Peshawar Friday Jan. 23. Dearest Father. All Indian experiences have been wonderful, but I'm not sure that the Frontier is not the most wonderful of any. You come up by train, as it might be to King's Cross, you arrive at dead of night, as I did, and you wake in the morning to find yourself in the middle of perennial war. At first you don't realize the situation, then some resident drops in and says "Don't walk about the back streets of the town - there's always some danger of being knifed. We have over a hundred murders a year here." Then you drive out, as we did with Mr Jelf (a charming person, a friend of Hugo's) and the first thing you see is the long line of transport mules under the walls of the mud fort and suddenly you understand that this is a live army ready for war, ready at 24 hours' notice to pour horse, foot and artillery over the pass into Afghanistan. But this is not all - the English garrison lives in a state of siege. Tale after tale they tell you - how the Afridis creep down at night from across the border, steal along the water sluices and raid the guardrooms and the officers' houses in search of guns and gold lace, and as you drive along the Circular Road which runs outside the Cantonments you see that each guard room is a little fort, surrounded by search lights in the shape of big lanterns with strong reflectors round them to throw out the light onto the open country whence the Afridis come, and mud walls with upright stones on them at irregular intervals, indistinguishable at night from the heads of the garrison, stones riddled with bullets which were intended to do more effective execution. Then you go through the gates of the town which is all huddled up between its high mud walls - the Afridis burrow holes in these walls and get in at night to rob and murder, probably with the connivance of relations and friends inside - at once you know that Peshawar is like no other town in India. The tall, bearded Pathans stalk the streets and don't trouble much to get out of your way, nor does your driver hustle them for that might mean a row and knives out; ragged dirty Afridis take stock of all who pass, warily, out of the corners of their eyes - they wouldn't be the last when it came to knives out: Kabulis from the forbidden land across the border swagger along, fully conscious that wherever they may find themselves there is no arbiter but the Afghan knife; and the very shopkeepers are, you feel quite certain, ready to make a quick change in professions when the row comes. The wonder of it is that it comes so seldom, that all this fierce population is held in check so easily and that people don't give two thoughts to the fact that they are living behind garden walls loopholed for rifles. But it makes a very complete picture for the newcomer. Well, Mr Jelf, who is, as I must repeat, charming, took us about in the morning and explained the nature of things. It was a horrible day, beginning with a dust storm and ending with rain, but we were too much excited to mind much. We lunched with him and a man with whom he keeps house, a Mr Howells, and after lunch, Mr Jelf, who has been city magistrate - no easy billet, I fancy, in Peshawar - sent us off to the town with a letter to Safdar Ali, the chief merchant, telling him to sell us things good cheap. We stopped first at a shop to which we were attracted by the sign which said that the owner kept "carpets and Bokhara [Bukhara] other things," walked in and made a selection for which we offered a price which was promptly rejected. (Our shopkeeping was in Persian and Persian carries you everywhere in this country. It's enchanting to hear the Belloved beautiful speech again.) We were just going away when, on looking at the sign board again, we found that this was Safdar Ali himself, so we returned and handed our letter to him, whereupon he burst into a torrent of praise, the purport of which was that few like Mr Jelf came to Peshawar. Not to be outdone, I remarked that there were few like him on the face of the earth and added that England was fortunate in possessing 5 brothers Jelf. Safdar Ali held up one hand with the fingers outstretched and replied "The 5 fingers are brothers yet they are not alike!" I laughed and repeated this to Hugo and our friend, feeling that he was a success conversationally, fell into the most aimiable [sic] of moods and assured us that for us and for friends of Mr Jelfs' it would be a matter of perfect indifference to him if he gave his wares for nothing. So we sat and watched while Persian silks and Bokhara embroideries and Kashmir curtains and Bushire [Bushehr] rugs and Kashgar [Kashi] china were displayed to us, and bought some things and enjoyed ourselves vastly. Mr Jelf came in after tea and saw our purchases and said we had done very well and that he only feared that next time Safdar Ali came up for murder he would be obliged, in recognition of his services to us, to have him let off. All night it streamed and this morning it was still raining at intervals and the cloud hung low on the hills. We were to have gone up the Khyber but we decided that it was too interesting to be done in bad weather and, as we have a couple of days to spare, we shall spend them here and do the Khyber on Tuesday, which is the next day it is open to tourists. Captain Venour, who is Lord of the Pass and to whom Mr Chirol had