BOOKS.
THE AMEER AT HOME.*
IF no man is a hero to his valet, no man can remain a stranger to his physician. Mr. John Alfred Gray was surgeon to the Ameer of Afghanistan from 1889-91. He beheld that Monarch in his Royal deshabille, and "took stock" of him and of his country with the particularity of a Boswell. The result of his observations is published now in a vast and heavy volume. Mr. Gray claims for his work no merit beyond "local colour ; " he has compiled it from letters which he wrote from Afghanistan to the lady who is now his wife. "In Afghanistan," he modestly says, "difficult of access and hence comparatively unknown, there have been since that strong man Amiir Abdurrabman ascended the throne, such remarkable changes in the administration of the country, and such strides towards civilisation, that it was thought a narrative of life there. throwing, possibly, some light on the personality of the Monarch and on the ' bent ' of the people, might be of general interest." Mr. Gray was right; his admirable narrative is of general interest.
When he went to Afghanistan, Mr. Gray knew no more of the country and the people than that the Afghan was "pro- verbially treacherous." He heard a good deal from officers who had served in the War of 1880, of the peril that European
• At the Court of ths Astir, a Narrative. By John AIL ed Gray, M.D. Loud., late Surgeon to B.H. the A mir of Afghanistan. London: Bentley and Son. was in who should walk about Cabul. "It struck me we sure in for an experience that was likely to be exciting. What actually happened I will relate." In March, 1889, Mr. Gray found himself at the mouth of the Khyber Pass, and a guard of cavalry waiting to escort him to Cabul,—" the Amir's tag-rag," as the British subaltern disrespectfully called them. They were rough-looking men, dressed more or less alike with turbans, tunics, trousers, and long boots. Each had a carbine slung over his shoulder, and a sword at his side. A cloak or a rug was rolled up in front of the saddle and a couple of saddle-bags strapped behind. They carried no tents. I can- not say they looked smart, but they looked useful. Of the individual men, some were rather Jewish in type, good-looking fellows—these were Afghans ; and one or two had high cheek- bones and small eyes—they were Hazaras. All were very sunburnt, and very few wore beards I learned that in a Cabal Court of law, when it is necessary in swearing to lay the hand upon the beard, that a soldier's oath is not taken : he has no beard to swear by." Thus attended, Mr. Gray entered the Khyber. On every crag he found a Pathan sentry, and after Landi Kotal, "the guard unslung their carbines and closed in round us. It was the Shenwari country we were now traversing, and these Pathans, even by the Amtr's soldiers, are considered dangerous ; for what says the proverb, A snake, a Sbenwari, and a scorpion, have never a heart to tame.' The Amir had however partly subjugated them even then, and a tower of skulls stood on a hill outside Cabul." At Jelalabad, which he found a city armed to the teeth, Mr. Gray halted, and was civilly entreated by the Governer, who gave him sugared almonds, and by one of the Khans, who shrunk not from usquebaugh. This gentleman, it was said, was influential at Gundamtik ; and Mr. Gray was advised, darkly enough, to remember him, for if it should be necessary to escape from Cabul, one could ride to Gundamuk in a day. When he got to Cabul Mr. Gray found the Ameer absent in Turkestan; the heir-apparent, Prince Habibnllah Khan, and Sirdar Nasrullah Khan his brother, of more familiar name, received the surgeon in a palace almost worthy of The Arabian Nights. Their meeting was distinguished by an earthquake ; but this was not the cause of the heir-apparent's stammer, which is the result, our author calmly tells us, of an attempt to poison the Prince in his childhood.
