Departure from Peshawur.

On the 19th of April we took our leave of Sooltan Mahommed Khan, and Peshawur. Nothing could have surpassed the kindness of this nobleman, and now that we were leaving him he consigned us to a Persian, one of his own officers, who was sent to Cabool on our account: he then produced a letter to his brother at Candahar, as also to several persons in Cabool; likewise six blank sheets bearing his seal, which he begged we would fill up to any person of his acquaintance whom we believed could avail us. Such treatment, as may be imagined, called for our gratitude; but it was with difficulty that I could prevail on the chief to take a pair of pistols of small value. I gave his son a musical box, and he regretted my doing so. As we left his house he saw us mount, and wished us every success and prosperity; and would have accompanied us for some distance, had we not objected. Several of the good people about him, with whom we had become acquainted, came with us for the first march, and among these were Gholam Kadir, and Meer Alum, two sons of a Cazee, at Lodiana, to whose good offices we were indebted on many occasions while at Peshawur.

There are five different roads to Cabool; but we chose that which leads by the river, since the pass of Khyber is unsafe from the lawless habits of the people; and we therefore crossed the beautiful plain of Peshawur to Muchnee. At the city we had become intimate with one of the hill chiefs, who urged us to take the Khyber route; but no one trusts a Khyberee, and it was not deemed prudent. Nadir Shah paid a sum of money to secure his passage through the defile in that country, which is about eighteen miles in length, and very strong. I should have liked much to see these people in their native state; but our acquaintance, though a chief, was not to be depended on. He was a tall, bony, gaunt-looking man, like the rest of his tribe, much addicted to spirits; and, when speaking of his country, he called it “Yaghistan,” or the land of the rebels. I accompanied this person to an orchard near Peshawur, where he wished us to join in a drinking party; but we considered him and his associates savage enough without intoxication.

We crossed the river of Cabool above Muchnee on a raft, which was supported on inflated skins, and but a frail and unsafe mode of transport. The river is only 250 yards wide, but runs with such rapidity, that we were carried more than a mile down before gaining the opposite bank. The horses and baggage ponies swam across. Muchnee is a straggling village, at the gorge of the valley where the Cabool river enters the plain. Below that place it divides into three branches in its course towards the Indus. It is usual to navigate this river on rafts; but there are likewise a few boats, and the pilgrims proceeding to Mecca often embark at Acora, and pass down the Indus in them to the sea. Merchandise is never sent by this route; but it is important to know there is a water channel of communication from near Cabool to the ocean.

On the 23d we had adjusted all matters for our advance, by conciliating the Momunds, a plundering tribe, somewhat less ferocious than their neighbours of Khyber, through whose country we were to pass. They demanded half a rupee of every Mahommedan, and double the sum of a Hindoo; but much less satisfied them, though they quarrelled about its distribution. We commenced our march, by scrambling over hills and rocks, and were soon satisfied of the influence of our friends, as we met some individual passengers, attended by mere children, whose tribe was a sufficient protection for them. Scene in the Cabool river. After a fatiguing march over mountain passes we found ourselves on the Cabool river, which was to be crossed a second time. We had now a full insight into our mode of travelling, and the treatment which we were to expect. We never moved but in a body; and when we got to the banks of the river under a scorching sun, had no means of crossing it till our friends the Momunds could be again appeased. We laid ourselves down in the shade of some rocks, which had fallen from precipices that rose in grandeur over us to the height of about 2000 feet, and before us the Cabool river rushed with great rapidity in its course onwards. Its breadth did not exceed 120 yards. Towards afternoon, our highlanders produced eight or ten skins, and we commenced crossing; but it was night before we had all passed, and we then set fire to the grass of the mountains to illuminate our neighbourhood and ensure safety to the frail raft. The passage of the river was tedious and difficult: in some places the rapidity of the stream, formed into eddies, wheeled us round, and we had the agreeable satisfaction of being told that, if we went some way down, there was a whirlpool, and, if once enclosed in its circle, we might revolve in hunger and giddiness for a day. This inconvenience we all escaped, though some of the passengers were carried far down the river, and we ourselves had various revolutions in the smaller eddies. There was no village or people on either side of the river, and we spread our carpets on the ground, and heartily enjoyed a cool night after the day’s fatigue. The noise of the stream soon lulled most of us to sleep, and towards midnight nothing was to be heard but the voices of the mountaineers, who had perched themselves on a rock that projected over our camp, and watched till daylight. A truly cut-throat band they appeared, and it was amusing to observe the studied respect which all of us paid them. Their chief, a ragged ruffian without a turban, was mounted on a horse: his praises were sung, and presents were given him; but we had no sooner left the country, than every one abused those whom we had been caressing. The spirit of the party might be discovered by one old man, who drove his horse into a wheat-field, on the verge of the Momund country, calling out, “Eat away, my good animal; the Momund scoundrels have ate much of my wealth in their time.”

