Studies in Literature and History
At the present moment, however, the objects of our policy have been
satisfactorily fulfilled. The Russians have settled with us the
frontier line between their dominion and Afghanistan, and have bound
themselves to respect it. With the Afghan Amir we are on friendly
terms, and we have taken up our permanent position on his Eastern
border towards India, reserving to ourselves the control of the tribes
within a broad belt of territory, otherwise independent, between the
Afghan kingdom and British India. This tract is intersected by lofty
ridges running parallel for the most part to our frontier, with
precipitous slopes toward India, with a few practicable passes and
numerous gorges formed by the drainage from the watershed, enclosing
some fertile valleys along the courses of the rivers, inhabited by a
hardy population that is broken up into manifold clans and sects by
the configuration of their country. The Caucasus, as we learn from Mr.
Baddeley, 'is peopled by a greater number of different tribes and
races than any similar extent on the surface of the globe'; and it is
precisely from the same causes, difficulty of intercourse between
villages secluded in the valleys or perched on the heights, scarcity
of sustenance, inbred jealousy of each other, feuds and factions, that
the groups of the Afghan borderland dwell apart, become estranged or
hostile, are at constant war with each other, and cannot unite against
a common enemy. But while in the Caucasus this trituration of the
people has produced a multiplicity of dialects, the Afghan borderers
speak a language that is generally the same.
In Dr. Pennell's book, the title of which stands at the head of this
article, we have a vivid description, drawn from life, of the names,
habits, and peculiarities of these primitive communities, with many
incidental examples of the relations existing between them and the
British officers who are in touch with them on the frontier. Lord
Roberts, in a short introduction that may be taken as a guarantee of
the accuracy and authenticity of the volume's contents, tells us that
it is a valuable record of sixteen years' good work by a medical
missionary in charge of a mission station at Bannu, on the
north-western frontier of India. And Dr. Pennell's experience,
acquired in the prodigious enterprise of taming and converting to
Christianity some of the most murderous ruffians and inveterate
robbers in Asia, has provided him with a rare insight into their
character, and furnished him with numerous anecdotes of their strange
inconsistencies and wayward, impulsive nature. On the Afghan frontier,
indeed, we may survey a situation that has frequently recurred in the
history of organised governments, whenever they have found themselves
in contact, and therefore in collision, with intractable barbarism.
Immediately across the border line may be seen in the Afridi tribes a
complete and living picture of man in his aboriginal condition of
perpetual war, under no government at all, in daily peril of ending by
a violent death a life that in the pithy words of Hobbes is 'poor,
nasty, brutish, and short.' A few steps back into the British district
brings us among men, often of the same breed and tribe, dwelling
without arms in peace and security, pleading before regular law
courts, learning in English schools, occupied in commerce and industry
under the protection of magistrates and police. The contrast in
morals and manners is as abrupt as the transition from the Afghan
hills to the Indian plains. Such is the frontier along which British
officers are charged with duties of watch and ward. Their business is
to guard the Indian districts that march with the wild borderland, to
prevent or punish incursions by the marauding tribes who have
continued from time immemorial to live in practical anarchy. They obey
no laws and acknowledge no ruler, though in emergencies they appeal
alternately to the Afghan Amir for assistance against the British and
to the British Government against any encroachments by the Amir.
The Afghan character, writes Dr. Pennell, is a strange medley of
contradictory qualities, in which courage blends with stealth, the
basest treachery with the most touching fidelity, intense religious
fanaticism with an avarice that will even induce a man to play false
with his faith, and a lavish hospitality with an irresistible
propensity for thieving. It will be remembered how 'Muridism,' the
spirit of religious enthusiasm inflaming political hostility, was
stirred up by the Mullahs of the Caucasus against the Russians, and
embittered the resistance of the tribes. The same elements of fiery
hatred lie close below the surface on the Afghan borderland. Dr.
Pennell tells us that there is no section of the Afghan people which
has a greater influence on their life than the Mullahs, who sometimes
use their power to rouse the tribes to join in warfare against the
English infidels; and that a prelude to one of the little frontier
wars has often been some ardent Mullah going up and down the frontier,
like Peter the Hermit, inciting them to break out. The notorious
Mullah Powindah, who is still a firebrand on the border, is reported
to possess a magical charm that renders his followers invulnerable
before English bullets. Whether he led them in person to battle is
not mentioned; though he could hardly adopt the excuse of Friar John,
who, as Rabelais tells us, made a liberal distribution of mirific
amulets to his soldiers, assuring them that those who had firm faith
in their efficacy would come to no harm. He added, however, that to
himself the charm would be useless, because unfortunately he could not
believe in it. Such an explanation would be coldly received among the
Afghans.
Under the exhortations of these Mullahs their students often became
Ghazis.
