Among the Wild Tribes of the Afghan Frontier Part 4

A man of the Khattak tribe was out on the hills with a friend after mountain goats; he tracked one, but in following it up pa.s.sed over into the hills of a section of the Wazir tribe. He was pa.s.sing along one of those deep gorges which the mountain torrents have worn through the maze of sandstone ridges, where the stunted acacia and tufted gra.s.s afford pasturage to little else than the mountain goats, when his practised eye descried two heads looking over the ridge four hundred feet above him. Seeing they were observed, the two Wazirs stood up and challenged them.

"Who called you to come poaching in our country?" "I shall come when I choose, without asking your permission," retorted the Khattak. "Swine! has your father turned you out because there was no maize in your corn-bin?" The Khattak retorted with something stronger, and each proceeded to impugn the character of the other's female relations, till the Wazir, thinking he had excited the Khattak to give him sufficient provocation, sent a bullet whistling past his head. The Khattak made a jump for the cover of a neighbouring rock, but before he had time to gain shelter a second bullet had struck him in the leg, bringing him headlong to earth. His companion had got the shelter of a rock and opened fire on the Wazirs; but the latter, thinking they had sufficiently vindicated the privacy of their stony hills, made off another way.

The Khattak could do no more than lift his friend into the shelter of a cliff, stanch the bleeding with a piece torn from his pagari, and make off in hot haste for his village to sound a chigah and bring a bed on which the wounded man might be carried home. The chigah, of course, came too late to track the Wazirs, but they bore the wounded man home, and next morning brought him to the mission hospital. He lay there for three months, carefully tended by his father and a brother, and there all three were attentive listeners to the daily exposition of the Gospel by the doctor or catechist; but the wounded man got weaker and weaker, and when it became clear to all that his recovery could not be hoped for, they took him off to his home to die.

The next day a Wazir of the same tribe that had shot him was brought in suffering from an almost identical gunshot wound, and we thought at first it had been the work of an avenger, but it proved to have been received in another feud about the possession of a few ber-trees (Zizyphus jujuba). This Wazir submitted to amputation, and is now going about the hills the proud possessor of an artificial limb from England, which his father sold a rifle to buy, and which is the wonder and admiration of his neighbours.

The devotion shown in some cases by relations who have accompanied some sick or wounded man to hospital is very touching, and in pleasing contrast to their frequent enmity. One case that imprinted itself on my memory was that of a man from Kabul, who had been a sufferer for several years from severe fistula; his nearest relation was a nephew, and he was a talib (student). Both were poor, but the man sold up some little household belongings and hired a camel-driver to bring him down on his camel. The journey to Bannu occupied fourteen days, and the sick man suffered much from the constraint and jolting of the camel-ride. An operation was performed, but it was some months before the patient was cured and discharged, and during all that time he was a.s.siduously nursed by the talib, who sat day and night by his bedside, attending to his wants and reading to him either the Suras of the Quran or some Persian poet, only leaving him to go into some mosque in Bannu, or in a village near, where some charitable Muhammadans would give him his morning and evening meal.

To save the patients from the danger of having their money stolen by other patients or visitors, we advise them on admission to give up their money into our charge, to be kept safely until they get their discharge, when it is returned to them. Usually they readily agree to this, but sometimes we have some wary characters, usually Kabulis or Peshawuris, whose experience of the world has led them to trust no one, and these refuse to let their possessions out of their own keeping, usually securing their money in a bag purse tied round their waist under their clothes. One such Kabuli came into the hospital terribly ill with dysentery. Fearing, I suppose, we might take his money by force, he swore, in answer to the usual question, that he had not a single anna on him, and all through his illness he begged a few pice from us or from other patients to buy some little delicacy he fancied to supplement the regular hospital diet. He said he had no relations or friends living; "all had died," and certainly none ever came to inquire after him. His disease resisted all our efforts to cure it--he had been worn out with exposure and hard living--and at last, one morning, we found him dead in his bed; he had pa.s.sed away quietly in the night, without even the patient in the bed next him knowing of it. We then found a bag containing eighty rupees bound round his waist; he had kept it carefully concealed from everyone throughout, and now died leaving behind him what might have purchased him so many little delicacies. There being no claimant for the money, we made it into a fund for helping indigent patients to get back to their more distant homes.

