Around the World on a Bicycle Volume Ii Part 15

Thus the days of my detention pa.s.s away, until the ninth day after my arrival here. On the evening of May 8th, the officer who first interviewed me in the apricot orchard comes to my bungalow, and brings salaams from Faramorz Khan. He and Mohammed Ahzim Khan, after a brief discussion between themselves, commence telling me, in the same roundabout manner as the blue-gowned Khan at Furrah, that the Ameer at Cabool has no control over the fanatical nomads of Zemindavar. Mohammed Ahzim Khan draws his finger across his throat, and the officer repeats "Afghan badmash, badmash, b-a-d-m-a-s-h." (desperado).

This parrot-like repet.i.tion is uttered in accents so pleaful, and is, withal, accompanied by such a searching stare into my face, that its comicality for the minute overcomes any sense of disappointment at the fall of my hopes. For my experience at Furrah teaches me that this is really the object of their visit.

Another ingenious argument of these polite and, after a certain childish fashion, astute Asiatics, is a direct appeal to my magnaminity. "We know you are brave, and to accomplish your object would even allow the Ghilzais to cut your throat; but the Wali begs you to sacrifice yourself for the reputation of his country, by keeping out of danger," they plead.

"If you get killed, Afghanistan will get a bad name."

They are in dead earnest about converting me by argument and pleadings to their view of the case. I point out that, so far as the reputation of Afghanistan is concerned, there can be little difference between forbidding travellers to go through for fear of their getting murdered, and their actual killing. I remind them, too, that I am a "nokshi," and can let the people of Frangistan understand this if I am turned back.

These arguments, of course, avail me nothing; the upshot of instructions received from the Boundary Commission camp, is that I am to be conducted at once back into Persia.

Horses have to be shod, and all sorts of preparations made next morning, and it is near about noon before we are ready to start. Our destination is the Persian frontier village of Karize, about one hundred miles to the west. Everything is finally ready; when it transpires that Mohammed Ahzim Khan's orders are to put me on a horse and carry the bicycle on another.

This programme I utterly refuse to sanction, knowing only too well what the result is likely to be to the bicycle. In defence of the arrangement, Mohammed Ahzim Khan argues that, as the bicycle goes fourteen farsakhs an hour, the horses will not be able to keep up; and strict orders are issued from Herat that I am not to separate myself from my escort while on Afghan territory.

Off posts Abdur Kahman Khan, hot haste to Herat, to report the difficulty to the Governor, while we return to the garden. It being too late in the day when he returns, our departure is postponed till morning, and Osman, with his k.n.o.bbed stick, performs the office of nocturnal guard yet once again.

During the evening Mohammed Ahzim Khan unearths from somewhere a couple of photographs of English ladies. These, he tells me, came into his possession from one of Ayoob Khan's fugitive warriors after their dispersion in the Herat Valley, on their flight before General Roberts'

command at Kandahar. They were among the effects gathered up by Ayoob Khan's plundering crew from the disastrous field of Maiwand.

CHAPTER XII.

TAKEN BACK TO PERSIA.

The Governor of Herat sends "khylie salaams" and permission for me to ride the bicycle, stipulating that I keep near the escort. So, with many an injunction to me about dasht-adam, kooh, dagh, etc., by way of warning me against venturing too far ahead, we bid farewell to the garden, with its strange a.s.sociations, in the early morning. Beside Mohammed Ahzim Khan and myself are three sowars, mounted on splendid horses.

The morning is bright and cheerful, and shortly after starting the animal spirits of the sowars find vent in song. I have been laboring under the impression that, for soul-harrowing vocal effort, the wild-eyed sowars of Khora.s.san, as exemplified in my escort from Beerjand, were ent.i.tled to the worst execrations of a discriminating Ferenghi, but the Afghans can go them one better. If it is possible to imagine anything in the whole world of sound more jarring and discordant than the united efforts of these Afghan sowars, I have never yet discovered it. Out of pure consideration and courtesy, I endure it for some little time; but they finally reach a high-searching key that is positively unendurable, and I am compelled in sheer self-protection to beg the khan to suppress their exuberance. "These men are not bul-buls; then why do they sing?" is all that is necessary for me to say. They all laugh heartily at the remark, and the khan orders them to sing no more. Over a country that consists chiefly of trailless hills and intervening strips of desert, we wend our weary way, the bicycle often proving more of a drag than a benefit. The weather gets insufferably hot; in places the rocks fairly shimmer with heat, and are so hot that one can scarce hold the hand to them. We camp for the first night at a village, and on the second at an umbar that suggests our approach to Persia, and in the morning we make an early start with the object of reaching Karize before evening.