After an exposure of about eight hours to a powerful sun, on the following morning we reached Duka by a rocky and difficult road, and pushed on, in the afternoon, to Huzarnow, a journey of upwards of twenty miles. On reaching Duka, we had surmounted the chief part of our difficulties on the road to Cabool. The view from the top of a mountain pass, before we descended into the valley of the Cabool river, was very magnificent. We could see the town of Julalabad, forty miles distant, and the river winding its way in a snaky course through the plain, and dividing it into innumerably fertile islands as it passed. The Sufued Koh, or white mountain, reared its crest on one side, and the towering hill of Noorgil or Kooner on the other; here the Afghans believe the ark of Noah to have rested after the deluge, and this Mount Ararat of Afghanistan, from its great height, is certainly worthy of the distinction: it is covered with perpetual snow. There is an isolated rock not far from this place, called NÄogee, in Bajour, which answers, in my mind, to Arrian’s description of the celebrated rock of Aornus, which indubitably lay in that neighbourhood. Rock of Aornus. It is said to be inaccessible, but by one road, to be strong and lofty, and large enough to produce grain for the garrison, having likewise an abundant supply of water, which is literally an account of Aornus. It is also within twenty miles of Bajour; and we are informed that the citizens of Bazaria (supposed to be Bajour) fled to Aornus for safety in the night. I have not seen the hill of NÄogee.

At Muchnee, the hills are sandstone: on the tops of the passes there are veins of quartz. In the bed of the Cabool river the rocks are granite; and over the village of Duka the formation is mica, which occurs in vertical strata. A sweet aromatic smell was exhaled from the grass and plants. One shrub looked very like broom; another resembled the flower-de-luce, and supplies the people with mats to build their huts as well as sandals for their feet, to which they are fixed by a string of the same material. Our thirst and fatigue were much relieved by a plant of the sorrel kind, which we found most grateful, and gathered and ate as we climbed over the hills. The pasture is here favourable to cattle, and the mutton used in Peshawur owes its flavour to it.

Before leaving Duka we had a visit from the chief of the Momunds, Sadut Khan, of Lalpoor, a handsome man of about thirty, with a good-humoured countenance. We sat under a mulberry tree, on a cot or bed, for half an hour; he pressed us much to cross the river, and become his guests for a few days, when he would entertain and amuse us with his hawks, some of which were carried by his attendants. We declined his civilities on the excuse of our journey. I afterwards learned that this smiling Momund had raised himself to the chiefship of his clan, by murdering two young nephews with their mother.

At Huzarnow we met a Khyberee, with whom we had some acquaintance in the Punjab, where he had served as an hirkaru, or messenger, to Runjeet Sing. Immediately he heard of our arrival he made his appearance, and, catching me by the feet, and then by the beard, intimated, in the little Persian he could speak, that we were his guests, and must occupy his house in the village; which we gladly accepted. He was a most uncouth looking being, with a low brow and sunken eyes: he had two sons, neither of whom he had seen for fourteen years, till within a few days of our arrival. He had, nevertheless, twice carried expresses to Cabool; and though he had passed his native village and home, he had never stopped to make an enquiry. He had now returned for good to his country.

After a fatiguing march of twelve hours on the saddle, three of which were spent in waiting for stragglers, we reached Julalabad on the morning of the 26th. As we passed Soorkhdewar, where the caravans are sometimes plundered, our conductor, the Persian, whether to show his courage or the disordered state of his imaginations, fancied himself attacked by robbers. He fired his carbine, and, by the time those in the rear came up, had completed a long story of his own daring bravery; how he had punished one of the robbers with the but end of his piece, and the danger which he had undergone from his antagonist’s ball, that had whistled past his ear! His followers applauded his bravery, and I added my share of praise. It appeared singular that the Persian alone should have seen the highwaymen: but the whole matter was explained by a quiet remark from a member of the caravan; that the gentleman wished to give proof of his courage now that we were beyond danger.

