigorously forbidden as
signs of Christianity. Sultan Mahmoud II., on introducing into
Turkey for the first time a militia formed on the model of the
European, was very desirous of substituting the shako for the highly
inappropriate Fez, but the destroyer of the Janissaries did not
venture to carry his wish into execution, for he would have been
declared an _apostate_ even by his best friends.]
[Author's Destitute Condition]
As I before remarked, my finances had melted away positively to
nothing. I was obliged, on entering Herat, to sell at once even the
ass upon which I rode. The poor brute, being quite worn out with his
journey, brought me only twenty-six krans, out of which I was obliged
to pay the tax upon the sale, and other little debts. The state in
which I found myself was very critical. The want of bread admitted of
remedy; but the nights had become quite cold, and in spite of my being
inured to a life of hardship, my sufferings were great, when I slept
in an open ruin, with scanty clothing, and on the bare earth. The
thought that Persia might be reached in ten days cheered me up. Still,
it was not so easy an enterprise to arrive thither. To go alone was
impossible, and the karavan, preparing to go to Meshed, wished to wait
still for an increase of travellers, and a more favourable
opportunity; for the Tekke Turkomans not only rendered the journey
exceedingly {275} unsafe, but plundered villages and karavans, and
carried off captives before the very gates of Herat. During the first
days of my arrival, I heard that a Persian envoy, named Mehemmed Bakir
Khan, sent by the governor Prince of Khorasan to congratulate the
young Serdar of Herat, proposed soon to return to Teheran. I
immediately waited upon him, and begged him to take me with him. The
Persian was very polite; but although I repeated to him over and over
again the state of destitution in which I was, he paid no attention to
that statement, and asked me (the dreadfully disfigured Hadji), if I
had brought back with me any fine horses from Bokhara! Every word of
his seemed to indicate a wish on his part to penetrate my secret.
Seeing that I had nothing to expect, I left him. He quitted Herat soon
after, accompanied by many of the Hadjis who had travelled with me
from Samarcand and Kerki. All abandoned me--all but Mollah Ishak, my
faithful companion from Kungrat, who had believed, when I said that in
Teheran better fortunes awaited me, and who stood by me. The honest
young man obtained our daily food and fuel by begging, and got ready
besides our evening supper, which he even refused respectfully to
share with me out of the same plate. Mollah Ishak forms, in another
point of view, one of the most interesting of my episodes. He lives
now, at this day, in Pesth, instead of being at Mecca, and in the
sequel of my narrative we shall have occasion to speak of him.
[The Serdar Mehemmed Yakoub Khan; Parade of Afghan Troops]
Not to neglect any expedient to forward my journey on to Meshed, I
went to the reigning Prince, Serdar Mehemmed Yakoub Khan, son of the
present king of Afghanistan, a lad in his sixteenth year, who had been
placed at the head of affairs in the conquered {276} province, his
father, immediately after his accession to the throne, having been
obliged to hasten away to Kabul, in order to prevent any steps being
taken by his brothers to contest the throne with him. The young Prince
resided in the Charbag, in the palace which had also served for the
dwelling of Major Todd. It had, it is true, suffered much during the
siege, but was naturally preferred, as a residence, to the citadel,
which was a mere ruin. One part of that quadrangular court, a garden
as they were in the habit of calling it, although I saw in it only a
few trees, served as night quarters for him and his numerous retinue,
whilst in the portions situate on the opposite side an Arz (public
audience) of four or five hours' duration was held in a large long
hall. The Prince was generally seated at the window in an armchair,
dressed in military uniform, with high collars; and as the numerous
petitioners, whom he was obliged officially to receive, very much
wearied him, he made the Risale Company (the _élite_ of the Afghan
troops) exercise before his window, and seemed highly delighted with
the wheeling of the columns, and the thundering word of command of the
officer passing them in review, who, besides, pronounced the 'Right
shoulder forward! Left shoulder forward!' with a genuine English
accent.