written about us, had asked us to breakfast with him and his wife on the way up - he lives 5 miles out along the Khyber Road - and this we did and stayed on till nearly 11 talking to him. Their house is a fort in miniature, enclosed in loopholed mud walls and garrisoned by 50 men. It's too odd to find all these defences round the ordinary little bungalow and garden. They are charming people - and he told us tales! Listen: For the last 3 months he has been busy making preparations for the D. of C.'s [Duke of Connaught] visit. At first they had very serious fears that he might be shot at - just for the fun of going back and telling your tribe you had shot the King's brother - but quite lately a turbulent Mullah, by the grace of Providence, died and things became easier. It was planned that our own Khyber rifles - most of whom are Afridis by birth - should guard the road and that the tribes who are under our protection should post themselves as guards to the approaches of the road. Captain Venour called in a big Jirgah (Council of Chiefs) and appointed to each his post. Do you think that was the end? not a bit of it. Up jumped A and said "You have put me in this valley, but B, with whom I have a blood feud, has heard and he will rise in the night and steal up before me and lie in wait." "Very good" said Captain V. "I will put B far away at the end of the Pass." "No, no!" said B "for I have a feud also with C and before I take my post he will have laid his ambush." "Is this so?" said Captain V. turning to the last named shaggy Afridi. "Without doubt" he replied gravely. Finally for each and all a written agreement was drawn up: "I on my part and he on his part hereby agree that on the day of the 13th we will forego all blood feud etc etc" and each man signed, mostly with a thumb mark, the government also agreeing that any who fired on that day on another Afridi should be pursued and punished by us as though he had fired on one of our subjects. Here's another tale: after Lord Curzon had been up he said to the Governor of the Frontier Province: "Tell me quite frankly whether you had to take any special precautions for my visit?" "Special precautions!" he said "There are 2000 men at this moment lying by the heel in gaol without a scrap of evidence against them. We took up every man who we suspected and upon whom we could lay hands - every opium smoker, every hashshish eater, every fanatic in the town and the district. They'll be let out tomorrow." "Isn't it a little illegal?" said the Protector of the Native. Gilbert Russell has a charming story - it might almost be true and anyway it's in the picture: A British regiment was terribly harassed by an Afridi sniper who came every night and made rifle practice all through the dark. At last they asked a man in the Khyber Rifles, an Afridi, to see what he could do to rid them of the gentleman, as they didn't seem able to get at him. He agreed and in a surprisingly short time returned with a head. They complimented him on the promptness with which he had got through the business. "Oh yes" he said. "I knew all his ways. He was my father." Captain Venour says that they have no trouble about blood feuds in the regiment. As long as the men are serving together the etiquette is that feuds should be abrogated. As soon as they leave the regiment they begin, de plus Bell, to stalk one another up and down the hills. When we returned we walked into the town to see a friend of mine about Tongas for Kohat tomorrow. Until you have been in Peshawar after a heavy fall of rain you don't know the meaning of the word Mud. You must get me to tell you about it some day; it would take too long now. I only wish to mention that I came back with splotches of it on my shoulders. My friend is the Tahsildar and he lives at the Tahsil which is the place where taxes are collected. It's rather an interesting place too; there is a suite of bare rooms in it where the envoys from the Amir are lodged when they come, which they do often, for one matter or another, generally connected with knifing. With a zenana all complete, for they bring their ladies on the jaunt. It is quite close to the city wall and there's a wonderful view from it across the mud and lath rabbit warren of the town. Some of the houses are 3 stories [sic] high or more, all of half burnt brick laid between laths and all of one universal mud colour. Except the main street, which winds through the bazaar to the Tahsil, there's not one where two Bactrian camels could walk abreast. The Tahsildar and I converse in flowery Persian - at least his is flowery, mine is rather thorny. But he seems to enjoy it. In the afternoon it cleared and the sun came out for a little. I seized the opportunity to photograph. Oh the pictures there are to be got if only one could spend weeks over it! the metal workers beating out their copper bowls and water jars, the group of fruit sellers sitting under a big tree with piles of pomegranates before them, the gold tinsel workers tying up camel tassels, the man blowing a charcoal fire that his kababs may roast better, the dyers spreading their strips of purple cotton in the sun and more and more and more - and over it all the universal mud colour, and the unforgettable menace of the Frontier. Tonight it's fine and the clear Indian sky set with stars has returned and we sit most cosily before our wood fire.