There was once a Mullah in Bannu who was particularly virulent in his public denunciations of the mission and everything connected with it. He would frequently give public lectures which were tirades against all Christians, and missionaries in particular, telling the people that if they died in the mission hospital they would a.s.suredly go to h.e.l.l, and all the mission medicine they drank would be turned into so much lead, which would drag them relentlessly down, down to the bottomless pit--and very much more in that strain. We were therefore somewhat surprised when one fine morning we beheld four white-robed talibs bringing a bed to the hospital, on which was a form covered by a white sheet, and on lifting the sheet, there was this very Mullah! We did not ask him awkward questions, but admitted him at once, and I think our Christian a.s.sistants throughout his long and dangerous illness showed him particular attentions, and nursed him with special care. They never taunted him with his former att.i.tude to us, but strove, by the exhibition of Christian forbearance and sympathy, to give him a practical exposition of what Christianity is. When he left the hospital he thanked us in the presence of his disciples, offered a prayer for blessing on the hospital, and is now one of our staunchest friends.

Here is a very sad case in Bed 18, called "the Gleaners' Bed," because it is supported by the Gleaners' Union of Lambeth: A young man of twenty-five or thirty, blind from his birth, and yet brought to the hospital cruelly slashed in several places with sword and knife; one cut on the right shoulder went through the muscle down to the bone. And this was done only to rob him of the few things he possessed. Had the culprit known that the man was blind, let us hope he would not have been so brutal, but poor Mirzada was on the ground asleep, covered up with a sheet, as is the custom with the natives, and had been attacked in this way before he could escape or beg them to spare him. It was so sad to see him stretched moaning on his bed, with eyes that had never seen the light or the beauty of G.o.d's creation, heart that had never felt, ear that had never heard of the "Light of Life" or the "glory that shall be revealed." Our Christian a.s.sistants sat beside him day by day, and told him of Christ and His love; but he never, so far as we could judge, seemed to grasp the truth for himself, and, when his wounds were healed, left us to beg by the wayside. We pray for Mirzada, "who sitteth by the wayside begging," that he may yet find the Light! He at least has learnt to bless the mission hospital and the Christian friends in England, through whose charity he can say: "I was a stranger, and ye took me in; sick, and ye visited me."

The doctor or his a.s.sistants may go a long journey up and down the frontier and both sides of the border without coming to a village where they will not get a hearty welcome from some old patient. He will be made to sit down for a little good cheer in the village chauk, that the grateful patient may call his acquaintances round to shake hands with the Daktar Sahib, whose patient he was while in the mission hospital, and with stories about whom he has so often regaled them in the winter evenings.

CHAPTER VII

FROM MORNING TO NIGHT

First duties--Calls for the doctor--Some of the out-patients--Importunate blind--School cla.s.ses--Operation cases--Untimely visitors--Recreation--Cases to decide.

An Eastern day begins early. As the first streak of dawn lightens the Eastern sky the slumberers are awakened by the long-drawn-out chant of the Muezzin calling to prayer from all the mosques in the city. "G.o.d is great, G.o.d is great. I give witness there is no G.o.d but G.o.d. I give witness that Muhammad is the prophet of G.o.d. Come to prayer; prayer is better than sleep." And forthwith every pious Muslim hastily rises, performs the necessary ablutions, and commences the day with ascription of praise to the Creator. The Hindus follow suit: little bells tinkle in their temples as their priests rouse the slumbering G.o.ds, or as the Puritanical Arya Samajist offers his early sacrifice of "Hawan," or incense. Meanwhile, the church bell calls the little Christian community together for early morning worship, and they unite in prayer and praise before separating, each to his or her own sphere of work for the day. If the missionary desires a morning "quiet time" he must get up early enough to get it in before this, as after morning service the busy round of duties leaves him little leisure till the evening shades close in.

Darya Khan, the "Lord of the Rivers," the hospital cook, is waiting for the day's supplies, and reports fifty patients on full diet, twenty on middle, and fifteen on milk diet. So many cases have left the hospital, so many admitted; such a one died last night. And so the supplies for the day are measured out and weighed, and orders given for the purchase of fresh goods as needed.

