by Craig Murray
There had been earlier British travellers. At the siege of Kandahar in 1649 the artillery bombardment was supervised by Peter Miller and David Chester, under Captain Dowlett, who served Shahs Jehan and Aurungzeb. Another officer, William Hicks, had a grave in Kabul dated 1666.14
Peshawar had been the winter capital of the Afghan kingdom until a decade earlier, but was now tributary to Ranjit Singh. Sultan Mohammed Barakzai, brother to Dost Mohammed, was Governor. Peshawar’s wealth came from its position as an entrepot between Central Asia and India, and its fertile agricultural valley, while government monopolies of hemp and saffron boosted state revenues.
The party stayed in a house adjoining that of Sultan Mohammed. Sultan was fond of Westerners and had previously hosted Moorcroft and Josiah Harlan. He arrived most evenings with servants bearing a sumptuous meal, and ate with Gerard and Burnes from a common platter, although Gerard found Afghan food greasy. There was a stream of supplicants for medical services, especially after Gerard performed some eye cataract operations. Afghan nobles invited the party to breakfast, held as mid-day picnics in beautiful gardens of flowers and fruit trees. Gerard complained that heat and sun made it impossible to enjoy these occasions, and was ill with fever. But Burnes’ iron constitution seemed immune.
Burnes enjoyed Sultan Mohammed’s company enormously, and this sojourn at Peshawar was an idyll which left a lasting impression. Sultan was secretly urging Burnes that the British should take over Peshawar. Although Sikh suzerainty was nominal, Sultan feared more effective Sikh annexation, and also was worried about the designs of his half brothers at Kabul and Kandahar. He felt that his position would best be secured by a British protectorate.15
Alexander wrote warmly about Sultan Mohammed. Yet Mohan Lal said that Sultan: ‘is fond of pleasure. He is notorious for lewdness, and is always surrounded by females, both married and unmarried. He is careless of his country and employed in adorning himself’.16 Burnes was drawn to this sybaritic existence. Peshawar occupied a vital strategic position, but it is difficult not to conclude Burnes was spinning out his time there. He was indignant to find Russian goods on sale in the bazaar. He bought distinctive blue-tinged Russian paper, and pointedly used it for reports back to India.17
Both Burnes and Lal recount an incident where a tailor brought to Sultan Mohammed the bodies of his wife and her lover, a maulvi or learned man. He had killed them with a sword after catching them in bed together. Burnes records that Sultan praised the tailor; Lal adds that Gerard and Burnes concurred. Another amorous maulvi had seen Mohan Lal riding through the town. He invented a medical complaint in order to meet with Mohan. He recited love poetry and fervently requested that he be allowed to visit Mohan daily, and Lal primly records ‘I did not think proper to refuse his request.’
Burnes and Gerard made a short expedition to Kohat, reputedly rich in minerals. They discovered anthracite, which proved to burn satisfactorily. Gerard surmised correctly that high quality coal might underlay this. They reported the discovery as important for steam navigation of the Indus.
Nawab Jabbar Khan, half brother to Dost and Sultan had heard they they were en route to Kabul, and invited them to stay as his guest there, and also on his estate at Gandamak. Sultan was anxious that they should not go to Kabul, as he did not want the British to form a relationship with Dost Mohammed. He suggested that they instead pass through Kandahar and Herat to Bokhara. As that route had already been travelled by Arthur Conolly, Burnes did not take his advice.
The British authorities had sponsored another investigation. Arthur Conolly and Charles Trevelyan had organised the finance of an Afghan merchant, Sayid Muhin Shah,18 to take up British goods – mostly cloth – with the great Lohani annual migration caravans to sell in Kabul and Bokhara.19 The route proved viable, and a good profit – over 100 per cent – was made on the speculation. They appeared to confirm a serious market for British cloth. Muhin Shah had previously traded from Herat to Bombay, taking horses, dried fruit and nuts south and returning with Indian and British manufactured goods, and slaves (an illegal traffic in Africans through Bombay and Mandvi was brisk). Many of the British goods Muhin Shah sold at Herat were taken on to Bokhara and further by other merchants.
Burnes now met Muhin Shah in Peshawar and discussed with him the possibility of the Burnes mission travelling as part of his caravan. Muhin demurred on the grounds that their presence might endanger his own success.
