1 a vizier's daughter - Hazara.net

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A VIZIER’S DAUGHTER – A TALE OF THE HAZARA WAR
feet above the sea level. What she wanted was a good climb across
rocks – a keen blast from the snow mountains – a wild coursing of the
blood in her wind-stirred veins, such as she had enjoyed in the wild
days of her girlhood.
She had never been cold then, or only for a few minutes. It was so easy
for those young and active limbs to get warm with healthy exercise, but
in her present confined lie it was different.
The snow lying in the quadrangle was soon melted by the radiation of
heat from the warm rooms around, and the bright su n above, and
became a slush that was very unpleasant to walk in. After ever y fall of
snow, this state of affairs was increased twofold, for not only was there
the snow that fell from the sky to deal with, there were the heaps of
snow shovelled off the roof by the Hazara labourers, who from time
immemorial had earned their living winter after winter in this way;
preventing the sun-baked mud, of which the Kabul roofs are for the
most part formed, from becoming a perfect slush, and then falling in.
She often looked at these men – her fellow country-men – at their
work, and wondered how they could bear it. The y were not slaves, for
these were not prisoners of war. The y and their fathers before them had
lived in the cit y for years, but the y were far worse treated than any
slaves she ever saw. They were in fact the slaves of slaves, ordered
about, struck, and if more obstinate than usual, beaten as though the y
had been dogs. And yet these men were free to go where the y chose,
but bore all this abuse uncomplainingly, only turning to scowl at their
maltreaters when they were well out of their reach. What could it
mean? The Hazaras she had known at home were much the same in
character – lazy enough, or at least disinclined for regular work, but
they had some spirit and would till their own little plot of land, and
cultivate it at certain seasons with the greatest assiduity, making it
yield abundantly. And so the girl’s mind began working away at one of
the great problems of life – the labour question – as it exists in
Afghanistan, and saw the difference between the work of the man who
has a bit of land of his own that he is cultivating for himself and for
his children after him, and the work of the man who merely seeks to
provide himself with food, from hour to hour and day to day. The one
“possesses the earth,” and with it the jo ys of reaping the direct fruits
of his labour, the other, though he earns his daily wage as best, or
rather as worst, he can, is practically a slave, and has no interest
beyond seeing how little he can do for the money paid him, and if
possible leaving enough work undone to-da y to oblige his employers to
send for him again on the morrow. A kick or a blow for his idleness he
probably would and did get, but what was that? A Hazara’s skin is
tough. There was no competition in Kabul, no higher wages for the
better workmen. A certain class of work was paid for by a certain daily
wage. Why try to do it better than your neighbour? Proficiency brought
no better pay. If during the busy season a man had dared to ask more
because the demand for workmen was greater, he would have had so