'The Ghazi is a man who has taken an oath to kill some
non-Mohammedan, preferably a European, as representing the ruling
race, but, failing this, a Hindu or a Sikh is a lawful object of
his fanaticism.... When the disciple has been worked up to the
requisite degree of religious excitement, he is usually further
fortified by copious draughts of intoxicating drugs.... Not a year
passes on the frontier but some young officer falls a victim to one
of these Ghazis.'
It is manifest that this sporadic Muridism might become epidemic under
serious and widespreading excitement, but the provocation that leads
to petty frontier wars comes entirely from the tribes, who make
predatory incursions upon the Indian villages and refuse all
reparation. In every tribe, as Dr. Pennell tells us, the outlaws who
live by raiding and robbery, and the Mullahs who detest the infidel
and fear his rule, are the fomenters of crime and outrage.
The vendetta, or blood-feud, our author tells us, has eaten into the
very core of Afghan life. At present some of the best and noblest
families in Afghanistan are on the verge of extermination through this
wretched system. Even the women are not exempt. In a village which
the missionary visited he noticed that the houses communicated
laterally by little doors all down one long street; and on inquiry he
was told that some time before a great faction fight had been carried
on between the two rows of houses. The villagers 'were always in
ambush to fire at each other across the street. The only way to get to
the supply of water was to go from house to house to the bottom, and
in order to do this without exposure the doors had been made, while by
common consent they had agreed not to shoot while getting their
supplies from the stream.' Another anecdote relates how a British
officer visited a petty chief in his tower, and would have opened a
window to look at the country round. 'He was hurriedly and
unceremoniously pulled back by the Afghan, who told him that his
cousin had been watching that window for months in the hope of an
opportunity of shooting him there.' In fact the chief was actually
shot at this window a short time after the visit. From the universal
enmity existing between cousins in Afghanistan the proverb 'as great
an enemy as a cousin' has become a household word. 'The causes of 90
per cent. of these feuds are described by the Afghans as belonging to
one of three heads--women, money, and land; and on such matters
disputes are more likely to arise between cousins than strangers.' We
may compare Mr. Baddeley's account of an almost identical state of
things in Daghestan. It was split up (he says) 'into numerous khanates
and free communities of many different races and languages, for the
most part bitterly hostile one to another. Strife and bloodshed were
chronic between village and village, between house and house ... and
of many contributory causes none had operated so powerfully in
originating and perpetuating this state of things as the elaborate
system of blood-feud and vengeance.' And he gives one instance of a
quarrel that arose from the theft of a hen from a villager, who
retaliated by appropriating a cow. The retort was by taking a horse,
upon which the murders began.
'The blood-feud was now in full swing, and was kept up for three
centuries, during which some scores, some say hundreds, were
sacrificed in the name of honour to this terrible custom; and all
for a hen.'
But it may be more interesting to remind our readers that these feuds
were 'in full swing' not so very long ago in our own island. A
remarkable description of the state of the Border between England and
Scotland in the sixteenth century and earlier has recently been
published.[39] In a chapter headed 'The Deadly Feud' the author tells
us that blood-feuds set family against family and clan against clan;
and he quotes from a report submitted by Burghley to the English
Government a passage in which the term is defined thus:
'Deadly Foed, the word of enmytie on the Borders, implacable
without the blood and whole family destroyed.'
Feuds of the most bitter and hostile character, we are told, were an
everyday occurrence, and were carried on with the most ferocious
animosity on both sides. The feud was inherited along with the rest of
the family property. It was handed down from generation to generation.
The son and grandson maintained it with a bitterness which in some
cases seemed year by year to grow more intense. It affected a man's
whole social relationship, and gave rise to endless animosities and
heart-burnings.
In fact the whole description in Mr. Borland's book of the feuds
prevalent three centuries ago on our own Border might be applied to
those now actually raging among the Afghans, with the simple
alteration of time, places, and names. The comparison is worth making,
if only to show that similar conditions and circumstances produce
everywhere the same results; and that there is yet hope for the wild
Afghan, if hereafter it should be his destiny to fall under a strong
government that can enforce laws, though this is the fate which he
most dreads. No axiom is more easily refuted by historic experience
than the commonplace saying that men cannot be made moral by statutes;
the truth is that respect for a neighbour's purse or person cannot be
inculcated by any other method.
It was the political division along the Scottish Border that so long
prevented the suppression of lawlessness, and when the two kingdoms
were united it gradually ceased. On the frontier between Afghanistan
and India the British Government keeps the peace within its own
districts, but maintains only a fluctuating and ineffectual control
over the tribal territory. Yet it is manifest that no permanent
pacification can be accomplished until both sides of the line are
brought under the same firm and civilised administration. For such a