On 19 April 1832 Burnes left Peshawar after staying exactly one month. They were in company with a Kabul merchant, Mohammed Sharif Khan, a Qizilbash or Central Asian Persian. Burnes found the urbane and educated Sharif good company. In view of recent fighting between Sikhs and Afghans, they did not penetrate the disturbed Khyber pass, but took a more circuitous route being used by caravans, via Chor. They had a strong escort sent to them from Kabul. In the first few days the temperature reached 100°F, or 38°C, while Gerard’s fever was still higher. They used pathways where they had to lead their horses alongside dizzying precipices, and crossed the Kabul river in spate on a raft of inflated skins. Gerard wrote: ‘the party were carried into an eddy, and “wheeled round” several times; the raft was laden to the edge, and […] the people started calling to their “Ali” […] the travellers were naturally rather alarmed, but extricated themselves at last’.20
They would set off at dead of night, and stop at mid-morning. They were very much at the mercy of their guides, who would frequently stop to smoke, or break into a gallop for no discernible reason. As they ascended, they switched to travelling in daylight.
Arriving at Kabul on 1 May, Burnes quickly sent a letter to reassure his mother:
My journey has been more prosperous than my most sanguine expectations could have anticipated […] we have hitherto been feasted and caressed by the chiefs of the country. I though Peshawur a delightful place, till we came to Caubul […] The people here know me by the name of Sikunder, which is the Persian for Alexander, and a magnanimous name it is. I am living with a most amiable man […] by the name of Jubbur Khan, brother to the chief of Caubul.
Jabbar was the eldest brother, though his mother had been a slave girl, and was a highly cultivated man with a wide reputation for assisting Europeans. He had also fought bravely at the battle of Shupaiyan, where the Afghans, devastated by Sikh artillery, had lost Kashmir to Ranjit Singh. He gave Burnes much information about mineral deposits in Afghanistan and one evening told Alexander of his alchemical researches. He then suggested that Burnes reciprocate and tell some western secrets. Alexander launched into an explanation of freemasonry, which he said ‘was an institution where, though we did not attempt to change the baser metals into gold, we attempted to change the baser and blacker passions of men into philanthropy and charity’. Jabbar asked to join, but Burnes replied that the initiation ceremony required ‘the number of the Pleiades’, presumably seven members.21
The day after Burnes’ party arrived, the eccentric Joseph Wolff stumbled into the city. Wolff was a clergyman, a convert from Judaism, and married to Lady Georgina Walpole, who was related to Lady Bentinck. He had travelled through the Middle East and Central Asia preaching the Gospel. Robbed in Afghanistan, by his own account he arrived in the city naked. There may be an element of truth in this. Wandering naked holy men known as malang were protected in Afghan society, viewed as touched by Allah. Burnes sent him clothes and money, but was somewhat perplexed to find himself associated with this disputatious fellow, who was a disruptive presence at meetings with Dost Mohammed and his ministers. Burnes was extremely kind to the destitute Wolff, but formed a contempt for him.
Wolff joined the party in Jabbar Khan’s house, and his passion for religious debate attracted numbers of curious Afghans. As their interest was at least partly mocking, Burnes got frustrated. As he and Wolff were from the same country, arrived at the same time and stayed in the same house, it is natural Afghans would believe them connected. Gerard noted that the house ‘became a perfect congregation of Jews’ to whom Wolff prea
ched.22 Wolff claimed to have had an ecstatic vision of Elijah.
Dost Mohammed had emerged as ruler in Kabul after twenty-five years of civil war following the death of Timur Shah, son of the great Ahmad Shah Dourani. Four of Timur Shah’s sons had briefly ruled – Zeman, Mahmud, Shuja and Habibulla. Mahmud had blinded Zeman, Shuja had imprisoned Mahmud. Zeman had briefly shown enterprise and skill and threatened to restore greatness, aided by the Barakzais who also aided Mahmud. That alliance had been broken by the Herat rape, and the consequent murder of Futth Khan Barakzai. Habibulla’s brief reign was the final use of a puppet Saduzai king by the Barakzais.
The second youngest of the twenty-one acknowledged sons of Sarafraz Paydanah Khan, and by a junior wife, the daughter of one of his Qizilbash bodyguard, the child Dost was looked down upon by purer blood elder brothers, and was repeatedly sodomised by one, Semund Khan.23 For protection he attached himself as a page to the eldest, the soldierly Futth Khan, and aged fourteen gained Futth’s approval by shooting a man with whom Futth had a blood feud.
