The Rtghan korAerUnd.
Tart JT
The. Ts.r3lan ^ronti^

V. ZO no. lOJ Oct • J909.,

'

43x

fV-s

NOTES ON BURMA

865

EARLY MORNING AMONG THE SIX HUNDRED PAGODAS OUTSIDE OF MANDALAY

splendid way of seeing the country ; the
express boats for those whose time is
short; and, better still, the cargo boats
which tow alongside great bazaar flats
and spend weeks in passing up and down
the river. The space on the flats is
rented out in small parcels to store
keepers, who practically live permanently
on board them and who have their regu
lar customers in the various riverside vil
lages. By traveling in these one may
be sure of seeing about all the folk in
every village passed, as well as having
reasonably lengthy stays at all the larger
towns. Perhaps the most remarkable "sight"
on the upper river above Mandalay is the
unfinished Mingun pagoda, the largest
solid mass of masonry in the world.
Near by, under a huge roof and slung to
a giant beam of teak, hangs the largest
perfect bell in the world. The great
broken bell of Moscow only is larger.
Buddhism in a comparatively pure
form is the religion of the Burmese.
Every Burman dons the yellow robe of
the monk for part of his life and these
pongyis, as they are called, partially jus

tify their somewhat vampire-like exist
ence by keeping alive the rather feeble
flame of native education. Many are
monks for life, and these with their neo
phytes live in the pongy kyaungs which
are scattered over the whole country.
These monasteries serve as rest-houses
for pilgrims, and in very many cases are
remarkable examples of the character
istic architecture.
The finest of all is the Queen's Golden
Monastery at Mandalay, which is here
inadequately illustrated. The rich carv
ings and the gilt now dulled by time give
a particularly pleasing and venerable ap
pearance to the building. Native archi
tecture is fast on the decline, however,
since Theebaw's reign has ended, very
ingloriously, the independent line of Bur
mese kings. Yet a new land to England,
the government has not awakened to the
fact that the palaces and formerly royally
protected monasteries, of Mandalay espe
cially, need restoring and preserving.
The religious spirit of the people cares
for the greater pagodas, while the less im
portant ones, overgrown with luxuriant
tropical foliage, make pleasing ruins.

866

THE NATIONAL GEOGRAPHIC MAGAZINE

The wooden buildings, however, really
need the government's care, for they rep
resent as truly the zenith of a people's
development in architecture as do the
more enduring but hardlv more interest

ing remains in northern India, now so
carefully protected. In this case also it
is probable that considerable material
help would be forthcoming from the
richer natives.

THE AFGHAN BORDERLAND
By Ellsworth Huntington
Part II: The Persian Frontier

OUR first intimate contact with
Afghanistan was at the fort of
Zulfagar, in the northwest cor
ner of the country, where Afghan terri
tory touches Transcaspia on the north
and Persia on the west. The Heri Rud
River here forms the real boundary be
tween Afghanistan and Persia, although
the Afghans lay claim to a considerable
area on the west bank. Among the bar
ren Persian hills of white clay capped
with a hard corniced layer of dark gravel,
our caravan of horses and camels came
winding down toward the tamarisk jun
gle which covers the flood-plain of the
Heri Rud. Eastward on the other side
of the river, undimmed by the clear De
cember air, we saw a mud fort sur
rounded by flat-roofed mud houses at
the foot of a fine cliff made up of many
layers of horizontally bedded sandstone
and shale.
At first the village appeared lifeless,
but soon it became evident that our ap
proach was noticed, for tiny figures,
dwarfed by the deceptive distance, ap
peared on the higher roofs, and soon a
string of white turbans and shining
gun barrels could be seen bobbing river-
ward among the thick, dry tamarisk
bushes. When we emerged from the jungle on
our bank of the river a group of soldiers
stood opposite us across the broad,
muddy stream, while one of their num
ber, a heavy-featured man with well-
oiled black hair and a sinister hairlip,
was wading waist deep in the cold, swift

