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But the Affghan, though living on fruits, is far from being a harmless and amiable character; on the contrary, he is cruel, covetous, and treacherous. Much British blood has been shed in the valleys of Affghanistan. We cannot blame the Affghans for defending their own country. It was natural for them to ask, "What right has Britain to interfere with us?"
The station seems a curious combination of many styles and places; the scenery and houses, Swiss; the people Anglo Indians, Affghans, Cashmeeries, &c.; the conveyances, Inquisito-Spanish; and the bazaars, in their native dirt, pure Indian.
On the overthrow of the Mogul empire, the kingdom of the Sikhs, in the northern part of India, and that of the Affghans, lying west of the Indus, arose in importance kingdoms formerly subject to Persia. The former, with all its dependent provinces, has recently been conquered, and annexed to the overgrown dominions of the Company.
Maroquine Moors drench you with tea! they guzzle sweet tea all day long, as the Affghans gulp down their tea, with butter in it, from morning to night. Native Jews manage most of the business of the interior, and farm the greater part of the monopolies. But the Emperor must have some European merchants connected with these Jews to maintain the commercial relations of his country with Europe.
The food, too, was dry and stale, and no fresh food could be procured, for the Affghans, before they fled, destroyed the corn and fruit growing in the fields, that their enemies might not eat them. The camels, too, which bore the baggage of the British army, grew ill from heat and thirst; for it is not true that camels can live long without water; in three or four days they die.
I fear we have lost credit in India over that unlucky Penjdeh business. One would fancy that our representatives on the spot might have been wary enough to discern that where the Russians and the Affghans were drawing close to each other, there lay the risk and the strain of the situation. I have a very moderate trust in our ally the Amir, though he is a very able, if unscrupulous, ruler.
From the stationary character of all things in the East, there was a probability beforehand, that several nations as in particular, four that we will mention: the Greeks, the Egyptians, the Persians, the Affghans should have presented the same purity of descent, untainted by alien blood, which we find in the children of Ishmael, and the children of his half-brother the patriarch Isaac.
The plundering propensities of the peasantry rendered an escort absolutely necessary, and ours consisted of thirty Affghans belonging to one of Shah Soojah's regiments, under the command of Captain Hopkins.
But one day he had risen with some formality to usher a formal caller to the-door, when, to his slight amazement and my secret delight, his chair an easy-chair of good proportions deliberately jumped up and hopped after him across the room. From this period the mystery "manifested" itself to his heart's content. Not only did the rocking-chairs, and the cane-seat chairs, and the round-backed chairs, and Tip's little chairs, and the affghans chase him about, and the heavy tête-
I had a coloured turban wound in copious folds round my head as a protection from the sun, beard of nearly three months' growth, and accompanied by a ferocious-looking tribe of Affghans, all unshorn as well as myself, created anything but a prepossessing impression to a stranger.
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