The Road to Oxiana

by Robert Byron

  There is little to interest us here, apart from our pleasant shady camp. The brick bridge over the river has been carried away by a flood. The Indian bean trees that scent the Governor’s garden are said to come from Russia. They sell ice instead of snow in the bazaar.

  Bamian (8400 ft., 195 miles from Khanabad), June 8th.—We had just embarked in the lorry at Khanabad the day before yesterday, when the Mudir-i-Kharija ran up and asked us to wait an hour, while he found two new attendants to go with us. At the prospect of losing the Vicar and the Curate, Christopher blew and roared, I stamped, the Vicar muttered in the Mudir-i-Kharija’s ear that we were dangerous if thwarted, Seyid Jemal swore he would not wait another moment, and off we drove, kidnapping our own guards. They are pleased at the jaunt, having never seen the capital, but nervous of what may happen to them in Mazar when they return. I don’t know why we set such store by their company; they are more comic than useful. The Vicar, whenever he is asked to do anything, repeats the request several times in a sing-song tone, utters a long eulogy on his inexhaustible desire to be of help, begs us to believe that his happiness and ours are one, and then doesn’t do it. The Curate is avowedly lazy. He has to be galvanised into action by a forcible shake. But at least they no longer obstruct us from photographing or going where we want, which new guards might have done.

  Eighteen miles from Khanabad, we rejoined the Kunduz as it entered the mountains, and are still beside a bit of it here at Bamian; in fact, but for this river it is difficult to see how a motor-road could ever have been made over the Hindu Kush. For the moment it proved a nuisance, or the parent of one. A small tributary, swollen with snow-water, brought us to a stop in the middle of the Baglan plain.

  There was nothing to do but wait, marking the water by stones to see if it was rising or falling. Our only shade, as we nestled in the cool pasture, was from clumps of pampas grass. A little slug-shaped hill stood near, uplifting a few graves and a shrine to a view of the great snow-range on the east. After a time another lorry joined us, and its men organised a shooting match at a bit of tin, in which the Vicar and the Curate and Seyid Jemal joined. Christopher and I bathed; but the water was such that we had to clean our bodies afterwards with a clothes-brush. When evening came we put out the beds beside the lorry. Mosquitoes the size of eagles collected as though to a dinner-bell.

  Early next morning I was lying in bed, when an old gentleman riding a bay horse arrived at the river. He was dressed in a faded chocolate gown flecked with roses and the end of his turban was wrapped round his face over an iron-grey beard. Across the saddle he carried a brown lamb. Behind him, on foot, came his son aged twelve, flapping along in a gown of geranium red and a white turban as big as himself, and holding a stick with which he directed the progress of a black ewe and her black lamb.

  When the party had assembled at the ford, the process of crossing began. First the old man rode into the stream, with difficulty kept his horse’s head against it, and deposited the brown lamb on the other side. While he was returning, the child caught the black lamb. This he gave to his father, who then re-entered the water dangling it by one leg so that it screamed. Bleating in sympathy, the ewe followed. But the current swept her away and landed her on the bank she had started from. Meanwhile her offspring, now safe on the further bank with the brown lamb, kept on crying. Again the old man returned, and helped his son drive the wet and shivering ewe a hundred yards up the bank above the ford. There the current caught her once more, and landed her neatly at the ford itself, this time on the further side, where she was warmly greeted by both lambs. Putting his foot on his father’s boot, the little boy hopped up behind him and probed the stream with his pole as they crossed, to see if the bottom was firm. On the other bank he dismounted, restored the brown lamb to his father’s saddle, set the ewe and the black lamb in motion, and launched into a swinging trot, with his geranium gown flying out behind him. The bay horse followed, and the procession was lost on the horizon.

  It was now a question of whether we should go on by horse too. But the water had gone down 3½ inches in the night, and Seyid Jemal resolved to make a bid to save his contract. Thirty men were collected from an invisible village, some to pull in front with ropes, others to push behind. The lorry reached the incline to the ford, flew headlong into the water, upset and all but killed the men in front, and in ten seconds had been carried too far down by the current to make the exit on the other side. It backed, turned its nose from the stream, and sailed along the river at thirty miles an hour, followed by a yelling mob of bearded torsos in skull-caps, who were just in time to give it a further shove on to dry land at a second ford further down. Not a drop of water had reached the vital parts of the engine.