Dost had organised the looting and massacre of a number of large trade caravans in acts of simple banditry. He had a reputation for debauchery. He was fully embroiled in the labyrinthine civil wars, and was not only brave in battle but also murdered Mirza Ali Khan by stabbing him in the back. Dost was given the government of Kohistan and brought this unruly district to order by wholescale executions. He conspired with Ranjit Singh to foil his brother Mohammed Azim Khan’s attempt to retake Peshawar. There really is nothing admirable in his early career.
He gained Kabul in 1825, ousting his brother Sultan, after lengthy fraternal conflict that had seen eight different Barakzais control Kabul in nine years.24 But on coming to power he produced a remarkable personal transformation. He undertook the Toba, a kind of religiously motivated cold turkey. After a period of ritual cleansing, he forswore alcohol, tobacco and other drugs. From then on he attended religious duties unstintingly, and lived a life of comparative austerity. Not all pleasure was forbidden, and his zenana swelled with young women.
Of his official wives, the senior was Aga Taj who had been captured at Kabul, a Saduzai, niece of Shuja and granddaughter of Timur Shah. But his favourite was Khadija, a Popalzai, whose sister was a wife of Shuja. His favoured son, Mohammed Akbar, was the eldest by this wife, and her next was Haidar Khan, also in high favour. His eldest son, Mohammed Afzul, was by a Qizilbash wife who died young. Another son, Akram Khan, by a wife taken hostage from her Kohistani father, had been given command of a military expedition against Kunduz the previous year. There were over twenty other official sons, and nine other acknowledged wives, plus many daughters nobody ever listed, and a cloud of concubines.
Dost invited Burnes, Wolff and Gerard to dinner on 11 May in the royal apartments of the great fortress of Kabul, the Bala Hissar. They were struck by the austerity of surroundings and meal. Burnes had now met the Mughal and Sikh Emperors and the rulers of Jodhpur, Jaysulmir, Cutch, Sind, Bhawalpur and Peshawar. Dost Mohammed was alone in making no attempt to impress by regal show. Burnes admired Dost’s straightforward manner, and reported back to Calcutta that he was ‘unquestionably the most influential and talented man of these days in Afghanistan’.25 However there remained a stand-offishness about Dost Mohammed, and Burnes never approached the degree of informality and sheer fun he had experienced with Sultan Mohammed.
Gerard’s description of Dost is acute:
he shows off to advantage as far as intelligence and shrewd conversation go. As to his dress, it is very humble […] He wants Sultan Mahomed’s attention and condescension, but considering that he was rising into power, and views with suspicion our friendship with Runjeet Singh on the one hand, and Russian and Persian influence on the other, it is no wonder that he keeps a little aloof from us […]26
Historians have tended to treat the Russo-Persian threat as a British imaginary construct foisted upon Afghanistan. In fact it was already a main concern of the ruler of Kabul, even before meeting the British.
While Dost’s welcome was gratifying, there were signs that he wished to push this new friendship further. He offered Burnes the command of his army of 12,000 cavalry and twenty cannon. When Burnes declined, he asked him to recommend someone and suggested that the British combine with him to crush Ranjit Singh. Burnes pointed out that Britain had a treaty of alliance with Ranjit, and added he was but an officer returning home on leave.
Alexander was heartened to find that a number of British manufactures were in the Kabul markets, and British chintzes more popular than Russian cloth.27 Kabul was a cosmopolitan entrepot where trade was picking up under Dost Mohammed’s encouragement. The inhabitants included Pashtuns, Lohanis, Hazaras, Tajiks, Qizilbash, Armenians and Georgians. Many of the shopkeepers and bankers were Indian Hindus, and there was a small Jewish community.
