1 a vizier's daughter - Hazara.net

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4 A VIZIER’S DAUGHTER – A TALE OF THE HAZARA WAR fashion, of course, the work of twent y men. He had not only the mere nominal superintendence of a dozen most diverse kinds of works, offices, etc., but was responsible for the working, and for the actual detail of each, and in Afghanistan there is no method. None has an understudy in case of illness, or to provide for a much needed holiday, so that if an official is laid up, the whole of his work accumulates, and he rises from a bed of sickness to meet a task beyond his strength even when he was well. There is no one whom he can rely for anything. But besides those works, which were merely extras, the man whom I have called Ali Mohamed Khan had his Court duties to attend to ; he was head of what we should call the Intelligence Department, and was Chief Secretar y to the Ameer. There is no doubt that there is no such thing as smoke without fire, and it is equally true that there were men in Kabul who had serious causes of complaint in that their work was retarded for want of materials, etc. But these were not, as a rule, the men who had most to say against him. Besides, the real fault lay not in the man who failed to do the work of twenty, but in the system which invariably overtaxes the willing horse. There is a popular saying in Kabul that instead of receiving increase of pay or an additional holiday for special services rendered, an official is praised and congratulated in open Durbar, and receives as a reward for his labours an extra burden of work. That is really what happened in his case. It may seem to some that Gul Begum herself is an impossibilit y – that such a country and such surroundings could not have produced a woman of that stamp ; but this is not so. Here and there, very rarely, I admit, one meets in Afghanistan a character that stands out alone – a nature that would be far above the average in the most civilised country in the world. Such an one was an old Pir (leader, teacher), who is almost universally revered as a saint by the highest, as well as by the lowliest, throughout the country. He reminded me of St Francis both in his life and teaching. I longed to be allowed to visit him, but, though he would send me messages, he would go no further. He saw no women except those of his own family. There are, too, among the mountains, people of the most absorbing interest. Men who need but a touch to awaken them to civilisation, so naturally refined are their minds, so ready are the y to admit that they are behind other nations, so anxious are they that something should be done to raise them as a nation. Those are to the people of Kabul what the Scottish farmer is to the East London loafer. Unfortunately, the loafer predominates to such an extent, that in one’s daily life in Kabul one almost loses sight of the other. What I wish to convey is that a man such as Ghulam Hossain is by no means an anomaly in Afghanistan, but then neither is Ferad Shah nor yet Mohamed Jan. What ruins the country in the first place is its disjointedness and its consequent feuds; in the second place, the fact that the people have no outlet. If a man is clever and ambitious, instead of taking up some work that makes him
5 A VIZIER’S DAUGHTER – A TALE OF THE HAZARA WAR some one in his own district, he goes to Court and commences an elaborate system of intrigue, by which he endeavours to oust some other man from his position in order that he may occupy it. There is no such thing as private enterprise. The Government is a paternal one in the very strictest sense, and ever ything belongs to the lead of the state. If my readers complain that there is no brightness, no happiness in my book, that it s a story without one ray of hope, I can but reply, “Then I have succeeded but too well in my task of drawing a fair picture of life as it is in Afghanistan.” There is no such thing as joy there. There is no such thing as peace, or comfort, or rest, or ease. There is never a moment when any one is sure he is not the subject of some plot or intrigue. There is no amusement, no relaxation; the people don’t know how to enjo y themselves. Once a year there are races and trials of skill in wrestling, shooting, etc., but few of the upper class people compete, and no one of any importance, except the little princes who are too young to have any state duties to perform, attend these games. Moreover, they are almost too serious to be called games. There is no enthusiasm or freedom anywhere. Life is serious from the start to the close, and the ver y children who act as messengers learn to gossip and intrigue from their infanc y, by carr ying verbal messages from one house or another. Such as it is, however, I send Gul Begum’s story to the press, and can only hope that though it lacks all the personal incident that makes an autobiography so pleasing to the author’s own immediate friends and relations, it ma y prove of some interest to those who would fain know, something of the life of peoples in lands far removed from their own. CHAPTER I A HAZARA VILLAGE SUCH a crowd of girls, and ever y one of them hideous. But they were quite unconscious of that, and probably there was not one among them
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