At the court of the Amîr : a narrative / by John Alfred Gray.

  • Gray, John Alfred.
Date:
1895
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: At the court of the Amîr : a narrative / by John Alfred Gray. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by the Francis A. Countway Library of Medicine, through the Medical Heritage Library. The original may be consulted at the Francis A. Countway Library of Medicine, Harvard Medical School.

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    decorated on the breast and at the hem with designs in red. The feet are generally bare, and the loose trousers are drawn tight at the ankle. Their black hair hangs in two long plaits, the points being fastened with a knot of many-coloured silks. When one considers the nature of these mountaineers — hereditary highway robbers and fighters, crack shots, agile and active, and when one observes the unlimited possibility they have among rocks, valleys, and passes of surprising a hostile army and of escaping themselves—the advantage of a subsidy becomes apparent. At the distant or west extremity of the plateau, where we saw the Pathan villages, is the Landi Kotal serai. An ordinary caravansary in Afghanistan is a loopholed enclosure with one gate, and is very like the forts or villages I have described. At Landi Kotal, in addition to the native serai, is one built by the Grovernment. It is strongly fortified, with bastion, embrasure, and banquette, and any part of the enclosure commanded by the adjoining hills is pro- tected by a curtain or traverse. Hot, tired, and thirsty, we four rode into the fort, and were received by the British oSicer in charge. The Afghan guard took up their quarters in the native serai outside. Good as the road was it had seemed an endless journey. Winding in and out in the heat we had seemed to make but little progress, and the unaccustomed weight of the turban and the drag- ging of the heavy revolver added considerably to our fatigue; but the march, after all, was not more than five-and-twenty miles. This time there was ample accommodation for