Then come the ward clerks, with their tale of soiled linen and case sheets to be checked, and clean towels, bandages, bed-linen, and clothes for the in-patients have to be dealt out according to the needs of each one.

This over, the head gardener, 'Alam Khan, or the "Lord of the World," is standing by with the day's supply of vegetables and flowers, and these have to be apportioned to the patients in the hospital and to the various members of the staff whose families reside on the premises. He follows with a string of questions, each of which requires due consideration, such as, "Are the mulberries to be shaken yet?" "Where are the young Pipul tree saplings to be planted?" "Some oranges were stolen in the night; would I come and see the footmarks?" "A hostel boy ('Light of Religion') was caught among the plum-trees with some fruit in his pocket. Would I punish him?" And so on, as long as one has leisure to listen and adjudicate.

The clock strikes eight, leaving just half an hour to visit the wards before out-patients begin. There is the abdominal section operation of yesterday to examine; the house-surgeon has come to report that the case of tubercular glands has had a haemorrhage during the night. We are just hurrying over to see them, when up comes 'Alam Gul, the "Flower of the Earth," to say his brother was coming down from the roof that morning, when his foot slipped on the ladder; he fell on his head, and was lying unconscious. Would I go and see him? The serious cases seen, and 'Alam Gul's brother visited, the out-patient department is demanding our attention. The verandahs are full of patients, the men in one and the women and children in another, and while the catechist is preaching to the former, a Bible-woman is similarly engaged with the latter. Outside are some patients lying on the native beds, or charpais, and a variety of other equipages which have all brought patients--palanquins, camels, oxen, a.s.ses, and so on.

Let us see some of these. Here is a Wazir shepherd from the mountains. He has been shot through the thigh while tending his flocks, and eight rough-looking tribesmen of his have bound him securely on a bed and carried him down, journeying all night through, and they have left their rifles, without which they could not have ventured out, at the police post on the frontier. Another of those on the beds is a man of about fifty years, suffering from dropsy. He has been carried sixty miles on this bed from Khost, a district in Afghanistan. A third, who has been brought from another transfrontier village on an ox, is suffering from a tumour of his leg, which will require amputation. And so on with some half-dozen others. After this brief examination, saying a word of welcome to the travel-stained Afghans who have borne their precious burdens in with so much labour, and even danger, and with a word of comfort and rea.s.surance to the sick ones themselves, the doctor enters his consulting-room, and the patients are brought in one by one to be examined. Those requiring in-patient treatment are sent off to the wards, and the remainder get the required medicines, or have their wounds dressed and leave for their homes.

A great number of the out-patients are cases of eye disease, and sometimes four or five blind men will come in a line, holding on to each other, and led by one who is not yet quite blind. Very likely they have trudged painfully upwards of a hundred miles, stumbling over the stones in the mountain roads, and arriving with wounded feet and bruised bodies. They sit together, listening, perhaps for the first time in their lives, to the Gospel address, and eagerly awaiting the interview with the doctor, when they will hear if they are to receive their sight there and then, or to undergo an operation, or what. For the stories they have heard of the power of Western skill lead them to believe that if the doctor does not cure them on the spot it must be that he is too busy or they are too poor. When, therefore, as sometimes happens, the doctor sees at the first glance that the case is a hopeless one, and that the sight is gone never to be brought back, it is a painful duty to have to explain the fact to the patient, and often the doctor needlessly prolongs the examination of the eye lest the man should think that it was want of interest in his case that makes the doctor say he can do nothing. And then the beseeching, "Oh, sahib, just a little sight!" "See, I can tell light from darkness; I can see the light from that window there." "I have come all the way from Kabul because they said the feringi doctor could cure everything. Why do you not cure me?"

One man refused to budge till I had taken him to see my mother; she might be able to do something--she must have more skill than I, for from whom had I learnt? Another went to her to beg her to intercede with me for him, because he was sure it was want of will, not want of power, that prevented him gaining his end. At last, when they are convinced that nothing can be done, it is touching to see them as they resignedly say, often with tears rolling down their cheeks: "It is G.o.d's will. I will be patient." Then they may begin their weary trudge home again, or stop in the Bannu bazaar for a few days to beg some money to get them a lift on a camel for part of the long journey.