Our route from Huzarnow to Julalabad lay through a wide stony waste, a part of which is known by the name of the “dusht,” or plain of Buttecote, and famed for the pestilential wind or “simoom” that prevails here in the hot season, though the mountains on both sides are covered with perpetual snow. The natives of this country describe the simoom as generally fatal. Travellers, who have recovered, say, that it attacks them like a cold wind, which makes them senseless. Water poured with great violence into the mouth sometimes recovers the patient; and a fire kindled near him has a good effect. Sugar and the dried plums of Bokhara are also given with advantage. Horses and animals are subject to the simoom as well as man; and the flesh of those who fall victims to it is said to become so soft and putrid, that the limbs separate from each other, and the hair may be pulled out with the least force. This pestilential wind is unknown in the highlands of Cabool, and principally confined to the plain of Butteecote now described. It is as malignant in its effects during night as in the day; and in summer no one ever thinks of travelling while the sun is above the horizon. In a party of thirty or forty individuals, one only may be attacked: nor are those who escape sensible of any change in the atmosphere. It may be simply the effects of heat on a certain state of the body.

We were not travelling in the season of hot and pestilential winds; but on this march we encountered one of these storms of wind and dust which are common in countries near the tropic. In the present instance, it was attended with a singular phenomenon: clouds of dust approached each other from opposite sides of the compass, and, when they met, took quite a different direction. It is, perhaps, to be accounted for by the eddy of the wind in a low plain, about twelve or fifteen miles broad, with lofty mountains on either side. Julalabad, we found, had been deluged with rain, which we had entirely escaped.

In a hill north of the Cabool river and the village of Bussoul, we observed some extensive excavations in the rock, which are ascribed to the days of the Kaffirs, or infidels. These caves were hewn out in groups, the entrance to each being separated, and about the size of a common doorway. They may have formed so many villages, since it appears to have been common throughout Asia to dwell in such excavated places; as we learn in the account of the Troglodites given by different historians. I do not suppose that we can draw an inference as to the people from the existence of this practice in different countries, since it would occur to most uncivilised nations, that a cave in a rock was a more safe residence, in a troubled society, than a hut on the plain. Near Julalabad there are seven round towers; but they differ in construction from the “topes” which I have described. They are said to be ancient, and very large copper coins are found near them. In the country of Lughman, between Julalabad and the mountains, the people point out the tomb of Metur Lam, or Lamech, the father of Noah. Some refer the place to the age of the Kaffirs; but the good Mahommedans are satisfied to believe it the grave of a prophet, and that there are only three others on the earth.

We halted for a couple of days at Julalabad, which is one of the filthiest places I have seen in the East. It is a small town, with a bazar of fifty shops, and a population of about 2000 people; but its number increases tenfold in the cold season, as the people flock to it from the surrounding hills. Julalabad is the residence of a chief of the Barukzye family; who has a revenue of about seven lacs of rupees a year. The Cabool river passes a quarter of a mile north of the town, and is about 150 yards wide: it is not fordable. Snowy mountains. There are mountains of snow to the north and south of Julalabad, that run parallel with one another. The southern range is called Sufued Koh, but more frequently Rajgul. It decreases in size as it runs eastward, and loses its snow before reaching Duka. In the higher parts the snow never melts; which would give an elevation of about 15,000 feet in this latitude. To the north of Julalabad lies the famous Noorgil, before mentioned, about thirty miles distant; and to the north-west the lofty peaks of Hindoo Koosh begin to show themselves.

We left the river of Cabool, and passed up a valley to Bala-bagh, and could now distinguish the rich gardens that lie under the snowy hills, and produce the famous pomegranates without seed, that are exported to India. We halted in a vineyard. The vines of this country are not cut or pruned, but allowed to ascend the highest trees, and were growing, at Bala-bagh, on lilyoaks, about eighty feet from the ground. The grapes so produced are inferior to those reared on a frame-work. It rained at Bala-bagh and our quarters were more romantic than comfortable; which led us, at dusk, to seek for shelter in the mosque. Treatment by the people. The people seemed too busy in the exercise of religious and worldly matters to mind us, and as yet we had not experienced the slightest incivility from any person in the country: though we strolled about everywhere. They do not appear to have the smallest prejudice against a Christian; and I had never heard from their lips the name of dog or infidel, which figures so prominently in the works of many travellers. “Every country has its customs,” is a proverb among them; and the Afghan Mahommedans seem to pay a respect to Christians which they deny to their Hindoo fellow-citizens. Us they call “people of the book;” while they consider them benighted and without a prophet.