current with his white nether garments
of cotton flung over his shoulder. Com
ing ashore some distance below us, he
clothed himself and forced his way
through the bushes, breathing heavily
from fear rather than exertion.
"Go away ; you can't come here. This
is Afghanistan," was his short and per
emptory greeting. Our little Turkoman
interpreter, Kurban of Serakhs, refused
to hear what more he had to say, and
sent him unwillingly back to call his
chief, with whom alone, according to
Oriental ideas, it was fit that foreigners
should parley. There was much run
ning to and fro on the other side, with
the result that at length a portly man in
voluminous white cotton trousers, a
huge white turban, and a dark military
cloak appeared on the Afghan bank.
"What do you want? What right
have you to come here?" he shouted
across the broad river in reply to Kur-
ban's flattering inquiry as to his health
and happiness.
"Most noble and worthy captain,"
answered Kurban, with Eastern exag
geration, "my masters are a renowned
Russian general, most rich and valiant,
and highly in favor with the great Tsar,
and a learned American 'Khoja,' who
knows all books and can read anything
that was ever written. They intend to
travel across Afghanistan, and therefore
bespeak your hospitality."
"Send them away ; send them awav.
Thev can't come here," was the captain's
quick answer, but, bethinking himself,

THE AFGHAN BORDERLAND

887

he added: "Have the most honorable
travelers had a comfortable journey?
Most gladly would I receive them, but I
am a mere captain. If I let them so
much as set foot on this side of the river,
my king, the great Amir at Kabul,
would cut my head off."
Persuasion was useless ; the captain
would neither permit us to cross nor ac
cept our invitation to come over into
Persia and dine with us. He seemed to
stand in thorough terror of the Amir's
anger. We might have crossed without per
mission, but that would probably have
necessitated fighting; for during the
next two days, as we marched south
ward, armed soldiers appeared whenever
the windings of the road brought us
within sight of the river which forms
the boundary for some fifty miles.
A few clays later we made another at
tempt to enter Afghanistan, not with the
intention of actually going far into the
country, but because my Russian com
panion was . extremely eager to learn
something as to the defenses of Kafir
Kala, a famous fort supposed to be the
strongest on the western frontier of
Afghanistan. Sending the camels safely
into Persian territory, we started for
Kafir Kala one glorious December day —
the Russian official and his Turkoman
soldier, the writer and his Russian ser
vant, and our Turkoman interpreter —
five men, well armed and mounted on
good horses. Till noon we rode at a
steady jog-trot through an uninhabited
desert studded with low, dry bushes.
Only twice did travelers appear in the
narrow path, and they seemed sadly
frightened. We began to think we had
lost the road. Then a village came into
view across the plain among the tama
risk bushes. Could that treeless group
of low, gray walls and flat-roofed mud
houses be Kafir Kala? Perhaps those
turbaned men running together in the
distance were soldiers. Something like
gun barrels glistened over their shoul
ders. Riding nearer we saw that the
village was evidently not a fort ; but the
way in which the villagers gathered in

the road to intercept us looked ominous,
even though the weapons over their
shoulders were only spades for irri
gating. As we turned away from their
almost violent questions, a handsomely
dressed young chief and two soldiers
galloped up with a great show of guns,
and we stopped perforce to parley in the
middle of the village.
"This is Afghan territory. You are
foreigners, and you must go back where
you came from," began the chief.
"We understand all that,' was the
answer, "but we are going to call on the
commandant at Kafir Kala. Where's
the road?''
"There," pointing in the right direc
tion, "but I won't let you go."
"Thank you. Who is this young
man?" we asked, ignoring him and turn
ing to the bystanders.
"Hakim Khan, Hakim Khan, the
chief of Kuzzil Islam," came from a
dozen voices. We understood now how
he had happened to arrive. The old men
whom we had met by the river an hour
or two before had said that they came
from Kuzzil Islam. Evidently they had
turned back and given the alarm.
A hot discussion began at once be
tween our men and the Afghans as to
whether we should go back or keep on.
We cut it short by turning our horses'
heads toward the fort. That angered
Hakim Khan. He said something sharp
and short ; the crowd surged forward,
and half a dozen hands seized our bri
dles. Involuntarily we pulled out our
pistols, and the crowd fell back in such
haste that we could not help laughing to
see them stumble over one another.
That cleared the air, for the Afghans
laughed, too, and we all grew friendly.
We flattered the Khan by asking about
the many villages which he owned and
by expressing wonder at the extent of
his travels to Cabul and Kandahar, and
at his intimacy with the Amir.
"How much you have seen for so
voting a man," I said, and added the
common Oriental question, "How old
are you?"

