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18. THE FORTRESS OF GHUZNEE.
OF Ghuznee, the capital of a mighty empire, which, eight hundred years ago, under the famous Sultan Mahmood, extended its sovereignty from the flowery mountains of Armenia to the fertile banks of Ganges, a single fortress remains. In the twelfth century Ghuznee was reduced bay the arms of the Kings of Ghore, the Ghuzneevide race of monarchs rooted out, and their capital thus razed to the ground; a damaged “Bund,” or reservoir, built by the Sultan, which still waters the neighbouring country, several dilapidated “Musjeeds,” the two lofty minarets, a few miles of architectural fragments, and the tomb of the mighty Emperor, have alone survived the blind fury of war and the wreck of ages, to point out the former site of the magnificent city of palaces, occupied by the successors of “the noble and imperial Sultan, Abil Kasim Mahmood, the Son of Subaktagin, Lord of the countries of Arabia and Persia.” The city itself is now so well known, thanks to our love of territorial aggrandizement, and the occasional desertion of war’s fickle deity from our ranks, that I shall merely speak of it in connection with my several visits, unwilling that my description should enjoy the reputation of “the twice-told tale, Vexing the dull ear of a drowsy man.”
On my second halt at Ghuznee (which is eighty-eight miles south-west of Caubul), en route to the Urghandaub west of Candahar, I marched alone, having bid adieu to my former fellow-traveller and friend, poor Bellew, at Caubul, where he remained on sick leave to return with General Elphinstone to India. We parted under mutual promises to write often, little dreaming that our next meeting might be where there is no separation; and yet what a never-ending weight of hopeless misery is lifted from our hearts by the withholding that fearful thing, the gift of foresight. But to continue. For a space of two miles in advance of the Fortress of Ghuznee the remains of the ancient city scatter “The vast, untill’d, and mountain-skirted plain” with mounds and fragments of stone, red brick, and pottery, among which lay the ruins of mosques, tombs, foundations of the ancient edifices, and aqueducts. On the surface of many of these fragments the carvings traced by the mason’s chisel were distinctly visible. Interspersed with this havoc of centuries, as far as the eye could reach, were a succession of rich groves, vineyards, flower-gardens, melon-beds, and orchards. Each one was carefully fenced round with mud walls, pierced in many instances by a door so low that entrance could only be effected on all fours, and each had its watch-tower in the midst, “as a cottage in a vineyard, as a lodge in a garden of cucumbers.” This partially fruitful and luxuriant appearance was increased by broad acres of “Reeshka” and “Shuftul” (lucerne and trefoil), corn fields, and grass land, filled with purple and white centaurias, and other English flowers, and echoing to the calls of partridge, quail, and corncrake. As I descended from Roza’s shaded village, the prospect which opened before me was singularly strange and grand. The time was evening: the flowers threw up their delicious scents, and the air was sweet and balmy, while the gorgeous African bee-eater (Merops Apiaster) uttered its low soft warble as it flapped its green and golden wings to the setting sun. I rode slowly over the wide expanse of plain, dotted with relics of past ages, and “Fortunate fields, and groves, and flow’ry vales; Like those Hesperian gardens fam’d of old;” the two lofty minarets, memorials of Mahmood’s taste, “with glistening spires adorn’d, Which now the fading sun gilds with his beams,” piercing the sky; while in the blue distance, its white structures just discernible from the mountain it springs from, rested Ghuznee, with its bastions, town, and citadel.
The accompanying representation of it was made near some “Musjeeds” outside the Candahar gate, at the west side of the city. It possesses two other outlets, the Caubul and water gate, the latter so called from the Caubul river, which flows in a wide stream close under the walls. The town stands on the extreme point of a range of hills, which slope upwards, and command the north-east angle of the Balla Hissaur, near which is perched the tomb of Behloole the Wise, among ruined mosques and grave-stones. As a city it will not bear comparison with Caubul or Candahar, and a prior visit to the bazārs of either would spoil you for the darkened narrow streets and small “Charsoo” of Ghuznee. However, it possesses snug houses, and capital stabling, sufficient for a cavalry brigade, within its walls; and in the citadel particularly, the squares and residences of its former governors were in many instances spacious, and even princely in their style and decorations. On entering the town from the Caubul gate, the ascent to this part of the fortification is exceedingly abrupt, as it is constructed on the highest point of the hill. In a spacious square to the right of the bastion of the Balla Hissaur, may be seen in this sketch a building called the “Dewaun Khauna,” or hall of audience of Dost Mahommed, converted in our times into the mess-room of the 16th Grenadiers, where profuse hospitality went hand in hand with good-fellowship and kindness of heart. The interior is given in the plate No. 2, together with the view of the town seen from it, which occupies the right of the present sketch. In front of the same edifice stood the famous brass sixty-eight pounder “Jubber Jung” (the mighty in battle). This enormous gun threw its gigantic ball with such precision and to so incredible a distance, that, at the second taking of Ghuznee, Nott was obliged to change ground three times to be out of its range. It was only on our moving back under the walls of Roza, nearly three miles distant from its position, that we were free from annoyance. The shot more than once reached the centre of our camp, but besides flooring a tent or two, and killing some camels in its ricochets, the monster did no further damage.