At Gundamuk we reached the boundary of the hot and cold countries. It is said to snow on one side of the rivulet, and to rain on the other. Vegetable life assumes a new form; the wheat, which was being cut at Julalabad, was only three inches above ground at Gundamuk. The distance does not exceed twenty-five miles. In the fields we discovered the white daisies among the clover; and the mountains, which were but ten miles distant, were covered with forests of pine, that commenced about a thousand feet below the limit of the snow; we required additional clothing in the keen air. Travellers are subject to a variety of little troubles, which amuse or try the temper, according to the disposition of the moment. A cat possessed itself of my dinner this evening, as I was about to swallow it; yet I satisfied the cravings of a hungry appetite with bread and water; which, I may add, was ate in a filthy stable: but we were fortunate in getting such accommodation. I beg to add my encomia on the bread of this country, which they leaven and bake much to the palate.

About three miles from Gundamuk we passed the garden of Neemla, celebrated for the field of battle in which Shah Shooja-ool Moolk lost his crown, in the year 1809. The garden is situated in a highly cultivated valley surrounded by barren hills. It is a beautiful spot; the trees have all been pruned to, or attained, the same height, and shade beneath their bows a variety of flowers; among which the narcissus grows most luxuriantly. The spot, though ornamented by art, is ill chosen for a battle; and the fortune of war was here strangely capricious. Shooja lost his throne and his vizier, sustaining a defeat from an army ten times inferior to his own. Never dreading such a result, he had brought his jewels and his wealth along with him; which he was happy to relinquish for his life. Futteh Khan, the vizier of Mahmood, who succeeded in gaining the day for his master, seated him on one of the state elephants, which had been prepared for the king, and took this mode to proclaim his victory. Shooja fled to the Khyber country, and has since failed in all his attempts to regain his kingdom.

Nothing strikes a stranger in this country more than the manner of keeping their horses, which differs so much from India. They never remove the saddle during the day; which they believe gives the horse a better rest at night. They never walk a horse up and down, but either mount him, or make him go round in a circle till he is cool. They give no grain, at this season, feeding them on green barley, which has not eared. They picket eight or ten horses to two ropes, which they fix in line parallel to one another. They always tie a knot on the tail. They keep the hind quarters of the horse covered at all times by a very neat felt, fringed with silk, which is held on by the crupper. They use the Uzbek saddle, which resembles that of our own huzars, and which I found agreeable enough, and always used. The riders tie their whip to the wrist. The Afghans take great care of their horses, but do not pamper them with spices, as in India, and always have them in excellent condition.

We continued our march to Jugduluk, and passed the Soorkh road, or red river, by a bridge with a variety of other small streams, which pour the melted snow of the Sufued Koh into that rivulet. The waters of all of them were reddish: hence the name. The country is barren and miserable. Jugduluk is a wretched place, with a few caves for a village. There is a proverb which describes its misery: “When the wood of Jugduluk begins to burn, you melt gold:” for there is no wood at hand in the bleak hills. We halted under a grove of trees, which is memorable as the spot where Shah Zuman, one of the kings of Cabool was blinded.

On our way we could distinguish that the road had once been made, and also the remains of the post-houses, which had been constructed every five or six miles by the Mogul emperors, to keep up a communication between Delhi and Cabool. They may even be traced across the mountains to Balkh; for both Humaioon and Aurungzebe, in their youth, were governors of that country. What an opinion does this inspire of the grandeur of the Mogul empire! We have a system of communication between the most distant provinces as perfect as the posts of the CÆsars.

On our way to Cabool we met thousands of sheep tended by the wandering Ghiljees, a tribe of Afghans; who now that the snow was off the ground, were driving their flocks towards Hindoo Koosh, where they pass the summer. Nothing could be more pastoral. Pastoral scenes. The grown-up people followed the sheep as they browsed on the margin of the hills, and the boys and girls came up about a mile or two in rear, in charge of the young lambs. An old goat or sheep encouraged them to advance, and the young people assisted with switches of grass, and such ejaculations as they could raise. Some of the children were so young, that they could hardly walk; but the delight of the sport enticed them on. On the margin of the road we passed many encampments, where they were either moving or packing up. The Afghans have a low black, or rather, brown tent. The women did every thing for their lazy husbands, loaded the camels and drove them on: they are indeed swarthy dames, not very remarkable for beauty, with all their Arcadian life. They are well clad, and shod with broad iron nails fixed to their soles. The children were uncommonly healthy and chubby; and it is said that these wandering people do not marry till they reach their twentieth year.