868

THE NATIONAL GEOGRAPHIC MAGAZINE

"Fifteen years," was the absurd
answer.
"I am a hundred," I rejoined.
He saw the point, and said hesita
tingly : "Well, perhaps I am something
over twenty. My age is written in a
book, but the book is lost and it's a long
time since I've seen it."
In spite of Hakim Khan's protesta
tions, we at length set forward, accom
panied by the chief and his two soldiers.
When the fort came into sight a mile
away we yielded so far as to let him send
a man to announce our approach.
"Tell the commandant," we said, "that
we have ridden far and are tired. We
can talk business better if he has tea
ready on our arrival."
The soldier dug his heels into his
horse's flanks, the beast jumped, and the
rider rolled ignominiouslv to the ground.
His awkward way of mounting r.nd the
violent flapping of his legs as he once
more got under way confirmed our im
pression that he was no cavalryman, and
that if it came to shooting on horseback
he would be more dangerous to his
friends than to us. Nevertheless it was
an anxious time as we watched him gal
loping wildly off. At length he reached
the castle far away across the plain, and
little black clots began to come out on
the top of the crumbling old pile to look
and disappear. Would we be received
with tea and peace, or with soldiers and
imprisonment? When finally we reached
our destination, Hakim Khan led us up
past the ruins of an older fort to the
main entrance of the once stately castle,
a handsome arch now falling to ruins.
In the doorway stood the command
ant, a genuine old martinet, in an ancient
British uniform of blue and gilt. His
scraggly beard had been dyed some
months before, according to the Persian
fashion, but now had grown so much
that a rim of newlv grown gray hair
intervened between his dark sun-tanned
face and the bright red fringe of older
hair, giving him a strangely simian as
pect. An armed soldier stood on either
side of the chief, while unarmed men
lounged here and there. They might

have had guns concealed under their
long woolen cloaks, but there was no
sign of armament except the two men
beside the commandant, and a stack of
four old-fashioned rifles to the right of
the doorway. Through the door we
caught a glimpse of tumble-down build
ings surrounding a courtyard in the
midst of which a single horse was con
spicuously tied. To the left of the arch
we gladly noticed an adobe platform
spread with rugs, which suggested tea
and a peaceful recepticn.
We were not left long in doubt, for
the commandant sourly motioned to us
to take places on the rugs with himself
and Hakim Khan, while thirty or more
soldiers ranged themselves cross-legged
or asquat in a circle roundabout, and it
became clear that they had no guns. At
first one of the two armed soldiers stood
respectfully opposite the chief, but soon
sat down, while his comrade, who was
supposed to be pacing before the gate
way, often forgot his unaccustomed duty
and stopped to listen. We endeavored
to ascertain the Afghan attitude as to a
certain disputed piece of territory which
we really needed to cross for scientific
purposes, but the only result was that an
old private in the outside circle often
took the words out of his superior's
mouth, and the Russian official and the
commandant kept contradicting one an
other in the "katydid" fashion of "It
is." "It isn't."
By the time tea arrived it became evi
dent that the Afghans were much more
afraid of us than we of them. Kafir
Kala, their boasted stronghold, was
plainly defenseless. One can imagine
the scene on the arrival of Hakim
Khan's expert horsemen. The com
mandant hears the message in conster
nation and starts away to put on his
faded uniform, but pauses to order tea
and to direct that the six rifles be
brought out. The four old-fashioned
ones are to be stacked bv the door- the
two modern ones are to be carried bv
the soldiers whose nondescript garments
most resemble uniforms. One of the
two well-dressed men is to accompany

THE AFGHAN BORDERLAND

869

OLD AEGHAN CHIEFS BESIDE THEIR TENTS : A RUSSIAN OFFICER ON THE LEFT

AEGHAN CULTIVATORS AT A VILLAGE NEAR KAEIR KALA: THE MAN IN A SHEEPSKIN
CAP IS A TURKOMAN

X
o

^3
W >"3I — I
o
o
w o o> W
o

>Q > Ni — i
z;