Goolaum Hydur Khaun, when taken prisoner, was confined in the left bastion of the citadel, and in a room under the right one, ten of the officers of the unfortunate 27th Native Infantry were captives for five months, huddled together in a space of eighteen feet by thirteen, after the capitulation of the fortress to the traitor Shumsooden. (Before this event, Liutenant Lumsden, of the same regiment, his unhappy wife, their servants, and thirty Sepayes, were all put to death in one house.) Subjected to the grossest abuse, without light, fire, or air, swarming with vermin, their clothes rotting off their backs, snow without, the thermometer fourteen below zero, one of their party tortured, and all constantly threatened with death, they dragged on a weary existence. In the midst of this unparalleled misery typhus fever broke out among them, and carried off before their eyes a brother in affliction and suffering. We visited the dungeon a few months afterwards, when the fortress again surrendered to us, and lighted a torch in order to aid us in examining the dark walls for some clue to their whereabouts, for they had been carried off on our approach. We found many a tale of woe scratched there by the hands of the poor captives, and many a long list of the name of their Afghaun persecutors; how they had broken every article of two treaties solemnly sworn on the Koraun, and how their own sufferings increased at particular dates. Thus we read “Worse treated since Shujau was killed, on the 6th of April, 1842;” and in another place, “Colonel Palmer tortured,” and “Let our death be avenged on Shumsoodeen and his four brothers on the arrival of the British force;” with numerous other mementoes of their captivity. But one simple history spoke from the prison walls most deeply to our hearts and feelings, and seemed in these brief words to tell us more than all the rest, from which it was separated by an encircling line: it was, “T. Davis, a prisoner, March 27th, 1842.” He died, poor fellow, of typhus fever, three months afterwards, raving of his family and home, just as the morning of a somewhat happier state of existence was dawning on the forlorn party. Would that I had space to record here individual deeds of as true devotion and gallantry, achieved by members of this unhappy little garrison, as any that have graced the chronicles of war. Then others besides my friend Nicholson would be mentioned with sincere pleasure. He, quite a stripling when the enemy first entered Ghuznee, drove them thrice back beyond the walls at the point of the bayonet before he would listen to the order given him to make his company lay down their arms. He at length obeyed, gave up his sword with bitter tears, and accompanied his comrades, brethren alike in arms and misfortunes, to an almost hopeless imprisonment.
To return to the subject. The gardens of Ghuznee, after the bare arid plains which intervene between the cities of Afghaunistaun, are particularly welcome to the traveler, who has, perchance, looked long upon a landscape devoid of trees or verdure, or at most a dreary reach of hill and mountain, with here and there perhaps a solitary fort. Everywhere abundant in this beautiful and well-watered valley, half concealed by sweetbrier and rose-bushes rioting in all their bright colors and natural luxuriance, and embosomed in the dark foliage of mulberry and other trees, are “the cities of the silent,” as the Afghaun emphatically calls his burial-places. Among the prettiest was the garden containing the mutilated remains of the celebrated Futti Khaun, a brother of the Ameer Dost Mahommed’s, who, by the order of the Shauh Mahmood, half-brother of Shujau (whose minister he was, and to whom that weak sovereign owed his life and crown), had his eyes put out Heraut; the deed was done at the instigation of the Shauhzauda Kamran. A short time afterwards the poor old blind “Wuzzeer” was dragged into Mahmood’s presence, on the march between Caubul and Ghuznee, was accused of treason, and deliberately hacked to pieces by the nobles of the court. His ears, nose, and limbs were separately cut off, and with his head, were tied up in a cloth, and sent to Ghuznee for burial. He clung with such fond tenacity to life, that the last connecting link was not severed till his head was struck off, when he expired without a reproach or groan. I have often, in the heat of the day, lounged in his garden with my friends of the 16th Grenadiers. The picture was painful to reflect on. There were the flowers in their own rich hue, “clust’ring in purple bloom” over the marble tombs, while the stillness of evening hung around the spot, hushed in a repose unbroken save by the whisper of the breeze through the groves, or where “A murmur thrilling the scented air, Told where the Afghaun bowed in prayer.” Amid such beauty as this reposed the dust of brother slain by brother, of the father struck down at his hearthstone by his first-born, king murdered by subject, subject by king; for, like Ishmael, “Their hands are against every man, and every man’s hands against them.” I shuddered as I thought of the crimes committed by the beings who rested in so lovely a spot, and regretted that Nature’s fairest gifts, “the jasmine, and the rose, For the banquet gathered and the bier,” should have canopied the tombs of her foulest and most blood-thirsty children.
