1 a vizier's daughter - Hazara.net

14
A VIZIER’S DAUGHTER – A TALE OF THE HAZARA WAR
her,” she would say to herself, and smile over her bowl in which the
milk was frothing almost to the brim, “but she was fairer than I, though
not so tall, and she was not a Hazara; who was she, I wonder, and
where did she come from? I am glad I am tall; my father says I should
have been a boy. Why was I not a boy? Ah, if I were only a man I
would not stay here in these mountains, at least not altogether. I would
travel. I would go and see those white-faced women; not that I would
pay them homage or wait upon them, certainly not; that would be
unseemly in a Hazara, but I would see them and the strange institutions
of their tribe. Those great long vehicles, bigger than a row of twent y
elephants, that move so fast that no horse is swift enough to follow
them. How on earth do they move so fast? What runs faster than a
horse? ‘Vapour, smoke’ her father had said, but there must be a
mistake there, she could not have heard aright, that was, of course,
ridiculous, but he had said something about a long tube from which
smoke ascended. That must be a curious tribe, she would certainly like
to visit them,” but instead, as her milking vessel was full, she rose,
placed it on her head, and walked slowly home. Miriam and her curse
were for the time being quite forgotten; she lived in a dream world of
her own, and the trifling occurrences of her uneventful life had but
little interest for her.
CHAPTER III
GATHERING CLOUDS
THE broad plain below the village tower had turned from a vivid green
to a dull brown; not a camel was to be seen, and only here and there a
few stray donkeys and some goats, which strolled lazily about cropping
off the last green shoots, or nibbling at the sticks, which were all that
was left of the bushes that in the spring had been covered over with
greyish-white leaves and blossoms. The sheep and cattle had been
driven to the higher regions, from which the snow had now completely
melted, and where the grass was still plentiful, for spring had given
place to summer, and the su n had been doing its ver y best for several
weeks to reduce the lower plains into an arid wilderness of stones and
scrub.
Only where the wheat stood ready for the sickle was there any sign of
cultivation, and much of that even had been removed, and the ground
prepared for the crop of Indian corn which a group of labourers was
busy planting. It was a hot, cheerless day, mist y, oppressive.