A commotion at the door, and a Bannuchi boy of about seven is carried in on the shoulders of his father, with his hand tied up in the folds of a turban. "We were crushing sugar-cane in our press, when my beloved Mir Jahan got his hand in the cogs of the wheel, and it was all crushed before we could stop the buffalo. Oh! do see him quick--he is my only son, a piece of my liver!" And the father bursts into tears. Mir Jahan is chloroformed at once, the bandages unbound, and a terrible sight we see; the hand has been crushed into a pulp, but the thumb is only a little cut. That will enable him to pull the trigger of a rifle when he grows up, and that is what his father and he consider of great importance. So the thumb is saved, and the mangled remains of the other fingers removed, and a shapely stump fashioned. It is fortunate that the Bannuchis have not much machinery. This sugar-press is almost the only piece they have, and we get several crushed hands every year as a result, usually because they let their children play in dangerous proximity to the wheels, and then leave them to "Qismet" (Fate).

Meanwhile, perhaps, some big chief has come in with several attendants. He wants to have a special consultation with the doctor, and has to be treated with as many of the formalities of Oriental courtesy as the doctor can find time for. He gives some fee for the hospital, or perhaps may send one or two ox-burdens of wheat or Indian corn as his contribution to the hospital stores.

The patients are still coming, when a schoolboy comes to say that it is time for the doctor to take his cla.s.ses in school. It is not every mission station that can provide a distinct European missionary for the school, and Bannu is one of those where the supervision of the school is one of the duties of the medical missionary, who takes the senior cla.s.ses in Scripture, English, and Science. So the consulting-room is changed for the cla.s.s-room, and the missionary finds himself surrounded by a cla.s.s of twenty to twenty-five intelligent young fellows preparing for the matriculation at the Panjab University, and waiting to be initiated into the mysteries of optics, or chemistry, or mechanics, or to practise English composition, or he may have them attentively listening while he goes with them through the ever-fresh stories from the life of our Lord, hearing and asking them questions as its inimitable teachings are brought home to them by precept and by ill.u.s.tration. Cla.s.s-work over, a visit of inspection is paid to the other cla.s.s-rooms, where the remainder of the school staff are at their work, which the school princ.i.p.al must criticize and supervise, giving some advice here, some correction there, and seeing generally that everything is kept up to the mark.

Now we must go to see what progress has been made with the new ward which is being built in the hospital. The beams must be selected and tested. Here a carpenter has been putting some bad work into a lintel, thinking it will not be noticed; there the bricklayers have been idle, and have not finished the stipulated number of layers. The foreman has a complaint to make of some of the coolies, who went away from work without his permission. "We only went to say our prayers. Surely you would not have us miss them?" they plausibly urge. Put them on piecework, and their prayers are got over very quickly; but pay them by the day, and even the ablutions seem interminable! But such is human nature, and they have such an air of injured innocence it is difficult to be angry with them. They are Mahsud Wazirs from over the border, and work hard when well managed, so are let off with a warning this time.

This done, a visit must be paid to the mission press. Here not only is printing in vernacular and in English carried on for the mission's own requirements, but work is executed for the various offices and merchants in the city. Accounts have to be checked, bills have to be made out, proofs have to be corrected, and directions given for the day's work.

Now it is time to visit the hospital wards, and perform the day's operations.

Usually, patients are operated on the same day that they are admitted. If this were not done, not only would the wards become hopelessly congested, but in many cases the courage of the patients would ooze out of their fingers' ends, and, instead of finding them ready for the ordeal, one would be greeted by "I have just heard that my father has been taken seriously ill. If I do not go home at once, I shall never see him again." Another: "I quite forgot to arrange for my donkey to get hay during my absence. I will go home and make arrangements for it, and return in two days." Of course, one knows that these stories are pure fabrications, but it would be useless to tell them so, or to argue; one can only return them their own clothes, take back the hospital linen, and let them go. Sometimes they come back later on, and tell more fibs about their father or their donkey in justification of themselves; more often they are not seen again.