  Baglan itself was a congeries of villages at the south end of the plain, standing among fields where the corn was already reaped and lay drying in stooks. We crossed the Kunduz again by the Pul-i-Khomri, an old brick bridge of one arch, beside which I found a group of small white carnations on tall stalks. Henceforth the road was properly engineered with gentle gradients carried on embankments or passing through cuttings; but being still in the earth country, there was nothing to sustain these works and the rain had cut them like cheese. Almost everyone, instead of being a convenience, necessitated a detour over ground where there was no road at all.

  Now began the most beautiful part of the whole journey, which made us long to be on horses. The road left the river and started a frontal attack on the main Hindu Kush, climbing up their green bastions, not in twists, but by a succession of steeply sloping saddles leading from ridge to ridge. On all sides, below and above, as far as the eye could see, the escarpments of waving grass were spangled with an endless variety of flowers, yellow and white and purple and pink, growing with such art, neither too close nor too scattered nor too profuse in any one kind, that it seemed as if some princely gardener, some Oriental Bacon, had been at work over the whole mountain range. Blue chicory, tall pink hollyhock-mallows, clumps of lemon-coloured cornflowers on stout brown knobs, patches of low white spikes like jasmine, a big spotty-leaved saxifrage, a small flower of butter yellow with a brown inside like garden musk, bunches of blue and pink nettles with stingless leaves, and branching sprays of rose-pink lobster-blossoms, were only a few of those that winked at us from this vast enamelled lawn edged by the clouds above and the ever-receding waves of Turkestan below—winked at us, sometimes from under pistachio bushes, as we chugged and fumed, cursing our vandal truck, to the top of the Kampirak pass.

  Scooting over the green uplands, we arrived at a narrow defile, two miles long, where the road became a torrent-bed of loose stones and the lorry could scarcely insinuate itself between the unloose boulders. When this opened out, the Kunduz was below us again; mighty snow-peaks rose from the other side of it. The river took us west now, cantering its white river-horses toward us down the valley, till darkness obliged us to stop at a village called Tala or Barfak or sometimes Tala-Barfak.

  We woke up this morning to realise we had left Central Asia. Tribes from the south were moving northward, real Afghans, swarthy and half Indian in their dress, managing strings of two and three hundred camels. Ruined castles and fortified walls crowned the opposing heights. The river, as if enraged by its own shrinkage, ran foaming out of a gorge whose sheer rock walls rose hundreds of feet into the blue sky. This formation, interrupted by occasional cultivated valleys, lasted forty miles, and began by describing two-thirds of a circle. We crossed the river eight or nine times by wooden bridges. Pomegranate trees in scarlet flower and bushes of pink spiraea lined the water’s edge. Eventually another bridge led us off the main road westward, into the valley of Bamian.

  Since leaving the Oxus plain we had risen about 6000 feet, and the colours of this extraordinary valley with its cliffs of rhubarb red, its indigo peaks roofed in glittering snow and its new-sprung corn of harsh electric green, shone doubly brilliant in the clear mountain air. Up the side-valleys we caught sight of ruins and caves. The cliffs paled. And
there suddenly, like an enormous wasps’ nest, hung the myriad caves of the Buddhist monks, clustered about the two giant Buddhas.

  A Frankish house with a tin roof beckoned to us from a bluff across the river. The Governor was away; but his deputy, an asthmatic porpoise in blue pyjamas, seemed perturbed by our arrival without notice and telephoned to Kabul to announce it. We walked out on to a balcony, looking down on the bright green fields, the grey-blue river lined with viridian poplars, and the red earth paths where the peasants were driving their animals—and then looking up to find the two Buddhas, a mile off, peering in at the balcony as if they were paying an afternoon call. A sheet of yellow-and-violet lightning fell from the clouds. A shiver ran down the valley, followed by a gust of rain. Then the tempest broke and shook the house for an hour. When it cleared, the indigo mountains were powdered with new snow.

