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Chabas visited me towards evening, accompanied by his son, a clever-looking, bright-eyed lad about fifteen years old. Noticing that he wore a belt and buckle of the 66th Regiment, I inquired where he had procured it, and was told that it had been purchased from a Gwarjak man, who brought it down from Kharán shortly after the fatal disaster to the regiment at Maiwand.
This town owes its existence to the constant supply of water it derives from the Beli, an inestimable advantage in a country constantly exposed to drought, scarcity, and famine. Pottinger afterwards visited the Kharan, celebrated for the strength and activity of its camels, and crossed the desert which forms the southern extremity of Afghanistan.
Only a few weeks previous to my visit, a Kelát merchant, proceeding with a large caravan to Kermán, in Persia, was robbed and murdered in the frontier district west of Kharán. Few now attempt the journey, most of the goods being sent to Quetta, and thence by rail to various parts of India, by sea to Persia.
Now having developed such beauty, when he came to man's estate his loveliness increased, and it won for him many comrades and intimates; while every one who drew near to him wished that Taj al-Muluk Kharan might become Sultan after his father's death, and that he himself might be one of his Emirs. Then took he passionately to chasing and hunting which he would hardly leave for a single hour.
Many of his subjects were natives of Seistan, Kharán, and Shotrawák, all Afghan border districts, and gave him at times no little trouble. My genial old host had himself given a good deal of trouble to the Kelát Government in his younger days, and told me with evident pride that he had led many a chupao in the good old days.
She said, It hath reached me, O auspicious King, That when Taj al-Muluk Kharan, son of Sulayman Shah, became perfect in riding craft and excelled all those of his time, his excessive beauty, when he fared abroad on any occasion, caused all who saw him to be ravished and to make him the subject of verse; and even pious men were seduced by his brilliant loveliness. Quoth the poet of him,
So mount him not upon the breasts, for he shall surely deem That horses' backs for such as he the softer sitting are; And wean ye him from sucking milk, for he eftsoon shall find The blood of foemen in the field the sweeter drink by far. The midwives took the new-born child and cut the cord of his navel, after which they anointed his eyes with kohl and named him Taj el Mulouk Kharan.
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