[Interview with Serdar]
When I stepped into the court I have mentioned, accompanied by Mollah
Ishak, the drill was at its most interesting point. The men had a very
military bearing, far better than the Ottoman army, that was so
drilled forty years ago. These might have been mistaken for European
troops, if most of them had not had on their bare feet the pointed
Kabuli shoe, and had not had their short trousers so tightly {277}
stretched by their straps that they threatened every moment to burst
and fly up above the knee. After having watched the exercises a short
time, I went to the door of the reception-hall, which was filled by a
number of servants, soldiers, and petitioners. If all made way for me,
and allowed me undisturbed to enter the saloon, I had to thank the
large turban I had assumed (my companion had assumed a similar one),
as well as the 'anchorite' appearance which my wearisome journey had
imparted. I saw the Prince as I have described; on his right hand sat
his Vizir, and next to him there were ranged along against the wall
other officers, Mollahs and Heratis; amongst these there was also a
Persian, Imamverdi Khan, who on account of some roguery had fled
hither from (Djam) Meshed. Before the Prince stood his keeper of the
seal (Möhürdar), and four or five other servants. True to my Dervish
character, on appearing I made the usual salutation, and occasioned no
surprise to the company when I stepped, even as I made it, right up to
the Prince, and seated myself between him and the Vizir, after having
required the latter, a corpulent Afghan, to make room for me by a push
with the foot. This action of mine occasioned some laughing, but it
did not put me out of countenance. I raised my hands to repeat the
usual prayer required by the law. [Footnote 83] Whilst I was
repeating it, the Prince looked me full in the face. I saw his look of
amazement, and when I was repeating the Amen, and all present were
keeping time with me in stroking their beards, the Prince half rose
from his chair, and, pointing {278} with his finger to me, he called
out, half laughing and half bewildered, 'Vallahi, Billahi Schuma,
Inghiliz hestid' ('By G--, I swear you are an Englishman!').
[Footnote 83: This is in Arabic, and to the following effect: 'God
our Lord, let us take a blessed place, for of a verity Thou art the
best quartermaster.']
A ringing peal of laughter followed the sudden fancy of the young
king's son, but he did not suffer it to divert him from his idea; he
sprang down from his seat, placed himself right before me, and,
clapping both his hands like a child who has made some lucky
discovery, he called out, 'Hadji, Kurbunet' ('I would be thy victim'),
'tell me, you are an Englishman in Tebdil (disguise), are you not?'
His action was so naïve, that I was really sorry that I could not
leave the boy in his illusion. I had cause to dread the wild
fanaticism of the Afghans, and, assuming a manner as if the jest had
gone too far, I said, 'Sahib mekun' ('have done'); 'you know the
saying, "He who takes, even in sport, the believer for an unbeliever,
is himself an unbeliever." [Footnote 84] Give me rather something for
my Fatiha, that I may proceed further on my journey.' My serious look,
and the Hadis which I recited, quite disconcerted the young man; he
sat down half ashamed, and, excusing himself on the ground of the
resemblance of my features, said that he had never seen a Hadji from
Bokhara with such a physiognomy. I replied that I was not a Bokhariot,
but a Stambuli; and when I showed him my Turkish passport, and spoke
to him of his cousin, the son of Akbar Khan, Djelal-ed-din Khan, who
was in Mecca and Constantinople in 1860, and had met with a
distinguished reception from the Sultan, his manner quite changed; my
passport went the round of the company, and met with approbation. The
Prince gave me some krans, {279} and dismissed me with the order that
I should often visit him during my stay, which I accordingly did.
[Footnote 84: Traditional sentence of the Prophet.]
[Illustration]
'I SWEAR YOU ARE AN ENGLISHMAN!
However fortunate the issue of this amusing proceeding, it had still
some consequences not very agreeable, as far as my continued stay in
Herat was concerned. Following the Prince's example, every one wanted
to detect in me the Englishman. Persians, Afghans, and Herati came to
me with the express purpose of convincing themselves and verifying
their suspicions. The most boring fellow was a certain Hadji Sheikh
Mehemmed, an old man rejoicing in the reputation of being a great
astrologer and astronomer, and really, as far as opportunity enabled
me to judge, one well read in Arabic and Persian. He informed me that
he had travelled with Mons. de Khanikoff, and had been of much service
to him in Herat, and that the latter had given him a letter to the
Russian ambassador in Teheran, of which he wished me to take charge.
In vain did I try to persuade the good old man, that I had nothing to
do with the Russians; he left me with his convictions unshaken. But
what was most droll was the conduct of the Afghans and Persians; they
thought they saw in me a man _à la_ Eldred Pottinger, who made his
first entry into Herat disguised as a horsedealer, and became later
its master. They insisted that I had a credit here for hundreds, even
thousands, of ducats, and yet no one would give me a few krans to
purchase bread!
