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22．OOSBEG AMBASSADOR, AND AN OFFICER OF THE MISSION．
THE Meer Wallee, or Sovereign Prince of Koolloom, a frontier town of Koondooz, in Toorkistaun, is subject to Meer Mooraud Beg, elsewhere spoken of. He brought himself into contact with us by receiving the Ex-Ameer of Caubul with great favour at his court, by supplying him with troops, as well as aiding him in person in several expeditions against us. My late brother was well known to this people, as he was conspicuously engaged, in his double capacity of political, and soldier, in watching the movements of Dost Mahommed, in offering terms to him, in receiving his family, and his brother the Good Nawaub Jubbur Khaun as hostages at the fort of Bajgah, in escorting them to Baumeeaun, and in assisting in the numerous engagements against the combined forces of the Wallee and the Ameer, from the period of the mission’s first entrance into Baumeeaun, till its withdrawal to the Cohistaun of Caubul.
A few words regarding the Nawaub Jubbur Khaun, the friend of the British, may not be deemed uninteresting. During the whole winter we had been corresponding with him at Kooloom, where he was residing with the Meer Wallee. He seemed much inclined to seek our protection since Dost Mahommed’s imprisonment at Bokhaura, but still he wavered, as we had eaten enough of his shilli-shallying, we told him that, unless he left Tāsh Koorghaun for Caubul with his own and the Ameer’s family by such a time, he would be treated as an enemy, and have his lands, which we had preserved for him, confiscated. To give this threat more effect, and as we really wished to see the country ahead in case of an advance, and judge of the feeling of the chiefs towards us, Captain Garbett, commanding at Baumeeaun, and Captain Rattray, political assistant, started with three hundred horse and foot to the furthest pass on the road. No sooner had they marched than the whole country was in commotion, and chiefs poured in from all directions to offer allegiance. At their third march, a messenger from the Nawaub himself reached them, with the news that he and the whole of his family had positively started en route to their camp. Accordingly, Garbett, with his force, returned to Baumeeaun, and Rattray remained at Bajgah to await his Honour’s arrival.
From his own words I give the particulars of the interview. “In due course he arrived, but would not pitch near the fort; so I sent up to say I would pay him a visit in the evening. He declined this, as he was tired, but consented to receive me the next morning on the road. I started soon after daybreak, to give him “Istikbaul,” which is a meeting given to a great man to do him honour, and welcome him the moment he puts foot on your territory; from which moment himself, his family, and followers, horses, camels, and asses, become your guests, and you have to provide food for all, and do your best to make them happy and satisfied. After a short time, Jubber Khaun appeared. He approached me at a foot’s pace, with a retinue of four hundred fully equipped horsemen. I pulled up in the middle of the road, and salāmkerd him; after which he introduced me to the Ameer’s sons, black-eyed, handsome, gentlemanly lads, who, in the words of the poet, had not yet ‘reddened their hands, As a falcon dyes its talons in the blood of its quarry. They had made not their white swords rosy with blood, As a bed of tulips blooming in summer.’ We then proceeded on our way. The Nawaub was a fine intelligent-looking old man, blunt in speech, but not disagreeably so, and gentlemanly in his bearing, notwithstanding a kind of devil- may-care-what-comes-next air about his manner. He commenced accusing us of ill-treating him, and cried up his own services to the State; to which I, as in duty bound, bowed assent, as I saw he was trying to find out what sort of a temper he had to deal with. He then abused me personally, which I also took quietly, bowing as politely as possible. He, on this, turned about to his people and said,―‘These Feringhees, after all, are not a bad people, had they not behaved so ill to me.’ I asked him in what respect? He replied, ‘By sending a regiment of infantry, one of cavalry, and a gun, to take your best friend.’ I told him, we went to look at the road. He laughed, clapped his hands, and said, ‘God protect us, wau! wau! Who ever heard of a gun walking out at twilight to look at a road? Wonderful!’ I assured him we had no gun. ‘No matter,’ he replied, ‘I know you, you were going to chuppao me, as you did Gholaum Beg, at Syghaun (elsewhere spoken of, which took place six months before): you are a strange people, but you have much good about you.’ After a short silence, waiting in vain for a remark from me, he commenced in another strain, singing my praises, and how my name was famous among his people for every good quality. I answered, ‘Nawaub Sahib, it is your kindness makes you say so. I am proud of such honour, but do not deserve it.’ ‘Well, then,’ he said, ‘now I’ll tell you something else. You are the worst specimen of a Feringhee in the country, and of “Bud nom” (bad name), full of ill judgment, stupidity, and “Be Ukl” (Without knowledge): now are you satisfied? When I told truth, and what I had heard of you, and you would not believe, perchance what I now tell you, which is a lie, and unheard of by me, you will believe.’ I answered unperturbed, ‘These “Bud noms” are of your kindness also!’ Thus we travelled day by day, shortening the journeys by jest, anecdote, and argument; and by the time I made over his eccentric Nawaubship to Lord, who accompanied him to Caubul, we had become staunch friends.”
Nawaub, strictly speaking, is a Hindoostaunee title for a Mahommedan prince. It was applied to Jubbur Khaun, as he formerly governed an Indian province. The Afghauns, as a nation at large, are full of good humour and pleasantries. In their free and independent bearing, as well as conversation, they form the greatest contrast possible with the wily, fawning address and hyperbolical speech of other Asiatics. But to our farther notice of the Nawaub’s allies of Toorkistaun.