The beautiful red brick “Munarahs” (minarets), among the few relics extant of Ghuznee’s ancient magnificence, stand at five hundred yards distance from each other on the high road between Roza and the city. There is difference of some thirty feet in their altitude, the higher being estimated at hundred and forty feet high. Though both are remarkable for excellence of design and sculpture, the lower column, which is nearer the city, and leans slightly, is less entitled to praise than its companion. The lower part of the more lofty minaret is in shape a circle surrounded by eight triangular shafts. This form extends above half-way up whole building, and thence shoots another fluted column of more slender proportions, ornamented with bands of scroll work, and gradually narrowing to the summit. The shafts are cut into concave faces, and divided into compartments filled with foliage, star mouldings, zigzag patterns, and other fanciful designs, according to the caprice of the sculptor. These are again intertwined with elaborate Cufic inscriptions, the characters of which are thickly studded with flowers and ornaments. The carvings preserve their sharp outlines, and stand out as prominently from the pillars as though they were the work of yesterday. Some Afghauns assert that the minarets marked the limits of Mahmood’s Bazār, while others believe the gates of that building swung between them. The Afghauns account for the inequality in size and beauty of their minarets by the following tradition. They say that the one nearest the city was the first built by an architect the wonder of the age, at the command of the Sultan Mahmood. On the completion of the mighty work, the aged artist called his disciples round him, and asked their opinion on it. All were lost in admiration, and answered not. The old master gazed from the lofty minaret to his pupils, his eye sparkling with pride at his success, when a whisper was at length audible in the crowd of youthful students, a dead pause, and again a whisper. The multitude gave way, and a lad, remarkable for the beauty of his person and his determined aspect, was advancing from among his companions, when several of them , as if aware of his purpose, and shocked at his presumption, held him back. He shook them off, and bending himself before the venerable architect, “Your minaret, lofty as it is,” said he, “is crooked; I will build one loftier, more excellent in device, and upright.” The amazement of the professor overcame him. Retiring to the highest pinnacle of his insulted handicraft, he sat himself down, tore his beard, and wept. His friends gather round him with words of comfort, and say, “Why grieve, most talented father, at the empty vaunts of a rash boy? Come among us, eat and drink.” But all in vain; he sat night and day beating his breast, with his eyes fixed in the direction of the proposed site, intently watching his rival’s preparations. Months passed by, and the column gradually rears itself to the sky, increasing daily in beauty and embellishment. “It is true! it is more excellent in device, loftier, and more erect than mine,” uttered the old man, half-choked with rage and disappointment; “I will not survive its completion.” The young architect was putting the finishing touch to his masterpiece, when his hand and attention were arrested by a loud scream. A body was for an instant seen “hanging in the clouds,” then “plumb down it dropped,” and a crushed mass at the base of the opposite minaret showed the horrified youth too surely the fate of his defeated and aged instructor.
The literary world is indebted for the following translation of a Cufic inscription in the Suls character on the minaret nearest the village of Roza, which appeared in the Asiatic Journal, to the pen of that eminent Oriental scholar, Major J.A. Rawlinson, C.B., late political agent at Candahar.
“In the name of God the most merciful. The high and mighty Sultan, the Melic of Islam, the right arm of States, Trustee of the Faith, the victory-crowned, the patron of Moslems, the aid of the destitute, the munificence endowed, Mahmood (may God glorify his testimony), son of Subaktagin, the Champion of Champions, the Emir of Moslems, ordered the construction of this lofty of loftiest of monuments; and of a certainty it has been happily and prosperously completed.”
On the 6th of September, 1842, Ghuznee was a second time wrested from the Afghauns by a British army. On the 5th of the same month the enemy who garrisoned it and occupied the heights, under the command of Sultaun Jaun, kept up a brisk fire on General Nott’s army, who lost only some fifty killed and wounded, and sixteen horses. It was to be wondered at that they should have fought at all, as we had already twice completely defeated and broken up the flower of their army under Shumsoodeen, amounting to twelve thousand men. However, on the evening of the same day, mindful of their former reverses two days previously, they lost heart and evacuated their fortress. On our taking possession, two days were allowed to the engineer department for its demolition. The result was, that fourteen mines were sprung in the Citadel walls, and the Balla Hissaur completely swept away. The outer and lower fortifications, with the town and bazār, were blown down, and otherwise so seriously shaken and injured by the mines, that it was the opinion of the late Major Saunders, C.B., chief engineer, that they would all crumble away during the winter. We gained intelligence that the officer of the 27th were alive, and had been carried off to Bokhaura or Baumeeaun, and succeeded in releasing three hundred and thirty Sepayes of their regiment from a hopeless slavery, the remainder having either perished in the snow or been put to sword during the siege, or after the surrender of the garrison. The last I saw of far-famed Ghuznee was a heap of smoking ruins, and as we descended on rear-guard from the gardens of Roza, “Where the large melon rains its amber store In marble fonts; where grain, and flower, and fruit, Gush from earth until the land runs o’er;” a parting volley was fired after us from behind its walls, to remind us of our temerity in loitering to indulge our curiosity.
[Keywords]
rishqah/ Shaftalu/ Buhlul/ charsu/ manara/ Ghazni/ Sultan Mahmud/ Ghor/ Arghandab/ Qandahar/ rawza/ masjid/ Bala Hisar/ Diwankhana/ Jabbar Jang/ Gholam Haydar Khan/ Fath Khan/ Amir Dust Muhammad Khan/ Shah Mahmud/ Shahzada Kamran/ wazir/ Sultan Jan/ Shams al-Din/ Bukhara/ Bamiyan |
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