Ah, how long the time seemed that I had to pass in Herat waiting for
the karavan! The city had a most gloomy troubled aspect; the dread of
their savage conqueror was painted on the features of its inhabitants.
The incidents of the last siege, its capture and plundering, formed
the constant subjects of conversation.
{280}
[Conduct of Afghans on storming Herat]
According to the assertions of the Herati (which are, however, not
founded in fact), Dost Mohammed Khan took the fortress, not by the
bravery of the Kabuli, but by the treason of the garrison; they
insist, too, that the beloved prince Sultan Ahmed was poisoned, and
that his son Shanauvaz, who is almost deified by the Herati, did not
obtain information of the treachery before a great part of the Paltan
(soldiers) had already forced their way into the fortress. The
struggle carried on by the besieged prince with his angry
father-in-law was of the bitterest description, the sufferings borne
and inflicted were dreadful, but worst of all were the sacking and
plundering that took place unexpectedly some days after the actual
capture, when many fugitive Herati returned with their property into
the city. Four thousand Afghan soldiers, chosen expressly for the
purpose from different tribes and regiments, rushed at a given signal,
and from different sides of the city, upon the defenceless
habitations, and are said not only to have carried off clothing, arms,
furniture, whatever in fact met their eye, but forced every one to
strip himself almost to a state of nudity, and to have left the
half-naked tenants behind them in their thoroughly denuded and emptied
houses. They tore away even from the sick their bedding and clothing,
and robbed infants of cradles, nay, of the very swathing clothes,
valueless but to them! A Mollah, who had been robbed of all his books,
told me that he had lost sixty of the finest MSS.; but the loss he
most deplored was that of a Koran bequeathed to him by his
grandfather. He entreated the plunderer to leave him this one book,
from which he promised that he would pray for his despoiler. 'Do not
trouble thyself,' said the Kabuli; {281} 'I have a little son at home
who shall pray for thee from it. Come, give it me.'
[Nazir Naïm the Vizir]
Whoever is acquainted with the covetousness of the filthy grasping
Afghan, may picture to himself how he would behave in plundering a
city. The besiegers levied contributions upon the city during a day,
upon the country around during months. These are indeed natural
consequences of war, occurring even in civilised countries, and which
we will not make the subject of excessive reproach against the
Afghans. But it is a pity that, instead of seeking to heal the wounds
which they have inflicted, their miserable policy seems now to aim at
reducing the whole province still further to beggary; so that in a
country, where undoubtedly they are called upon to play an important
part, they have rendered themselves objects of detestation: for the
inhabitants would at once again plunge into a hopeless contest rather
than ever acknowledge the supremacy of the Afghans. Herat, that is
said now again to show signs of fresh life, has been left in the hands
of a good-humoured inexperienced child. His guardian, the Khan of the
Djemshidi, has an understanding with the Turkomans, against whose
incursions he ought to protect the country. The Alamans extend their
depredations to within a few leagues of Herat; scarcely does any week
elapse without villages being surprised and plundered, and the
inhabitants being led away to captivity. The Vizir of the Prince,
named Nazir Naïm, is a man whose coarse features are, as it were, the
sign-post of stupidity; he has in the course of only two months so
enriched himself that he has purchased for himself in Kabul two houses
with vineyards. As the internal affairs of the city and province are
left in his hands, he {282} is accustomed, during the whole time of
his hours of business, to surround himself with litigants and
place-hunters. He soon tires, and when questions or petitions are
addressed to him respecting the government recently established, to
get rid of the wearisome application he has ever ready the stereotyped
answer: 'Her tchi pish bud' (Everything as before). In his absence of
mind he returns the same answer when accusations are laid before him
of murder or theft; the plaintiff surprised repeats his story, but
obtains the eternal answer, 'Her tchi pish bud,' and so he must
retire.