  Shibar (c. 9000ft., 24 miles from Bamian), June 9th.— I should not like to stay long at Bamian. Its art is unfresh. When Huan Tsang came here, the Buddhas were gilded to resemble bronze, and 5000 monks swarmed in the labyrinths beside them. That was in 632; Mohammad died the same year, and the Arabs reached Bamian before the end of the century. But it was not until 150 years later that the monks were finally extirpated. One can imagine how the Arabs felt about them and their idols in this blood-red valley. Nadir Shah must have felt the same 1000 years later when he broke the legs of the larger Buddha.

  That Buddha is 174 feet high, and the smaller 115; they stand a quarter of a mile apart. The larger bears traces of a plaster veneer, which was painted red, presumably as a groundwork for the gilt. Neither has any artistic value. But one could bear that; it is their negation of sense, the lack of any pride in their monstrous flaccid bulk, that sickens. Even their material is un-beautiful, for the cliff is made, not of stone, but of compressed gravel. A lot of monastic navvies were given picks and told to copy some frightful semi-Hellenistic image from India or China. The result has not even the dignity of labour.

  The canopies of the niches which contain the two figures are plastered and painted. In the smaller hangs a triumph scene, red, yellow, and blue, in which Hackin, Herzfeld, and others have distinguished a Sasanian influence; but the clue to this idea comes from Masson, who saw a Pahlevi inscription here a hundred years ago. The paintings round the larger head are better preserved, and can be examined at close quarters by standing on the head itself. On either side of the niche, below the curve of the vault, hang five medallions about ten feet in diameter which contain Boddhisatvas. These figures are surrounded by horse-shoe auras of white, yellow, and blue, and their hair is tinged with red. Between each medallion grows a triple-branched lotus; at least we supposed it to be that, though in other surroundings it might be taken for an ecclesiastical gas-bracket upholding three glass globes. The next zone above is occupied by a pavement in squares out of perspective, and the zone above that by a wainscot of Pompeian curtains finished with a border of peacocks’ feathers. On top of this come two more rows of Boddhisatvas, seated against auras and thrones alternately, the thrones being decked with jewelled carpets. Between these stand large cups on stems, resembling Saxon fonts and sprouting cherubs. The topmost zone overhead is missing. The colours are the ordinary fresco colours, slate-grey, gamboge, a rusty chocolate-red, a dull grape-tint, and a bright harebell blue.

  The subjects suggest that Persian, Indian, Chinese, and Hellenistic ideas all met at Bamian in the Vth and VIth centuries. It is interesting to have a record of this meeting. But the fruit of it is not pleasant. The only exception is the lower row of Boddhisatvas, which Hackin says are older than the rest. They achieve that air of repose, graceful but empty, which is the best one can expect of Buddhist iconography.

  The chambers in the cliff preserve a similar record of contemporary architectural ideas. The monks were obliged to give some form to their ceremonial interiors. But of all conventions available to them, the inside of the Indian stone dome must surely have been the least suited to reproduction in monolith. Yet here they carved it, with its massive pendent brackets, its heavy criss-cross beams, and its inept little cupola. The Sasanian influence produced more sensible results. One spacious hall bears an extraordinary resemblance to the dome-chambers at Firuzabad, and its mouldings, breaking into bows or something of the sort on top of the squinches, may tell how Sasanian stucco was originally applied. Other caves show domes resting on circular and octagonal walls, some elaborately carved, and one bearing an arabesque frieze which might be a prototype of that in the Friday Mosque at Kazvin, erected six centuries later. But the most remarkable connection with Mohammadan architecture, proving how directly it borrowed the inventions of the fire-worshipping past, is contained in a square cave where the dome rests on four squinches composed of five concentric arches each. This most unusual device, with the addition of another arch, reappears in a mausoleum at Kassan in Turkestan, which was built in the XIVth century.

  The French archaeologists have left the caves in good condition, repaired the painted plaster, added staircases where necessary, and put up sensible notices in French and Persian to guide those who have not had the chance of studying their published reports: “Groupe C; Salle de Réunion”, “Groupe D; Sanctuaire, influences iraniennes”, etc.

  The Kabul road, after we rejoined it, still kept company with a last small tributary of the Kunduz, which led us up towards the Shibar pass, out on to bare hills where the corn was still but a sprinkle of green on the brown earth. There we met a man who said the road on the other side of the pass was blocked by a landslide. It was too late to reconnoitre it. We have therefore returned to the village of Shibar, a desolate group of houses under the naked peaks.