Gerard described the bustling life of Kabul:
when the bazar opens, one is amply gratified by a scene, which for […] activity of business, variety of objects and foreign physiognomy, has no living model in India. The fruits which we had seen out of season at Peshawar loaded every shop; the masses of snow for sale threw out a refreshing chill, and sparkled by the sun’s heat: the many strange faces and strange figures, each speaking in the dialect of his nation […]
The covered part of the bazar, which is entered by lofty portals, dazzled my sight […] when reflected against the setting sun. In these stately corridors, the stores rise in benches above each other, the various articles with their buyers and sellers, regularly arranged in tiers, representing so many living strata.28
Gerard appreciated the achievement of Dost Mohammed:
Kabul is rising into power under his Republican system of government, and […] is destined to an importance in spite of itself, for it is the key to India. It is astonishing how much the country is relieved by the overthrow of the royal dynasty […] In Shah Shuja’s haughty career here, robberies and bloodshed disgraced the precincts of his court. Dost Mahommed’s citizen-like demeanour and resolute simplicity have suited the people’s understanding.29
Among the many Afghans who came to the house was one whose features struck the mission as European. They were suspicious of his ‘knowledge of Russian and Polish affairs’ and Gerard believed he betrayed signs of understanding English. Wolff directly challenged the man, in German, and he fled. Who he was is unclear.30 On 12 May Wolff left for Peshawar, with money which Burnes gave him for the journey.
Their last meeting with Dost Mohammed lasted until well after midnight, and Burnes clearly enjoyed these occasions, despite the lack of alcohol, tobacco or dancing girls. As he prepared to continue his journey, he wrote back to Montrose of his travelling style:
Never was there a more humble being seen. No tent, no chair or table, no bed, and my clothes altogether amount to the value of one pound sterling […] My dress is purely Asiatic, and since I came to Caubul […] [m]y head is shaved of its brown locks, and my beard dyed black […] I now eat my meals with my hands, and greasy digits they are, though I must say, in justification, that I wash my hands before and after meals. I frequently sleep under a tree, but if a villager will take compassion upon me I enter his house. I never conceal that I am a European […] With all my assumed poverty, I have a belt of ducats around my waist, and bills for as much money as I choose to draw. I gird my loins and tie on my sword on all occasions, though I freely admit I would make more use of gold and silver than of cold steel. When I go into company, I […] say in all humility to the master of the house ‘peace be unto thee’, according to custom, and then I squat myself down on the ground. This familiarity has given me an insight into the people of the country which I never otherwise could have acquired […] The people of this country are kind-hearted and hospitable; they have no prejudices against a Christian, and none against our nation. When they ask me if I eat pork, I of course shudder, and reply it is only outcasts who commit such outrages. God forgive me, for I am very fond of bacon, and my mouth waters as I write
the word! […]
Our breakfast consists of pillaw (rice and meat), vegetables, stews and preserves, and finishes with fruit […] Apples, pears, quinces […] and as for the grapes, they are delicious. They are kept in small boxes in cotton, and are preserved throughout the year […] I am too much of a politician to drink wine in a Mahomedan country […] I never was in better spirits.31
This first visit by Burnes to Kabul lasted just seventeen days. His conclusions were that Dost Mohammed was a rising man worth backing, and that Russian influence in Kabul was a real danger.
As Gerard put it, ‘Everybody at Caubul speaks in praise of the Russians, and if India is ever threatened by them, the Afghans will be their friends, if we are not sharp. The fate of India must be decided in Caubul.’32
Burnes left Kabul on 18 May 1832 to continue to Bokhara. That same month another traveller arrived in the city, as Karamat Ali, the British newswriter in Kabul appointed by Wade, was to report:
A European arrived here in the month of May, and resided some four months […] He describes himself as an Englishman, by name Masson, and of the sect of priests. He had been absent from his country 12 years […] had lately come from Karachi Bunder through Sindh and Kandahar, and had with him two or three books in a foreign character, a compass, a map and an astrolabe. He was shabbily dressed, and his outward appearance denoted distress […]33
Masson was a deserter, an educated private soldier of the Bengal Artillery named James Lewis. He had slipped away from the siege of Baratpur in 1824.
Something had gone wrong in Burnes’ relationship with Henry Pottinger. In June, Pottinger wrote to Bentinck that the Indus was much more navigable than Burnes’ survey had claimed. The usual depth of the stream Pottinger had found to be four to six fathoms and in places ten. Burnes gave significantly lower figures. Pottinger added he had found a boatman who had accompanied Burnes, who assured him the river was no lower then. Pottinger concluded that Burnes’ surveying was inaccurate, adding that Burnes’ commercial information was wrong on the availability and price of goods in local markets. He concluded with a disingenuous disclaimer: