Tweet
This is one my favourite books and by that I mean one that I read often and one that I cannot bare to "finish" reading. Written by in 1927 an american adventurer who had gotten special permission from the King of Afghistan to enter "the forbidden land". Although I don't have any of my own experiences of Afghanistan but Thomas Lowell, the author, has me convinced. It's very difficult for me to pick a passage from this book but I finally decided to choose one from the beginning and one from towards the end of the tale.
Here is a shining example of the old adage "history repeats it self":
When you first reach Waziristan, you ask why Great Britain bothers about holding this desert region. For thirty years the British have been bickering with the frontier tribes. Respite and lulls there have been; there has never been peace. "Back to the Indus," has been a popular cry among Indian pascifist agitators as well as among certain factions of the British themselves, since the World War; although, among others, who are more aggressive, advance to the cartographic line supposed to indicate the borders of Afghanistan has been the watchword. This later policy is the one that keeps the Afghans from becoming too enthusiastically pro-British. Both policies are dangerous. The British in India cannot easily relinquish what tribal territory they have seized in this part of Asia; and India cannot well afford to have the frontier army withdrawn and considerable of Indians left to be disemboweled by the raiding Mahsuds, Waziris, and Afridis, as they surely would be if the troops retired behind the Indus. Nor can the British initiate any forward movement that would precipitate another and fourth Afghan war and lead into Central Asiatic adventures that daunted even the redoubtable Great Moguls. The British can afford neither to get on nor to get out.
They are in Waziristan and no doubt destined to remain there for a generation or two more, unless the Indian volcano blows up and hurls the British raj into the Indian Ocean. They gave us the impression of making the best of a bad job. Already a network of roads has been built through hitherto unadministered districts in Waziristan, and an attempt is being made to cajole the predatory tribes into carving homes for themselves out of the region in which they dwell, rather than carving the innards of their Hindu neighbors.
....
Constantinople, Singapore, and Shanghai are cosmopolitan cities indeed, but surely no more so than Kabul. See them as they pass - Uzbegs, Kizilbashes, Ghilzais, Chakar-Aimaks; merchants from Isfahan and Khorasan; pagans from Kafiristan, claiming descent from the army of Alexander the Great and including in their mysterious religion bits of Greek mythology as well as Zorastrian and Bhuddist tenets. There go Turkoman from Bokhara and Samarkand and slant-eyed Mongols from the far-off Gobi Desert. And of course there are Pathans, a few of the half-million in the amir's realm. The ones with the patriarchal bear is no doubt their headman. Muscular frames they have and springy step. Each of them is as though as duralumain and as dark of hue as bronze statue. Their proud bearing is refreshing after the spinelessness of the people in the plains of India. They are both savage and distinguished-looking. They meet every eye to eye and allow no man to browbeat them. They are of the same stock as Niam Sham [references to his Afridi "bodyguard"] and live along the frontier between Afghanistan and India. They are splendid examples of survival of the fittest. Swarming behind them comes an endless procession of Orzakzais, Yusafzais, Hazars, Tajiks, Swatis and shaggy men from Taskent, Khokand, Kashgar, Kazan and Yarkand, men wo live on the plateau beyound the snow-capped Pamirs. Where could one find a better array of candidates for a cross-word puzzle than here?
....
I could go on writing the whole book probably. But I'll leave at that. If anyone has read it already then I'd love to discuss it. There are some interesting tales that the author writes of that I wonder about and my grandparents aren't alive to affirm any of it.
here is an online copy
Index of /21/items/BeyondKhyberPass/HTML/
enjoy
Here is a shining example of the old adage "history repeats it self":
When you first reach Waziristan, you ask why Great Britain bothers about holding this desert region. For thirty years the British have been bickering with the frontier tribes. Respite and lulls there have been; there has never been peace. "Back to the Indus," has been a popular cry among Indian pascifist agitators as well as among certain factions of the British themselves, since the World War; although, among others, who are more aggressive, advance to the cartographic line supposed to indicate the borders of Afghanistan has been the watchword. This later policy is the one that keeps the Afghans from becoming too enthusiastically pro-British. Both policies are dangerous. The British in India cannot easily relinquish what tribal territory they have seized in this part of Asia; and India cannot well afford to have the frontier army withdrawn and considerable of Indians left to be disemboweled by the raiding Mahsuds, Waziris, and Afridis, as they surely would be if the troops retired behind the Indus. Nor can the British initiate any forward movement that would precipitate another and fourth Afghan war and lead into Central Asiatic adventures that daunted even the redoubtable Great Moguls. The British can afford neither to get on nor to get out.
They are in Waziristan and no doubt destined to remain there for a generation or two more, unless the Indian volcano blows up and hurls the British raj into the Indian Ocean. They gave us the impression of making the best of a bad job. Already a network of roads has been built through hitherto unadministered districts in Waziristan, and an attempt is being made to cajole the predatory tribes into carving homes for themselves out of the region in which they dwell, rather than carving the innards of their Hindu neighbors.
....
Constantinople, Singapore, and Shanghai are cosmopolitan cities indeed, but surely no more so than Kabul. See them as they pass - Uzbegs, Kizilbashes, Ghilzais, Chakar-Aimaks; merchants from Isfahan and Khorasan; pagans from Kafiristan, claiming descent from the army of Alexander the Great and including in their mysterious religion bits of Greek mythology as well as Zorastrian and Bhuddist tenets. There go Turkoman from Bokhara and Samarkand and slant-eyed Mongols from the far-off Gobi Desert. And of course there are Pathans, a few of the half-million in the amir's realm. The ones with the patriarchal bear is no doubt their headman. Muscular frames they have and springy step. Each of them is as though as duralumain and as dark of hue as bronze statue. Their proud bearing is refreshing after the spinelessness of the people in the plains of India. They are both savage and distinguished-looking. They meet every eye to eye and allow no man to browbeat them. They are of the same stock as Niam Sham [references to his Afridi "bodyguard"] and live along the frontier between Afghanistan and India. They are splendid examples of survival of the fittest. Swarming behind them comes an endless procession of Orzakzais, Yusafzais, Hazars, Tajiks, Swatis and shaggy men from Taskent, Khokand, Kashgar, Kazan and Yarkand, men wo live on the plateau beyound the snow-capped Pamirs. Where could one find a better array of candidates for a cross-word puzzle than here?
....
I could go on writing the whole book probably. But I'll leave at that. If anyone has read it already then I'd love to discuss it. There are some interesting tales that the author writes of that I wonder about and my grandparents aren't alive to affirm any of it.
here is an online copy
Index of /21/items/BeyondKhyberPass/HTML/
enjoy
Comment