The day grows warm apace, and, at ten miles, the khan calls a halt for the discussion of what simple refreshments we have with us. Our larder embraces dry bread and cold goat-meat and a few handfuls of raisins. It ought also to include water in the leathern bottle swinging from the stirrup of one of the sowars; but when we halt, it is to discover that this worthy has forgotten to fill his bottle. The way has been heavy for a bicycle, trundling wearily through sand mainly, with no riding to speak of; and young as is the day, I am well-nigh overcome with thirst and weariness. I am too thirsty to eat, and, miserably tired and disgusted, one gets an instructive lesson in the control of the mind over the body.

Much of my fatigue comes of low spirits, born of disappointment at being conducted back into Persia.

One of the sowars is despatched ahead to fill his bottle with water at a well known to be some five miles farther ahead, and to meet us with it on the way. On through the sand and heat we plod wearily, myself almost sick with thirst, fatigue, and disgust. Mohammed Ahzim Khan, observing my wretched condition, insists upon me letting one of the sowars try his hand at trundling the wheel, while I rest myself by riding his horse.

Both the sowars bravely try their best to relieve me, but they cut ridiculous figures, toppling over every little while. At length one of them upsets the bicycle into a little gully, and falling on it, snaps asunder two spokes. The khan gives him a good tongue-lashing for his carelessness; but one can hardly blame the fellow, and I take it under my own protection again, before it goes farther and fares worse.

About 2 p.m. the sowar sent forward meets us with water; but it is almost undrinkable. Far better luck awaits us, however, farther along. Sighting an Eimuck camel-rider in the distance, one of the sowars gives chase and halts him until we can come up. Slung across his camel he has a skin of doke, the most welcome thing one can wish for under the circ.u.mstances.

Everybody helps himself liberally of the refreshing beverage, shrinking the Eimuck's supply very perceptibly. The Eimuck joins heartily with our party in laughing at the altered contour of the pliant skin, as pointed out jocularly by Mohammed Ahzim Khan, bids us "salaam aleyk.u.m," and pursues his way across country.

During the afternoon we cross several well-worn trails; though evidently but little used of late, they have seen much travel. My escort explains that they are daman trails, in other words the trails worn by Turkoman raiders pa.s.sing back and forth on their man-stealing expeditions, before their subjugation by the Russians.

By and by we emerge from a belt of low hills, and descend into a broad, level plain. A few miles off to the right can be seen the Heri Rood, its sinuous course plainly outlined by a dark fringe of jungle. Some miles ahead the village-fortress of Kafir Kaleh is visible. A horseman comes galloping across the plain to intercept us. Mohammed Ahzim Khan produces his written orders concerning my delivery at Karize and reads it to the new arrival. Thereupon ensues a long explanation, which ends in, our turning about and following the new-comer across the trailless plain toward the Heri Rood.

"What's up now?" I wonder; but the only intelligible reply I get in reply to queries is that we are going to camp in the jungle. Misgivings as to possible foul play mingle with speculations regarding this person's mission, as I follow in the wake of the Afghans.

We camp on a plot of rising ground that elevates us above the overflow, and shortly after our arrival we are visited by a band of nomads who are hunting through the jungle with greyhounds, Mohammed Ahzim Khan informs me that both baabs, and palangs (panthers) are to be found along the Heri Rood.

Luxuriant beds of the green stuff known in the United States as lamb's-quarter, abound, and I put one of the sowars to gathering some with the idea of cooking it for supper. None of our party know anything about its being good to eat, and Mohammed Ahzim Khan shakes his head vigorously in token of disapproval. A nomad visitor, however, corroborates my statement about its edibleness, and fills our chief with wonderment that I should know something in common with an Afghan nomad, that he, a resident of the country, knows nothing about. By way of stimulating his wonderment still further, I proceed to call off the names of the various nomad tribes inhabiting Afghanistan, together with their locations.

"Where did you learn all this." he queries, evidently suspicious that I have been picking up altogether too much information.

"London," I reply.