THE SOLDIERS OF HAKIM KHAN

HAKIM KHAN, THE AFGHAN CHIEF OF KUZZIL ISLAM,
WITH ONE OF HIS SOLDIERS

THE AFGPIAN BORDERLAND

871

KAFIR KALA, THE MOST IMPORTANT FORT ON THE WESTERN FRONTIER OF
AFGHANISTAN
COMMANDANT AND SOLDIERS AT KAFIR KALA: IN THE BACKGROUND THE RUINS OF
AN OLD FORT MAY BE SEEN

u z

THE NATIONAL GEOGRAPHIC MAGAZINE

PROSPEROUS AFGHANS AND THEIR SONS

THE COMMANDANT OF KAFIR STANDING OUTSIDE THE WALLS OF THE FORT, WITH
GUNS STACKED OX LEFT, AND ONE OF THE FEW UNIFORMED SOLDIERS ON RIGHT

THE AFGHAN BORDERLAND

873

J> PERSIAN VILLAGE ON THE AFGHAN FRONTIER WITH A ROUND LOOP-HOLED TOWER
OF STONES FOR PROTECTION AGAINST AFGHAN RAIDS
INHABITANTS OF THE VILLAGE WITH THE ROUND LOOP-HOLED TOWER

THE NATIONAL GEOGRAPHIC MAGAZINE

.

I

V* -.

GATE OF THE FORT OF KAFIR KALA : RUSSIAN OFFICER AND TURKOMAN INTERPRETER
AMONG A CROWD OF AFGHAN SOLDIERS

BAKING BREAD IN SEYISTAN ON THE AFGHAN BORDER

THE AFGHAN BORDERLAND

875

his chief, the other to play sentinel.
While this is being arranged with the
advice and consent of the whole garri
son, the women go up on the roof to see
what they can of" the attacking army, and
the small boys run to and fro and report
progress. When we bade the Afghans a friendly-
adieu after an hour's talk and some
photography, we were put in charge of
an escort, which consisted of a single
ragged soldier, who accompanied us
around the corner to point out the way-
back to Persia. Three months later, on
our return from Seyistan by another
route, we heard the sequel to our raid
on Kafir Kala. The representative of
the Persian foreign office at Birjand
asked if it were true that Russia and
Afghanistan were at war. He had
heard, so he said, that Russia had sent
a party of Cossacks to attack an Afghan
fort, and many men had been killed in a
bloody fight.
At Turbat the Russian consul, whose
guests we were, had received a report
that a Russian officer and his companion
had been arrested and imprisoned by the
Afghans. He at once sent one of his
secret agents to Afghanistan to investi
gate the matter. From this man's re
port it appears that when news of our
visit to Kafir Kala reached the authori
ties at Herat, the chief town of western
Afghanistan, they summoned the com
mandant to give an account of himself.
His inability to arrest us was clearly due
to the fact that some higher official had
squandered the money intended for the
equipment of the fort. Some one, how
ever, must be punished. The command
ant was accordingly removed from office,
publicly whipped, and sent to the small
est available post. A new man was sent
to Kafir Kala, and with him a hundred
well-armed cavalry, so it was said._
Evidently the Afghans have no inten

tion of allowing foreigners to .enter their
counall s
ants^rTnd^a^in'rbne "day soon after

allowing iwiw&"~-- -- ,
country. The people of the west „*by
all ace
ai , i , , i . "t*o"-~-reated lightiy> as we saw

iVS»tVVe,a^^ofJheJ„,,«-

,f Afghanistan, but even they are by

again

our raid on Kafir Kala we stopped at a
group of low, black tents belonging to
Afghan nomads who were encamped in
territory which is in dispute between
Afghanistan and Persia. Being short of
supplies, we bought a sheep and some
bread, and at the same time procured a
new guide. After purchases had been
completed the caravan and the new guide
started off across the desert hills, while
the Russian official and I remained be
hind with the interpreter to pay the bill.
The Afghans demanded an exorbitant
price, which Kurban refused to pay.
After an interminable dispute, we at
tempted to cut the matter short by hand
ing over the money.
"Here," we said, "is twice the price of
the sheep. We are willing to pay so
much, but not ten or even five times its
market value," and with that we started
to ride away. Thereupon a black-browed
Afghan seized the bridle of the interpre
ter's horse, which caused the Russian to
ride his horse at the man to frighten
him. The Afghans at once became ex
cited and ran to the tents for their guns,
while we began to ride slowly away.
They came out ready to shoot and we
looked for grave trouble, but a woman
called out : "Don't shoot, don't shoot.
If you kill one of them, their men will
kill my husband, who has gone with them
as guide."
We got away safely, but the guide
proved most unsatisfactory. Twice he
misled us, and instead of taking us to vil
lages or nomad encampments brought us
to desolate springs in the wilderness after
we had stumbled through darkness for
three or four hours. At the second
spring we found ourselves short of
bread, although we had meat enough to
keep us from suffering. That night a
caravan of Afghan salt-gatherers came
along the same track that we had fol
lowed and encamped about a third of a
mile away. In the morning our men
went promptly to buy bread of them, but
did not succeed in getting any. "Oh,
yes," said the Afghans, "we have flour
enough, but we do not care to sell it."
Naturally our men came back in rather