[Embarrassed State of Revenue; Major Todd]
A striking proof of the confusion that pervades everything is the
circumstance, that in spite of unheard-of duties, in spite of endless
imposts, the young Serdar cannot raise out of the revenues of the
province of Herat a sum sufficient to defray the expenses of the civil
functionaries and the garrison of fourteen hundred men. Mr. Eastwick
[Footnote 85] reports, according to a statement made by the Prince
Governor of the province of Khorasan, that the income of Herat amounts
yearly to 80,000 Toman (38,000_l_.), but from this sum are to be
maintained, besides the corps of civilians, five regiments of
infantry, and about 4,000 cavalry, for which purpose the amount given
is clearly insufficient. With a larger income, Herat of the present
day has far fewer expenses; the terrified city is easily governed; and
it can only be ascribed to maladministration that a subvention is
required from Kabul to defray the expenses of the troops. {283} Had
Dost Mohammed only lived a year longer to consolidate the government
of the newly-conquered province, the incorporation of Herat with
Afghanistan might have been possible. As it is, fear alone keeps
things together. It needs only some attack, no matter by whom, to be
made upon Herat, for the Herati to be the first to take up arms
against the Afghans. Nor does this observation apply to the Shiite
inhabitants alone, whose sympathies are, of course, in favour of
Persia, but even to those of the Sunnite persuasion, who would
certainly prefer the Kizilbash to their present oppressors; but I find
no exaggeration in the opinion that they long most for the
intervention of the English, whose feelings of humanity and justice
have led the inhabitants to forget the great differences in religion
and nationality. The Herati saw, during the government of Major Todd,
more earnestness and self-sacrifice with respect to the ransoming of
the slaves [Footnote 86] than they had ever even heard of before on
the part of a ruler. Their native governments had habituated them to
be plundered and murdered, not spared or rewarded.
[Footnote 85: 'Journal of a Diplomate's Three Years' Residence in
Persia,' vol. ii. p. 244.]
[Footnote 86: The report is general in Herat that Stoddart was sent
on a mission to Bokhara to ransom the Herati there pining in
captivity.]
[Mosalla, and Tomb of Sultan Husein Mirza; Tomb of Khodja Abdullah
Ansari, and of Dost Mohammed Khan.]
Two days before my departure, I suffered an Afghan to persuade me to
make an excursion to a village in the vicinity named Gazerghiah, to
pay a visit there to the tombs of Khodja Abdullah Ansari, and of Dost
Mohammed Khan, in order, as it is said, to kill two flies with one
blow. On the way I paid my parting visit to the fine ruins of Mosalla.
The remains of the mosque and of the sepulchre, which the great Sultan
Husein Mirza, caused to be built for {284} himself ten years before
his death (901), are, as I before mentioned, an imitation of the
monuments of Samarcand. [Footnote 87] Time would have long spared
these works of art, but they suffered shamefully during the last two
sieges, when the place became the quarters of Shiite fanaticism. It is
to be regretted that European officers, like General Borowsky and
General Bühler--the former a Pole, the latter an Alsatian, and both
present in those campaigns, could not interfere to prevent such acts
of Vandalism. Gazerghiah itself, at a league's distance from Herat,
and visible, by its position on a hill from that city, has many
monuments of interest in sculpture and architecture. They date from
the epoch of Shahrookh Mirza, a son of Timour, and have been described
at large by Ferrier, but with some slight mistakes, which one readily
excuses in an officer who travels. The name of the saint at
Gazerghiah, for instance, is Khodja Abdullah Ansari--the latter word
signifying that he was an Arab, and of the tribe that shared the
Hidjra (flight) with the Prophet. More than six hundred years ago, he
passed from Bagdad to Merv, thence to Herat, where he died, and was
declared a saint. He now stands in high repute as patron of both city
and province. Dost Mohammed Khan directed himself to be buried at the
feet of Khodja Abdullah Ansari, at once flattering the prejudices of
his countrymen {285} and offending those of his enemies. The grave,
which lies between the walls of the adjoining edifice and the
sepulchre of the Khodja, had when I saw it no decoration, and not even
a stone; for his son and successor preferred first to lay the
foundation of his inheritance before completing the tomb of him who
had bequeathed it to him. This does not, however, prevent the Afghans
from performing their reverential pilgrimages. The saint will, before
long, be thrown into the shade by his mighty rival; and yet he has but
his deserts, for he is probably one of the numerous Arabian vagabonds,
but Dost Mahommed Khan was the founder of the Afghan nation.
[Footnote 87: The sepulchre particularly has much resemblance to
that of Timour. The decorations and inscriptions upon the tomb are
of the most masterly sculpture it is possible to conceive. Many
stones have three inscriptions carved out, one above the other, in
the finest Sulus writing, the upper line, the middle one, and lower
one, forming different verses.]
{286}