Sat 24. [24 January 1903] Today we raided a bit of the Amir's country. The pass to Kohat runs over 10 or 12 miles of Afghanistan - I suppose there is some arrangement about it with Kabul as we saw Govt. mule and bullock transport going over it, but any way it's the only bit of Afghanistan that a European may set foot on. We drove across 20 miles of plain to the foot of the hills, passing very quickly out of the Peshawar oasis and out into a wide desolate land scarcely inhabited or cultivated. Every now and then we came to a mud walled square English fort garrisoned by Afridi Rifles (Khyber Rifles they are really, but they are all Afridis or Pathans) but we saw only 2 villages, the plain under the Khyber is too unsafe to live in. There were a few isolated houses - they may have been guard houses of sorts - truncated pyramids of mud with the door 10 ft or more above the ground and reached only by a ladder; loopholes but no windows. We changed horses (for the 3rd time) at our frontier post, about a mile from which we plunged into a deep narrow valley, twisting and turning between steep and very rocky mountains. All the bottom of the valley was cultivated and set with Afridi villages, each one of which was protected by a mud wall and by watch towers loopholed for rifles. The people on the road were very interesting: Afridis and Pathans and Tartars from Central Asia and the ahl sarts. (They all talk Pushlu together, which I can't understand at all, but they mostly know Urdu too, and sometimes Persian.) We passed 2 men clad in blue garments with the skins of snow leopards thrown over their shoulders. I wondered what they were - they looked very splendid in their blue and fur. I asked our driver who they were, but he contented himself with answering "Presence, they are only traveller people passing to and fro." A turn in the road brought us into a wide valley running far up to the bottom of hills capped with new snow - very beautiful; and here we turned west and climbed up the steep pass at the top of which we reached one frontier post. The hill fell almost sheer Bellow it, a thousand feet or more, and we looked out over the plain, with the green patch of Kohat at our feet and far away hills bounding it to the north and west. The road is magnificent all the way, even the Afridi part is by no means bad, and after the rain it was excellent going. We think the most distant western mountains must be the beginning of Baluchistan. We are lodged here in a most comfortable Dak Bungalow. We got in at 4 and had tea and walked out through the cantonments and into the town. It is charmingly pretty, the cantonment gardens full of banyan trees and roses and there is even running water, the first we have seen in India. All round, the hills rise wonderfully sheer, bare and rugged. We walked all through the bazaar and were much entertained. The balconies of the caravanserais by the gates are a study in theselves - every sort of people sitting in them, from Sikhs and Gurkhas to Tartars and shaggy Baluchis. It does one's eyes good to see real mountains after the eternal Plains. The seasons, too, have fallen back into their proper courses. At Lahore, for the first time, we felt that we were just on the edge of the spring; here we are in winter, though the roses are flowering and the violets. Further south there are no proper seasons - there are the Hot Weather and the Cold Weather and the Rains, but as far as I can make out the only time approaching to our Spring is November, just after the rains. I wonder when the birds nest there. Everything in Rajputana [Rajasthan], for instance, is already parched up and will remain so till after the July and August rains. By the middle of March they are well into the Hot Weather. The difference between this place and Peshawar is very curious. We are off the line by which all conquerors march into India and have plunged into times of peace again. The Afridis are magnificent looking people, the men 6 ft high (and the women little less) straight, square shouldered men, walking along with bare feet, but holding their heads like kings. They most of them wear the Afghan locks over the ear and cheek, which is one of the silly reasons that have led people to think the Afghans are the lost tribes, the Jews wearing the same side locks. Many of the Afridis and Pathans are as fair as we are: I saw a man today with a red beard and several with quite fair skins. The women wear trousers to the ankle and a long black tunic edged with scarlet embroidery, and a black thing falling from their head, but they scarcely make a pretence of veiling. Some have a row of coins across the forehead or the breast of the tunic. The men wear coarse white cotton, flung in great folds round them, and admirably brown with dirt; indeed their clothes are pretty much the colour of the surrounding hills. We saw several carrying hooded hawks upon their wrists. Oh, and we saw the famous Peshawar Hunt in the distance. They hunt jackals with fox hounds and Mr Jelf says it's good fun.