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THE NATIONAL GEOGRAPHIC MAGAZINE

bad humor. They were talking of the
meanness of the caravan men when some
of the Afghans were seen coming toward
the spring with buckets in their hands.
"Ah," said one of our Turkomans, "I
know what we can do. We will not let
them get any water until they sell us
some bread."
Accordingly our men all got out their
guns and stood around the spring to warn
the Afghans off. At first the Afghans
thought it was a joke, and so did we.
They went off apparently to get some
flour, but it soon appeared that they had
no intention of satisfying the needs of
our men. On the contrary they came
strolling back to the number of fifteen or
twenty, not carrying food, but grasping
something long and hard under their long
gray gowns of wool. Evidently they had
Drought their guns and meant to fight if
necessary. It was a case of food against
water. To allow a quarrel to arise there
in the wilderness would have been sui
cidal. We called our men to their senses
and let the Afghans get what water they
needed. During the next hour or two we made
friends with them, and then they volun
tarily offered us some bread. The)
method of cooking it was very different
from that employed in the oases, where
ovens of mud shaped like beehives, with a
hole in the top, are heated with a fire of
weeds, and the dough is stuck against the
inside of the hot oven, where it hangs
until it is so far cooked that it falls down
into the ashes. The bread of the Afghan
caravan was cooked by heating small,
round cobblestones in the fire and then
poking them out and wrapping dough an
inch thick about them. The balls thus
formed were again thrown into the fire
to be poked out again when cooked.
The bread tasted well there in the desert,
although in civilized communities the
grit and ashes would have seemed unen
durable. After good-fellowship had been es
tablished the Afghans actually sold us
some flour. The camp where we used it
a little later happened to be beside the
sandy bed of a trickling salt stream,

which was drinkable in winter, but abso
lutely unusable in summer, when evapo
ration is at its height and the salt is con
centrated. "See," said one of our Turkomans, as
we dismounted, "here is some sand. To
night we can have some good bread."
When some dry twigs had been gathered
he proceeded to smooth off a bit of the
cleanest sand and built upon it a hot fire.
When the sand was thoroughly hot he
raked off most of the coals and smoothed
the sand very neatly. Meanwhile one of
the other men had made two large sheets
of dough about three-quarters of an inch
thick and eighteen inches in diameter.
Between these he placed a layer of lumps
of sheep's tail fat, making a huge round
sandwich. This was now spread on the
hot sand, coals mixed with sand were
placed completely over it, and it was left
to bake. Now and then an edge was
uncovered, and a Turkoman smelled it
appreciatively and rapped on it to see if
it was yet cooked. When the top was
thoroughly baked the bread was turned
over and covered up again. It tasted
even better than the Afghan bread, after
it had cooled a little and the sand and
ashes had been whisked off with a girdle.
The Turkomans are so accustomed to life
in the sandy desert that they think it im
possible to make the best kind of bread
without sand, while the Afghans, who live
in the stony mountains, think that cobble
stones are a requisite.
The Afghans, like the Persians, have
developed some of their worst character
istics largely by reason of the hardness
of the physical conditions under which
they live. The experiences described
above took place on the borders of the
Desert of Despair, a place where men and
animals die of hunger and thirst and their
companions have no pity. The caravan
with which our men tried to quarrel was
about to return across the northern edge
of the desert with salt from the Lake
of Khaf to be sold in Afghanistan.
They reported that on the outward jour
ney they had been delayed and two of
their number had died of hunger.