"London!" he says; "Mashallah! they know everything at London."

The horseman who intercepted us rode away when we camped for the night.

Nothing more was seen of him, and at a late hour I turn in for the night --if one can be said to turn in, when the process takes the form of stretching one's self out on the open ground. No explanation of our detention here has been given me during the evening, and as I lay down to sleep all sorts of speculations are indulged in, varying from having my throat cut before morning, to a reconsideration by the authorities of the orders sending me back to Persia.

Some time in the night I am awakened. A strange horseman has arrived in camp with a letter for me. He wears the uniform of a military courier.

The sowars make a blaze of brushwood for me to read by. It is a letter from Mr. Merk, the political agent of the Boundary Commission. It is a long letter, full of considerate language, but no instructions affecting the orders of my escort. Mr. Merk explains why Mahmoud Yusuph Khan could not take the responsibility of allowing me to proceed to Kandahar. The population of Zemindavar, he points out, are particularly fanatical and turbulent, and I should very probably have been murdered; etc.

The march toward Karize is resumed in good season in the morning. "What was that? a cuckoo?" At first I can scarcely believe my own senses, the idea of cuckoos calling in the jungles of Afghanistan being about the last thing I should have expected to hear, never having read of travellers hearing them anywhere in Central Asia, nor yet having heard them myself before. But there is no mistake; for ere we pa.s.s Kafir Kaleh, I hear the familiar notes again and again.

The road is a decided improvement over anything we have struck since leaving Herat, and by noon we arrive at Karize. For some inexplicable reason the Sooltan of Karize receives our party with very ill grace. He looks sick, and is probably suffering from fever, which may account for the evident sourness of his disposition.

Mohammed Ahzim Khan is anything but pleased at our reception, and as soon as he receives the receipt for my delivery makes his preparations to return. I don't think the Sooltan even tendered my escort a feed of grain for their horses, a piece of inhospitality wholly out of place in this wild country.

As for myself, he simply orders a villager to supply me with food and quarters, and charge me for it. Mohammed Ahzim Khan comes to my quarters to bid me good-by, and he takes the opportunity to explain "this is Iran, not Afghanistan. Iran, pool; Afghanistan, pool neis." There is no need of explanation, however; the people rubbing their fingers eagerly together and crying, "pool, pool," when I ask for something to eat, tells me plainer than any explanations that I am back again among our pool-loving friends, the subjects of the Shah. As I bid Mohammed Ahzim Khan farewell, I feel almost like parting--from a friend; he is a good fellow, and with nine-tenths of his inquisitiveness suppressed, would make a very agreeable companion.

And so, here I am within a hundred and sixty miles of Meshed again. More than a month has flown past since I last looked back upon its golden dome; it has been an eventful month. My experiences have been exceptional and instructive, but I ought now to be enjoying the comforts of the English camp at Quetta, instead of halting overnight in the mud huts of the surly Sooltan of Karize.

The female portion of Karize society make no pretence of covering up their faces, which impresses me the more as I have seen precious little of female faces since entering Afghanistan. All the women of Karize are ugly; a fact that I attribute to the handsomest specimens being carried off to Bokhara, for decades past, by the Turkomans. The people that a.s.semble to gaze upon me are the same sore-eyed crowd that characterizes most Persian villages; and among them is one man totally blind. The loss of sight has not dimmed his inquisitiveness any, however; nothing could do that, and he gets someone to lead him into my room, where he makes an exhaustive examination of the bicycle with his hands.

A village luti entertains me during the evening with a dancing deer; a comical affair of wood, made to dance on a table by jerking a string. The luti plays a sort of "whangadoodle" tune on a guitar, and manipulates the string so as to make the deer keep time to the tune. He tells me he obtained it from Hindostan.

Among the wiseacres gathered around me plying questions, is one who asks, "Chand menzils inja to London?" He wants to know how many marches, or stopping-places, there are between Karize and London. This is a fair ill.u.s.tration of what these people think the world is like. His idea of a journey from here to London is that of stages across a desert country like Persia from one caravanserai to another; beyond that conception these people know nothing. London, they think, would be some such place as Herat or Meshed.

At the hour of my departure from Karize, on the following morning, a little old man presents himself, and wants me to employ him as an escort.