Mr. Gray's duties were undefined, but he soon set to work to put the City Hospital in order. He found the hospital supplied with many old-fashioned surgical instruments and quantities of old patent medicines. Eighty patients applied for relief from the English doctor on his appearance, and the first patient's complaint was a moral unfitness to command his wives. As the doctor knew no Persian, and the Afghans knew no English, things soon came to a block, when a tall young man in a turban and a brown frock-coat, came forward ex machinei, and offered to interpret. This was an Armenian, and he entered the doctor's service forthwith, and was his guardian angel. An early case made Mr. Gray's reputation. It was that of a Court page, the victim of jaundice. Mr. Gray prescribed for the boy, who drank water by mistake in place of the medicine, and at once recovered. Mr. Gray did not conceive highly of native physicians :—" The Hakims practise, I was informed, according to the Yavani or ancient Greek system of medicine. The only books I could obtain on this system were written in Arabic, and this was an obstacle to my studying them ; but whatever the teaching of their books may be, the Hakims I found knew nothing whatever about anatomy, physiology, or pathology, their treatment of disease is entirely empirical. They act according to "authority." Studying diseases, not in the living subject, but in their books only, they have made no progress whatever upon the teaching of their ancestors. All diseases the Hakims divide into "hot or cold," and perhaps because Mr. Gray's theory of drugs was neither hot nor cold the Hakims desired to treat him like the Church of the Laodiceans. . He was much caballed against, and while the common people came and were healed, the rich Afghans held by the native doctors. But the Ameer was of course a Royal exception. He treated Mr. Gray throughout with courtesy and kindness ; and left in his physician's, as in every other traveller's mind, an impression of something like real great- ness, amply borne out, if features go for anything, by the portrait which is the frontispiece to the volume. The Ameer talked a good deal to Mr. Gray "He told me much about the customs of the Russians that he became acquainted with when he was in exile ; and he asked me many questions about London. He seemed to know a good deal about it himself. He described, for the benefit of the listeners, an English custom in which gentlemen—Khans—of wealth band themselves together for the purpose of trade, and that each band is called a Comp'ny.' He asked much about the winter supply of London, inquiring whether it were a Government undertaking or managed by a Comp'ny of Khans ; and he dropped a remark or two that showed me that he had taken the trouble to secure previous information on the subject. I remember he proved—though I do not say entirely to my satisfaction—how much better it was to have five wives than one."
The Ameer, finding that the physician was also a portrait-
painter, insisted on being much painted during Mr. Gray's residence. "As regards costume, his Highness said he pre- ferred a plain coat and a fur busby. Embroidery and bright colours he said were more fit for women and boys than men.'' The Ameer beheld an Indian rupee with respectful interest, and asked, "How old was Queen Victoria when this portrait was taken ? Every feature," he added, "is incorrect,—eyes, nose, and mouth ; and even the crown on her head is not the crown she wears." Everything Mr. Gray tells us of the Ameer, in his rather disconnected account of him, impresses one with the Afghan's rare common-sense. Thus a para- graph appeared in a Calcutta paper to the effect that Mr.
Gray had said the Amir could not live more than five years. Of course Mr. Gray had said nothing of the kind. "His Highness told me not to allow my mind to be distressed;" the paragraph was rubbish. The Ameer also gave his painter some excellent " tips " about light and shade. At the time of the Ramazan, Abdurrahman does not himself fast, justly observing that "there are duties a King owes to his people ; for when a man fasts he has not that control over himself and his temper that a King, with life and death in his hands, should have." But it is not fair to gut Mr. Gray's narra- tive of its personal anecdotes ; his readers may be left to find the Ameer for themselves in these ample "documents," and more general matters claim our attention. The succession to the throne Mr. Gray esteems doubtful. Mohammed Omer is
the Sultana's child, and is a little boy; Habibullah, the putative heir, is a man of real amiability and weight, but he is
the son of a handmaiden. The Indian Government must, of course, be reckoned with ; but Mr. Gray thinks that the issue will be decided (and the losing party suppressed) before the Government can do anything. Of the people themselves Mr.
Gray says, "Their frank, open-hearted manner and sense of hospitality, their love of liberty and of home, their faithful- ness (sometimes) to a friend in adversity, all these seem to show that the moving-spirit of the race was once on a far higher moral plane than it is now, and one would think,
therefore, that they are capable of being raised to a con- dition vastly superior to their present state. That the Ameer
thinks so is clear, for he has commenced to raise them by a system of education." And of the Ameer, here is Mr.
Gray's last word: "We English in his service, dazzled by the glamour of his strong personality and charmed by the kindly courtesy of his manner, grew to feel an attachment strong and personal to his Highness ; but there were those among us of the more observant who felt as the years passed that we were but as " pawns ' on the chess-board of this Prince, to be swept off by an unshrinking hand when a move in the game might need it." Nevertheless, such is the man's personal charm that had he only himself to consider, Mr. Gray would return to his Court. The truth seems to be that the Ameer is a man very strong, wise, and capable, but an Oriental. His ambition coincides with English policy ; and to England he will probably remain a friend so long as it suits him, which may well be for all his days. Abdurrahman's firm rule, let it but last long enough, may prove the basis of a new and civilised Afghanistan ; but of the future of such a people only the injudicious will care to prophesy.
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