  This morning at Bamian, Christopher was scrambling eggs with his dagger when the fire gave out, and he asked the Curate to fetch some more wood. He asked again. He then prodded the man with the dagger. Now at Shibar the Vicar and he wanted to share our room. We said it was not big enough. Unused to such treatment, the Curate gave us a lecture. No doubt, he said, we had our own Frankish customs. But in Afghanistan he begged us to realise, everything depended on friendship. If he did things for us, it was because we were his friends, not because we told him to do them. He was a guard in government employ, not our servant. For the rest of the journey he hoped we should be good friends, so that he could do things for us. And so on.

  It is not our fault we have no servant. We have tried to engage one at every town since Herat, and in each case have been told by the authorities that the guards they supplied would act as servants. Thus in bullying the Curate we have only taken the authorities at their word. Nevertheless, his speech abashed us.

  The villagers provided a concert after dinner.

  “Only Afghanistan, Persia, England, and India make good music”, said the Vicar.

  “What about Russia?” Christopher asked.

  “Russia? Russian music is absolutely rotten.”

  Charikar (5300 ft., 74 miles from Shibar), June 10th.—Not one landslide but a dozen prevented us from reaching Kabul tonight. We are only forty miles away, and already an iron bridge has announced the zone of civilisation surrounding the capital. Here, in this caravanserai, we have dined off a table and sat on chairs, and have remembered, suddenly, that our journey is nearly over. The last week has been a busy one. The getting up at four, cooking porridge over a wood fire, ordering food for our meagre picnic outfit in its battered Persian tin, seeing the lamps are filled in case of a night in the open, jumping out to fill the water-bottles at every spring, cleaning our boots every other day, and rationing the men with cigarettes to keep them happy, have become an automatic routine; and the thought that tomorrow it will cease leaves us flat and a little melancholy.

  The Shibar pass is 10,000 feet high, and we were near the snow-line before we left the last trickle of the Kunduz, as it started on its long journey to the Oxus and the Sea of Aral. Five minutes later another trickle started on a journey to the Indus and the Indian Ocean. Geography has its excitements.

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nbsp; A mile beyond the pass we reached the first landslides, heaps of liquid mud and pebbles concealing large rocks. Here a gang of proper roadmen had been set to work. But at the second and more formidable set of obstacles, ten miles further on, I found only a few bewildered villagers puddling about like children, and had myself to act as foreman in order to put some method into their operations. The crops below the road, already half destroyed by the rivers of mud, were now menaced by a further spate, and poor frantic women rushed out from the village with sickles to save what remained for hay. The villagers regarded it as their duty to clear the road; but not so a party of muleteers who happened to come along and were greeted, on protesting against being forced into this labour, by a rain of blows from Seyid Jemal and by the sight of the Vicar aiming at them with his gun. They complied in terror.

  The river, the new river, running down to India, was fringed with pink roses and white spiraea. The valleys grew richer. Groves of walnuts stood about the villages, where Indian merchants in tight gay turbans were sitting in their shops. And then, like a blow in the face, came the Charikar iron bridge.

  Kabul (5900 ft., 36 miles from Charikar), June 11th.—From Herat to Kabul we have come 930 miles, of which forty-five were on horseback.

  A winding hill-road brought us down from the Charikar plateau to a smaller plain inside a ring of mountains; running water and corrugated iron glinted among its trees. At the entrance to the capital the police deprived the Vicar and the Curate of their rifles, to their great distress; but being in turbans, no one would believe they were government servants. We drove to the Foreign Office, where hot-red English ramblers were climbing over iron railings; to the hotel, where there was writing-paper in each bedroom; to the Russian Legation, where they had had no answer to M. Bouriachenko’s telegram; to the German shop, where they refused to sell us hock without a permit from the Minister of Trade; and finally to our Legation, where the Minister, Sir Richard Maconochie, has asked us to stay. It is a white house, dignified with pillars and furnished as it would be at home, without any mosquitonets or fans to remind one of the Orient. Christopher says he finds it peculiar to be in a room whose walls aren’t falling down.