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4. HAWKERS OF COISTAUN (THE VALLEY OF CAUBUL).
KHODAH DARD (God gave), and Gool-deen (the rose of religion), inhabitants of the Coistaun (place of mountains) , a valley north of Caubul, formed part of the cavalry escort attached to my late brother, Captain Rattray, and in their capacity of falconers they used always to accompany us in our rides and sporting expeditions. The falcons are a numerous family in these parts, and in the valley two kinds are selected for hawking. The first, which fastens on antelope, bustard, and large game, is called chirk; the second, resembling the sparrow-hawk (bauz), is trained for partridge, quail, and other small quarry. It is curious to observe the Afghaun in the trapping, education, and flying of these birds at their game. The wild falcon is caught in nets, and regularly harnessed in leg and breast strings, hood, bells, and wing-straps. Its eyes are then sewed up, and it is placed on a perch in a dark room. For two or three days it is starved, and then crammed.About the seventh day one stitch in the eyelid is unfastened, and if it proves tractable, and on a dead quail being shown to it, it alights on the fist of its instructor, and afterwards comes to be fed at the call, beea (come), its education is nearly accomplished. Its eyes are then quite unsewed, and should it strike a quail thrown up in the air, and bring it to its master, it is considered fully trained, and makes its début in the field forthwith. Six weeks is the usual time of forming a bird. That an old hawk should be rendered thus clever and docile is wonderful; much more so when the same bird has been captured by the same fowler for several successive years, as has been frequently proved by private marks, for it is customary to give them their liberty when the season is over, and the same severe schooling recommences when they are re-caught.
It was after a morning’s sport with my friend Major Eldred Pottinger, of Heraut celebrity, when a bauz (which Khodah dard had trained for me) killed twenty quail before breakfast, that we agreed to take a trip together among the hills and more distant fortresses; for Major Pottinger wished to judge for himself of the state of the valley, since many yaughee (angry) letters, inciting the people to rise, to which important seals from chiefs around were attached, had been intercepted by my brother. This showed the country was, thus early, preparing itself for the general insurrection. September 26th, 1841, we mounted our horses, with an escort of forty surwars (horsemen), and halted beraie syle (for pleasure) at Meeaun Shakh, four miles from our fort Lughmaunee, till forty more horse joined us, at the suggestion of a friendly chief, who brought fifty cavalry and infantry with him to increase our guard, at the same time trying to dissuade us from marching to Karaize, far in the mountains near Nijrow. Here was the refuge of all the disaffected chiefs, robbers, and murderers in the country. Among them was Meer Musjidee, a powerful noble, expelled the valley for refusing to acknowledge the Shauh. His son was mullik, or head of this very place, Karaize.
The mullik of Meeaun Shakh paid us the Istikbaul (visit of welcome), and presented us with a sheep, some fighting quail, a cheese, and a basket of fine fruit. We sat in a glade, surrounded by extensive fields of hemp, millet, clover, and cotton, and watched the ryots (peasanry), who, having gathered in their harvest, were threshing and winnowing in a most primitive manner, by driving the unmuzzled oxen through it to tread out the corn, after which the women threw it into the air, thus separating the grain from the chaff. As we sat in the shade, devouring our fruit, enraptured were we both with the panorama which opened before us. We were on high ground, and beneath, as far as the eye could reach, stretched out the fertile and lovely valley of the Coistaun, like an emerald, deeply set in a frame-work of stupendous mountains, crowned by Hindoo Coosh, whose eternal snows assumed, on that bright sunny day, a roseate hue, contrasting strikingly with the dusky forms and rugged outlines of the frowning masses ranged below its dazzling peaks. The vale itself, one wide mass of rich and varied cultivation, fields of grain rioting in golden beauty, and meadows dotted with many kinds of English flowers, thick clumps of willow, fir, popular, and fruit trees, refreshed by the clearest rivulets and streams meandering round their long dark avenues, and regularly planted hedge-rows, brought England vividly before me. But on gazing again over the delicious landscape, composed of the glittering white towns and fortresses embosomed in the deep green vineyards (which clothed also in ripest purple the glens, the mountain villages, and high-perched watch towers), of the black camps of the wandering hill tribes, whose clustering camels are seen browsing the verdure from the moss-grown cliffs, the idea is speedily dispelled; and the sound of the wild song and shrill pipes of that passing group of merry Afghaunees, escorting the cavalcade of fair equestrians － dark-browed, moon-eyed beauties, by the sudden dropping of whose veils, and the confusion the whole party is thrown into at the unwelcome appearance of an unbeliever and “ Feringhee, ” unite in reminding me still more clearly of the fact that I am far from my own country. How much has Nature done in this fairest of valleys, and, alas! that man, for whom it was so blessed by her lavish hand, should have repaid the debt of gratitude by deeds of such black treachery, and crimes of so deep a dye, that we recoil with horror at the bare remembrance of them! In a few short days the soil of that lovely spot fattened on the blood of thousands － the waters rolled heavily with mangled and dishonoured corpses － the trees and foliage were torn up and trampled down, and stained in the gory death-struggle; and those sweet English flowerets hung down their cups, sick with the warm stream of England’s butchered children!
We reached Karaize in safety, and encamped near its fort, in a square of six-feet walls. The villagers fled on our approach, and a wild set they looked. Pottinger was in his Heraut dress, and well did this present from the Shauh Kamraun become him. I was in Afghaun costume. The King’s chief executioner by hereditary descent, one of the Khauns of this place, received us, and invited us to visit his gardens; which we did, escorted by a long train of followers. On giving them their rooksut (leave), bu uman e Khodah (under God’s protection), we found that the good folks of Karaize had made us their guests. Our tents were literally besieged by tray-bearers of fruit and pillaos, fellows dragging fat doombahs (sheep with tails half as large as themselves), or laden with straw, grass, and corn for our horses; flour, bread, and fuel for the escort; none of which we durst insult their feelings by refusing. Such was our reception at a place which it was dangerous for us even to enter, such the hospitality of a people only biding their time to destroy us (they waited not long), and who, as we broke bread, betrayed, by their tell-tale looks and lowering brows, their longings to hack us down, even then, had they dared.
On the 2nd November, little more than a month after our visit here, the chief of the village (against whom we were warned, as before mentioned), with his father-in-low, Meer Musjidee, Sultaun Mahommed, and other Nijrow chiefs of distinction, united in a scheme of the foulest treachery to lure my brother from Lughmaunee, and assassinate him, in which they but too well succeeded. Major Pottinger and Lieutenant Haughton alone (most severely wounded), with one Goorkha Sepaye, out of more than a thousand men, officers, and camp-followers butchered at Lughmaunee and Chareekar. The remainder of our trip will be given in another place.
[Keywords]
chargh/ baz/ yaghi/ sawar/ istiqbal/ ra‘iyat/ palaw/ donba/ Herat/ Miyan Shakh/ Laghmani/ Kohestan/ Hindu Kush/ Farangi/ Karezi/ Shah Kamran/ Mir Masjidi/ Sultan Mahmud/ Nijraw /Charikar/ Gurkha/ Sipahi
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