LETTERS TO THE EDITOR.
A DAY'S SHOOTING- WITH THE AMIR OF AFGHANISTAN.
pro TUB Emma OF TES "SPECTATOR:1 Stn,—As a shoot, it was rather a failure, but we got an excellent view of the Amin The whole affair was sprung on us rather suddenly, but we did all we could when we beard the Amir wanted a day's shooting in our district. We turned the canal into a low-lying bit of country, and we rigged up quite a tolerable lake. It had formerly been rather a noted place for wildfowl, so the duck and geese descended in thousands when the water was let in. Sentinels were stationed all round for two or three weeks previously, and special orders were given that the birds were not to be disturbed. The day before the Amir came in we heard that the lake, was simply packed with wildfowl, so our hopes rose high when we were told that some more guns were wanted, and we were invited to join the shoot. Besides, we had never seen the Amir, and we all wanted to know what sort of a man the ruler of Afghanistan was. After all, the Amir has been before, and may at any moment be again, the pivot of the world's politics. We had heard grim stories of his father, Abdurrahman : how .. men dropped dead with fright when summoned to his presence ; and some Afghan refugees in the district had told us many tales of his rough-and-ready methods of dealing with his opponents.
The Deputy Commissioner, who as head of the district was responsible for all the arrangements connected with the reception of the Amir, had rather a poor time of it. He had been busy for some time writing to borrow tents and motor- cars from neighbouring districts and native States. Then at the last moment a telegram came saying that a hundred Afghan retainers were arriving and had to be fed at the station within twenty-four hours. As all the available cutlery had been despatched to the shooting camp, it was almost impossible to organise such a big feed at a moment's notice. This telegram perturbed the Deputy Com- missioner not a little. We never heard what happened to those hundred men. They were probably fed somehow. The Deputy Commissioner and the officer in charge of the police stayed to receive the Amir at the railway station. The Deputy Commissioner bad arranged to sleep there ; but he cannot have had much rest, as telegrams poured hi most of the night. The Amir was to arrive very early in the morning, and to motor straight out to the shooting camp. We who bad no motors had to go there the preceding afternoozi. We found every one in feverish haste smartening up the camp. A road had been made leading straight up to the Durbar tent which was reserved for the Amir. Our tents were ranged on each side of this road. A banner with "Welcome!" on it in English was stretched across a rough triumphal arch at the entrance, and a similar inscription in English and Persian was decorating the Amir's own tent, The two"Nawabs who had lent the tent and all the fittings hung about not pars knowing what to do. The first thing we diecovered was that the road was made at
such an angle that the motor could not turn.' This was quickly . , . . „ , , set right. Then somebody suggested that the flags, looked tawdry, and that the effect would be better without them. So they were removed. Meanwhile the local native official in charge of the camp had a brilliant idea. He produced some dark earth and whitewash, and in a very short time what looked like a fine piece of tesselated pavement had been laid down on each side of the avenue. They worked away all night, and when we got up next morning we found that some gardeners had brought palms and flowers from nobody knows where, and that what on Tuesday morning had been a bare strip of jungle had become by Wednesday a well-laid-out garden. It was real jugglery. The Durbar tent was more magnificent still; the Nawab had filled it with all his family treasures,— his three silver chairs, his four gold hookahs, the bedstand with gold legs, and some most gorgeous prayer mats. It would be worth turning Mueslilman to have the privilege of kneeling on such mats. There was a throne too of sorts ; but it proved on trial to be rather groggy, and we had to prop it up with earth under the carpet, as we feared the Antic might suspect treachery. Then arose the question as to where we were to receive our Royal guest. Were we to go on to our allotted positions round the lake, or were we to line up to receive him at the camp ?
While we were debating a motor swept round the corner, and almost before we could look round, had drawn up before the entrance to the Durbar tent. We looked anxiously to see if the Amir was in it. No; this clearly could not be the Amir, for all its four occupants wore sun helmets, the regulation English headdress in India. Obviously the great man was coming behind in another motor. Meanwhile one of the four, a stout, dark man with a black beard and gleaming teeth, bad got out, shouldered his gun-case and cartridge-bags, and strode into the tent. The Deputy Commissioner somewhat hastily got out after him, and offered to take his things. The dark man strode on, refusing help, and bundled his things unceremoniously on to a table. We gasped. So this was the Antic! How could we have known this was Habibullah when we were waiting for an Oriental of the Orientals, and here was a man in spick-and-span English dress who might have been seen on any grouse moor on the Twelfth ? His manners were English, too. He gave a short, curt nod of greeting to his hosts, and a rapid sweep of the hand to one of his Sirdars to go and fetch his coat which be had left in the motor; and before we had recovered from our astonishment he had disappeared into the tent. We then went off as quickly as we could to our places round the lake. We had to walk a good distance from the water to avoid disturbing the duck, which, in chorus with the geese, were quacking all over the lake. The five elephants waited at the door of the Durbar tent to conduct the Amir and his Staff to the water's edge. The largest elephant, gorgeously caparisoned in silver and gold, with a silver howdah, salaamed to his Majesty, and kneeled down for him to mount. But the Amir would have none of it. He declared that sitting on silver was uncomfortable, and took the next elephant with an ordinary howdah. The Nawabs could hardly conceal their astonishment. What sort of potentate was this who refused the Royal trappings, and preferred an ordinary shooting elephant ? A journey of half-a-mile brought the party to the edge of the water, where a boat was ready on which they were to be ferried to the middle of the lake. The Amir at once threw out all its gorgeous green cushions. "What is the use of cushions," be remarked, "when amen is shooting?" Meanwhile we were all waiting for the Amir to have his first shot, for it was understood that no one was to shoot before his Majesty. At last two-shots rang out, a bugle sounded to let us know the Amir had begun the battue, and we all rose expectant in our places, hoping for
grand sport. But, alas! the birds were in a most contrary mood. The geese rose straight up, circled once round the lake at an impossible altitude, and then headed straight away to the East; and the duck were as bad. Our guest seemed to be having some shooting, as we heard him firing several times, but the rest of us got little or none. Everything was out of shot. We returned about lunchtime rather afraid that the Amir would be angry at having come so far for so little sport. But be had killed a large peacock on his way back to camp, and was obviously quite pleased with himself. "I do not measure my enjoyment by the weight of flesh I shoot," he replied to one of his hosts, who was apologising for the poorness of the bag. "One cannot do more than shoot
what comes near." "That is true," said one of his Staff, with a laugh, "but we do not all hit them as your Majesty does." The Amir smiled, for Ile knew he had missed nothing he had fired at all day. Whatever else Habibullah may be, he is a sportsman and a gentleman.
Of the political side of his visit to India it is much too early to speak. He has rather puzzled the natives of India. In some ways he is more English than Oriental. For instance, no native of India except a completely Anglicised one would wear an English hat. He appears to have shown a preference for English society, and not to be exempt from the usual Afghan acorn for the native of Hindustan. On the other hand, his extremely tactful advice to the Mohammedans of Agra to avoid hurting the susceptibilities of the Hindus by killing cows in his honour has bad a great effect on India, and has won him deserved popularity; and it is possible that his frank admiration of Aligarh College, and his admission that he is in favour of Western learning, may encourage the old-fashioned Mohammedans to go in for education more than they have hitherto done. Meanwhile, it is certain that his visit can do no harm.
As far as our little corner of India is concerned, the first advent of motor-care has caused considerable speculation and curiosity. Some of the villagers were overheard discussing the Amir's motor-car. "It is not a carriage, for it has no horses," said one. "It is not a train, for it has no rails," said another. "My brothers," said the oldest of the greybeards, "ye are as fools having no understanding. For fifty years the sahibs have been training their devil carriages to run on rails. Now at last they have learnt to run by themselves."—I am,
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