The old fellow is a shrivelled-up little bit of a man, whom I could well-nigh hold out at arm's length and lift up with one hand. Not feeling the need of either guide or guard particularly, I decline the old fellow's services "with thanks," and push on; happy, in fact, to find myself once more untrammelled by native company.

Small towers of refuge, dotting the plain thickly about Karize, tell of past depredations by the Turkomans. An outlying village like Karize must, indeed, have had a hard struggle for existence; right in the heart of the daman country, too. For miles the plain is found to be gra.s.sy as the Western prairies; an innovation from the dreary gray of the camel-thorn dasht that is quite refreshing. A stream or two has to be forded, and many Afghans are met returning from pilgrimage to Meshed.

The village of Torbet-i-Sheikh Jahm is reached at noon, a pleasant town containing many shade-trees. Here, I find, resides Ab-durrahzaak Khan, a sub-agent of Mirza Abbas Khan, and consequently a servant of the Indian Government. He is one of the frontier agents, whose duty it is to keep track of events in a certain section of country and report periodically to headquarters. He, of course, receives me hospitably, does the agreeable with tea and kalians, and provides substantial refreshments.

The soothing Shi-razi tobacco provided with his kalians, and the excellent quality of his tea, provoke me to make comparison between them and the wretched productions of Afghanistan. Abdurrahzaak laughs good-humoredly at my remark, and replies, "Mashallah! there is nothing good in Afghanistan." He isn't far from right; and the English officer who named the products of Afghanistan as "stones and fighting men" came equally near the truth.

Fair roads prevail for some distance after leaving Torbet-i-Sheikh Jahm; a halt is made at an Eliaute camp to refresh myself with a bowl of doke.

A picturesque dervish emerges from one of the tents and presents his alms-receiver, with "huk yah huk." Both man and voice seem familiar, and after a moment I recognize him as a familiar figure upon the streets of Teheran last winter. He says he is going to Cabool and Kandahar. A unique feature of his makeup is a staff with a bayonet fixed on the end, in place of the usual club or battle-axe.

The night is spent in an Eliaute camp; nummuds seem scarce articles with them, and I spend a cold and uncomfortable night, scarcely sleeping a wink. The camp is not far from the village of Mahmoudabad, and a rowdy gang of ryots come over to camp in the middle of the night, having heard of my arrival.

From Mahmoudabad the road follows up a narrow valley with a range of hills running parallel on either hand. The southern range are quite respectable mountains, with lingering patches of snow, and--can it be possible!--even a few scattering pines. Pines, and, for that matter, trees of any kind, are so scarce in this country that one can hardly believe the evidence of his own eyes when he sees them.

On past the village of Karizeno my road leads, pa.s.sing through a hard, gravelly country, the surface generally affording fair riding except for a narrow belt of sand-hills. At Karizeno, a glimpse is obtained of our old acquaintances the Elburz Mountains, near Shah-riffabad. They are observed to be somewhat snow-crowned still, though to a measurably less extent than they were when we last viewed them on the road to Torbeti.

The approach of evening brings my day's ride to a close at Furriman, a village of considerable size, partially protected by a wall and moat, Stared at by the a.s.sembled population, and enduring their eager gabble all the evening, and then a nummud on the roof of a villager's house till morning. The night is cold, and sleeplessness, with shivering body, again rewards me for a long, hard day's journey. But now it is but about six farsakhs to Meshed, where, "Inshallah," a good bed and all kindred comforts await me beneath Mr. Gray's hospitable roof. Ere the forenoon is pa.s.sed the familiar gold dome once again appears as a glowing yellow beacon, beckoning me across the Meshed plain.

A camel runs away and unseats his rider in deference to his timidity at my strange appearance as I bowl briskly across the Meshed plain at noon.

By one o'clock I am circling around the moat of the city, and by two am snugly ensconced in my old quarters, relating the adventures of the last five weeks to Gray, and receiving from him in exchange the latest sc.r.a.ps of European news. I have made the one hundred and sixty miles from Karize in two days and a half--not a bad showing with a bicycle that has been tinkered up by Herati gunsmiths.

Among other interesting items of news, it is learned that a hopeful Meshedi blacksmith has been inspired to try his "prentice hand" at making a bicycle. One would like to have seen that bicycle, but somehow I didn't get an opportunity. Friendly telegrams reach me from Teheran, and also another order from the British Legation, instructing me not to attempt Afghanistan again.