I sketched the Oosbeg in this picture at the fort of Lughmaunee, Cohistaun. He was an “Elchee” (ambassador) from the Meer Wallee, and a splendid specimen of his race, handsome and comely for an Oosbeg, and much sleeker than his countrymen in general. Having recounted in another place a few of their peculiarities in peace and war, with the following instance of their treachery I bid them adieu. In September 1840, a negotiation was in progress with the Prince of Koolloom, who, though “Yaugee,” or discontented with our rule, sent in his son and his Wuzzeer to offer allegiance to the Shauh. They were received with every honour, valuable presents were made to them, and the settlement of the Wallee’s boundaries was proceeding satisfactorily, when his passionates Highness, imagining his son was not treated with proper deference, fired up on the strength of some foolish report, and detached another son with four hundred cavalry to inflict summary punishment on us for the supposed slight. The news of this outbreak reached Caubul at the close of the negotiation, on which the Koolloom embassy was detained till something should be clearly understood.
In the interim, a chief on our frontier, thinking this émeute a good opportunity to revenge himself on us, made the commandante of Bajgah “eat play,” or, in other words, sold him, by inducing him to send out a hundred Goorkhas for the purpose, as he said, of receiving his fortress. The wily chieftain had no sooner got the unfortunate dupes into his power, than he sent to another chief forty miles off, telling him he had got the Feringhees in a “Deig” or punch-bowl, and bidding him come and help him cut them up. So good an opportunity was not to be lost by a villain who lived by murder and rapine: so down he went with his clan, amounting to three hundred horse and foot. They expected the poor prisoners would fall an easy prey. In this, however, they were deceived. The little party was ready for them, and received the furious charge of the Toorks with the greatest steadiness, and actually succeeded in beating them back though superior in numbers by two hundred men. They were then fired on by the fort, which of course they could not stand, so they commenced an orderly and well-conducted retreat. The Oosbegs on this again rallied and crowned the heights, pouring into them a most withering fire from behind trees, garden walls, rocks, and orchards. The Goorkhas (natives of Nepaul, excellent Light Infantry) retreated four miles through an immense apricot orchard situated in a valley which in places did not exceed a hundred yards in width. Every point of the rocks on either side was occupied by the enemy’s “Juzzailchees,” while the Toorkmaun cavalry wheeled round and round the little band, hurling their spears and firing into them in their endeavours to break their ranks, but without success. Just as their ammunition was exhausted, the Goorkhas were strengthened by two more companies, commanded by Lieutenant Sturt, Engineers, who, most opportunely, was at some distance surveying, and thus, by the merest accident, they were saved from destruction. They left behind in this lamentable affair fifteen of their number killed, and bore off twenty-five wounded; so that if each of the disabled required but a single comrade to carry him (and more than this would be absolutely necessary for that purpose), there could have remained only thirty-five out of the hundred capable of fighting. There was not a man of the party who was not shot through his clothes or accoutrements. This disaster being brought about by the indiscretion of the officer in authority, he was in consequence ordered in to the seat of government and superseded. The detachment was commanded by a European sergeant.
This partial success gave the Oosbegs such confidence, that they determined on attacking the fortress of Bajgah, and collecting themselves together they swore to fight in the cause of Dost Mahommed. The garrison was roused up a few nights afterwards by the news that their advanced posts had been visited by Oosbeg cavalry, and early the next morning a shot succeeded by a sharp running fire surprised them. Captain Rattray turned out with three hundred Afghaun horse, and led them to the advanced breastwork, whence the valley a mile from his position was seen black with Toorkmaun cavalry, and the heights on either side bristling with their “Pyadas,” or footmen. On being asked by the commandant if he thought he could drive them away, he of course answered in the affirmative, and went out of the works for that purpose. Finding, however, the enemy’s fire too hot for his party, he retired for a company of the gallant little Goorkhas, who cleared the hills and diverted the attention of the “Pyadas” from him, as he trotted steadily up the valley with his horse to meet his Oosbeg friends. On coming within four hundred yards of them, the word draw swords was given in Persian, and to the cry of “Ullah Yullah” away they charged at them. The foe remained perfectly motionless, beating their kettle-drums furiously, and firing into them, until the Afghauns were within ten yards, when the Oosbegs with one accord turned about. The first men were cut down before they had time to turn their horses’ heads, and in a moment all were mixed up together. After cutting and prodding away in hand-to-hand combat, and chasing them alternately for a mile or two, Rattrey found himself almost alone, his Afghauns having stopped short, as is their custom, to strip the killed and wounded, pillage the baggage, and secure loose horses which were galloping about in every direction. After half an hour’s delay, he collected them. The gallant “man-sellers” had again formed, and were beating their drums, shouting and yelling in a most warlike manner. Again shouting their “Allah,” the Afghauns dashed at them, and a recurrence of the same turning about, overtaking them, halting to pillage, and pell-mell, took place. At length they drove them with great loss far away to their own forts.
[Keywords]
badnam/ be-‘aql/ nawwab/ ilchi/ deg/ Uzbek/ Khulum/ Qunduz/ Turkistan/ Mir Murad Beg/ Dust Muhammad/ Nawwab Jabbar Khan/ Bajgah/ Bamiyan/ Mir Wali /Tashqurghan/ istiqbal/ Farangi/ Sayghan/ chapawl/ Hindustani/ Laghmani/ Kohestan/ Bajgah/ Bamiyan/ Ilchi/ piyada
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