While the operation cases are being prepared by the house-surgeon, the doctor goes the round of the wards, examining, prescribing, and saying words of cheer from bed to bed. This done, he is just about to commence operations, when a man comes running up to say that his brother was out shooting when his gun exploded, blowing off his hand; would the doctor see him at once lest he bled to death? and close behind him is the wounded man brought up on a bed. The doctor examines him, sets a dresser to apply a temporary dressing, and perhaps a tourniquet, so that the case may safely wait till the conclusion of the other operations.

The operation cases to-day are representative of an average day in the busy time of the year: they begin with five old men and three women suffering from cataract, then two cases of incurved lids, then an amputation, the removal of a tumour, and two cases of bone disease. These over, the man with the injured hand is chloroformed and the wound st.i.tched up, except for two fingers, which were so damaged that they had to be removed altogether.

The schoolboys are out now in the field playing football, and the doctor, after refreshing himself with a cup of tea, thinks that nothing would be more invigorating than a good hour's exercise with them; but he has scarcely got his togs on before the servant comes to announce that a certain big malik, or chief, has come to make a call. One would like to put him off with an excuse for a more convenient time; but then it was he who gave us lodging and hospitality when itinerating in his neighbourhood six months ago, and this would be a poor return for his courtesy; so he is ushered in, with four or five of his retainers, and some minutes are spent in formal courtesies and talking about nothing in particular. Then, just as one is going to suggest that as one has something to do the interview might terminate, he comes to the point and object of his interview. He has got a lawsuit on in one of the local courts against a neighbouring malik. His case is an absolutely just one; but as the other party have some relationship with the head-clerk of the Judge's office, he fears he will not get justice, unless--unless--- Would I just write a few lines to the Judge, asking him to give his case full consideration? It would be no trouble to me, and would confer a benefit on him which he will remember to his dying day. One launches into an explanation, which is wearying because one has so often given it in similar cases before, that the Judge would be very angry if I adopted such a method of influencing his case, that if his case is a just one there is no need of such measures, that he must rely on the integrity of his witnesses, and so on; no, he cannot or will not understand why you profess friendship with him, and yet refuse so very humble a request as the writing of a note. By the time the visitor has departed only half an hour is left for the game of football, and there is a man waiting to take you to a case of pneumonia at the other side of the bazaar, and two other calls have to be made on medical cases in the city.

It is evening now, and once more the church-bell collects the little Christian community together for the evening hymn of praise and worship, and the pastor gives some words of instruction and encouragement, specially intended for the catechumens and inquirers who are present.

At last, however, these duties accomplished, dinner is negotiated, and then the doctor can sit down to his newspaper and his correspondence. He is not, however, long left free from interruption. The first to come is the superintendent of the boarding-house; he reports that some of the Hindu boarders have been cooking meat in the school saucepan, and now the vegetarian party refuse to eat food cooked in that vessel, which has ipso facto become unclean.

The arguments of both sides are heard, and the case decided, that the meat party are to provide their own saucepan. Then the house-surgeon comes in with his nightly report of the wards, stating the condition of the operation cases or of any other serious cases, and taking the orders for the night. Following on him comes a catechumen who has a quarter of an hour's instruction every night; then three of the senior boarders, to ask some questions about the English composition for the morrow, and get some hints for their essays. Lastly, the night-watchman comes to report that, as there is a gang of Wazir marauders about, special precautions must be taken for the security of the compound; but he thinks that if I get him a new pistol and some cartridges all will be safe.

A day such as I have described is not at all above the average during the busy months of the year, and the doctor may consider himself lucky if the soundness of his slumbers is not disturbed by any calls during the night.

CHAPTER VIII

THE ITINERANT MISSIONARY

The medical missionary's advantage--How to know the people--The real India--G.o.d's guest-house--The reception of the guest--Oriental customs--Pitfalls for the unwary--The Mullah and the Padre--Afghan logic--A patient's welcome--The Mullah conciliated--A rough journey--Among thieves--A swimming adventure--Friends or enemies?--Work in camp--Rest at last.