After passing the Soorkh road, we reached Ispahan, a village that marks another of Shooja’s defeats, but before he gained the throne. Story of Futteh Khan. A story is told of the vizier Futteh Khan, who was afraid of being supplanted on this field of battle by the Dooranee nobleman who aspired to the office of vizier. This individual, whose name was Meer Alum, had, on a former occasion, insulted Futteh Khan, and even knocked out one of his front teeth. The injury had to all appearance been forgiven, for he had since married a sister of the Vizier; but the alliance had only been formed that Futteh Khan might easier accomplish his base intentions. The night before the battle he seized upon his brother-in-law and put him to death. A heap of stones, here called a “toda,” marks the scene of the murder. The Vizier’s sister threw herself at her brother’s feet, and asked why he had murdered her husband? “What!” said he, “have you more regard for your husband, than your brother’s honour. Look at my broken teeth; and know that the insult is now avenged. If you are in grief at the loss of a husband, I’ll marry you to a mule driver.” This incident is not a bad illustration of the boisterous manners and feelings of the Afghans. A saying among them bids one fear the more, when an apparent reconcilement has taken place by an intermarriage.

By midnight on the 30th we reached the pass of Luta-bund, from the top of which the city of Cabool first becomes visible, at a distance of twenty-five miles. The pass is about six miles long, and the road runs over loose round stones. We lay down at a spring called Koke Chushma, or the Partridge Fountain, and slept without shelter through a bitterly cold night. Our conductor’s hawks died from its effects, to his great grief. Luta means a shred or patch; and this pass is so called, from travellers leaving some shred of their clothes on the bushes in the pass. In the winter the snow blocks up this road.

We rose with the morning star, and prosecuted our journey to Cabool, which we did not reach till the afternoon. The approach to this celebrated city is any thing but imposing, nor was it till I found myself under the shade of its fine bazar, that I believed myself in the capital of an empire. On our road we passed the village of Bootkhak, where Mahmood of Ghuzni, on his return from India, is said to have interred the rich Hindoo idol which he brought from the famous Somnat. At Cabool, we proceeded straight to the house of the Nawab Jubbar Khan, the brother of the governor, who gave us a cordial welcome, and sent to the bazar for a dinner, which I enjoyed. Not so my unfortunate companion, whose health forsook him immediately after crossing the Indus; his strength was now completely undermined. A doubt arose as to the examination of our baggage at the Custom-house; but I judged it more prudent to exhibit our poverty than allow the good people to form designs against our supposed wealth. We were not, however, prepared for the search; and my sextant and books, with the doctor’s few bottles and paraphernalia, were laid out in state for the inspection of the citizens. They did them no harm, but set us down without doubt as conjurors, after a display of such unintelligible apparatus.

Our worthy conductor, after he had safely delivered us into the hands of the Nawab, took his leave to enjoy his native city, which he had not seen for eight years. Mahommed Shureef was what might be termed a good fellow. Though but a young man, he had been a merchant, and realised a fortune, which he now enjoyed in hunting and hawking, with “a cup of good sack.” He was corpulent and dropsical, but might be seen every morning with his hawks and pointer at his heels. He kept his revels more secretly. I never saw a boy more delighted than was this person as we entered Cabool; had it been Elysium, he could not have said more in its praise. He had been a most companionable traveller, and added the address of a Persian to the warmth and good feeling of an Afghan. An incident occurred on our entering Cabool, which would have delighted other men than him. A beggar had found out who he was, and within half a mile of the city gate began to call down every blessing on his head, and welcomed him by name to his home, in a strain of great adulation. “Give the poor man some money,” said Mahommed Shureef to his servant, with a significant nod of his head; and it would have been a difficult matter to determine whether the merchant or the beggar seemed most delighted. Our conductor then bid us adieu, with a recommendation that we should trust anybody but those who volunteered their services; as he did not give his countrymen the credit for a high standard of morality. He exacted a promise that we should dine with him, and I thanked him for his advice and attentions.