There is this difference between the medical missionary and the preacher pure and simple: that while the latter has to seek his congregation, the former will have his congregation come to him, and often in such numbers that, like our Lord and His disciples, he will not have leisure even so much as to eat. But even a doctor, who finds his time at headquarters fully and profitably occupied, will be committing a great mistake if he never itinerates. For it is in camp and in village life that the missionary gets to know and understand the people, and by travelling from village to village, and living with them as their guest, he gets to know their real inner life in a way that otherwise he never would, and for a missionary, at least, such an experience is indispensable.

There are two methods of itineration. On the one hand, he may carry tents and a full camp equipment, and pitch his camp near some large village, or in the midst of several small ones, and may receive his patients and do his daily work there, while visiting the villages after his day's work is done. By this plan he is independent, and can work at his own time, and can stay or move as his fancy dictates. On the other hand, he may become the guest of one of the chief men of the village, who will put his guest-house at his disposal and give him hospitality. By this plan he is brought into much closer contact with the people and will see more of them, but he will forfeit his independence, will be obliged to consult his host in all his plans, and must be prepared to put himself and his time at the disposal of his host and the villagers, both by day and night.

Both methods have their advantages. For a new district, and where the people are suspicious, the latter plan, though more exacting, is probably the better; when the missionary has become well known and has much work to do, the former is preferable.

The traveller who has spent a winter in touring India, but has only visited the large towns and show places, and has never lived in an Indian village, remains altogether a stranger to the deep inner life of the Indian. The real India is not seen in the Westernized bazaars of the large cities, but in the myriads of villages, wherein more than 80 per cent. of the population of India dwell. Moreover, a much better and more attractive side of Indian life is seen in the villages than in the towns, and it is among their less sophisticated population that the missionary spends his happiest hours.

When travelling without camp equipment, we generally follow the Bible precept. We arrive at a village, and, "inquiring who within it is worthy, abide there till we depart thence." This is usually some malik, or head man, who possesses that great inst.i.tution of Afghanistan, a hujra, or guest-house. We are shown to this house, usually a mud building with a low door and a few small apertures in the walls in the place of windows, and a clean-swept earthen floor, which may be covered by a few palm-mats. Hearing of our arrival, the owner of the guest-house comes to receive us in the Oriental fashion so familiar to readers of the Old Testament.

Thus, on one occasion I came rather late at night to one such guest-house. The host had already retired, but rose from his bed to receive me. I inquired if that was his hujra. He answered: "No; it is G.o.d's, but I am in charge of it." Such expressions are not mere form, as was shown by the cheerful and unostentatious way in which the owner put himself out in order to insure my comfort. Once I arrived about midnight at a village, the head man of which I did not know personally, though it appears he knew me well. He was not satisfied until I consented to occupy his bed, which he had just vacated for me, while he went off to make himself a shift elsewhere. The acceptance of such an offer might not always prove very attractive among those Afghans whose ideas of cleanliness are not the same as ours, but to refuse it would--at least, on the part of a missionary--be an act so discourteous as to injure the attainment of those relations with the people which he should desire.

The head man will at once call for some of his attendants, who, except at the busy time of sowing and harvest, are probably lounging about the chauk, and they at once bring a number of the plain wooden bedsteads of the country, which are almost universally used, even by the richer cla.s.ses, in preference to chairs. Rugs and pillows are brought, and perhaps a carpet may be spread on the floor. Tea is then ordered, and an attendant brings in a tray on which is a very large teapot and a number of very small saucerless cups, called in these parts balghami, and used all over Central Asia for tea-drinking. The whole is covered by an embroidered cloth, which is removed by the attendant. Sugar is added to the teapot to a degree which to many Western palates appears nauseating. Cardamoms, and sometimes other spices, are also added. The milk, too, is usually added to the teapot, although some hosts, who have learnt by experience the peculiarity of Western taste, leave the milk and the sugar to be added by the guests themselves. Tea is poured out and handed round, and drunk usually very hot; and if the guests drink it with very loud smackings of the lips, it is supposed to indicate that they particularly appreciate it. The cups are filled repeatedly, and when the guest wishes to indicate that he has had enough he turns the cup upside down.