Sun. 25. [25 January 1903] We are back again in Peshawar, having safely recrossed the Amir's territory. When I say safely you must understand that there was an alternative. Not because of Afridis but because of our horses. One relay began by running away with the tonga before we had time to get into it. It was stopped by some stalwart Afghans, we mounted and set off. Presently we began tearing along, Hell for leather and the driver turned round and said to me "Hold on, Memsahib, hold on! the rein is broken!" Hugo and I were much entertained; we held on and wondered how long we should be before we took a header into a camel caravan and what would happen then, but fortunately after about a mile, over which our driver cleared the road by shouts and wild gesticulations, the horses slowed down before an impassible barrier of laden bullocks and an Afridi ran to their heads and caught themn. A strap had given and the bit was hanging loose on one of the horses: "He is a devilish horse!" said the driver. We thought it just as lucky that the little incident closed without an accident - we had already once locked wheels with a bullock waggon, even going at a foot's pace, and nearly backed down a hill in consequence, so what would have happened at the gallop I don't know. We were in the post tonga "for Europeans and native gentlemen of distinction." A native gentleman of distinction occupied the seat next the driver today. He was a merchant from Bombay. Hugo exchanged cards with him. The native carriage of these parts is not usually a tonga but a tum tum. It is a high dog cart room for 4, two in front and two behind, back to back - an admirable vehicle, for it runs very easily on its high wheels and it is extraordinarily light, the bottom of it, under the seat, being only a net work of rope. The harness also is very light. Instead of a collar the horse wears a padded bit of leather across the chest to which the traces are attached - excellent and simple in the extreme.

Monday 26. [26 January 1903] We've had the social day. It began in an unpromising manner with streaming rain, however at 11 it cleared and we went down into the town to see the Afghan Mission Hospital. There we found, as lay missionary, Mr Waldegrave, brother of our lamented Mr Waldegrave, with whom we claimed acquaintance once removed, and he introduced us to one of the doctors, Dr Lankester, who took us round and explained. He was the sort of man you find at this job (Medical Mission) - the best sort. A religious enthusiast - one gets to recognise them in the East; Oriental or Western they all have the stamp of it but in the Oriental it's a fierce stamp and on the Western a gentle. I said how much I admired the work he was doing and how good it seemed. He replied that for the medical work alone he wouldn't have come; he came to spread the Master's name - all this quite simply - and he added, with a sigh, that it was uphill work. I should think it was. There was a Pathan boy standing in the courtyard, to whom he pointed and said, "He is an inquirer whom I hope to bring to the truth. He says he is quite willing to relinquish Islam." I wondered what the new faith would be worth in a person who could give up so easily a faith that dies as hard as Muhammadanism. However! - I daresay our doctor friend will earn the crown of the singleminded anyway. The hospital was a very interesting place. They don't try to make it European. It remains a sort of caravanserai, but clean, and whole families come in at a time and camp in it. I went up onto the roof and over the edge of the tidy hospital courts, there were the great Khans where the caravans from Kabul put up, a mass of mud and filth, crowded with Bactrian camels and fierce Kabulis, the home of every crime the world has heard of. Dr Lankester looked out over the mud-built mud coloured city and said: "It is a terribly wicked place." I should think it ran Gomorrah fine. I went on to see the women's hospital which was beautifully clean and neat and came home through the bazaars, dropping into a mosque or two on my way. After lunch the Grants came to see us, most charming people. He is the civil second in command here and she a sister of Mrs Hanmer (the wife of the man who ran our camp at Delhi.) The Russells had told them about us. We went to tea with the Waldegraves and made her acquaintance - a delightful woman - and then on to another tea with the Grants, where we sat and heard tales. Mr Grant administers the Afridi country, as far as you can say it is administered, and I'm sorry to tell you that our drive to Kohat was not really through Afghanistan at all, but through the free Afridi country which, as far as it owes allegiance to anyone, owes it to us and not to the Amir. We practically subsidize them to keep quiet and if they don't, we send in an armed force. Otherwise we don't interfere in their little concerns, which are mostly connected with killing. We dined with the Waldegraves - it was very pleasant, she is particularly nice. They are coming to see us in London this summer when they come on leave. Amongst other Afridi tales, I must tell you this (it comes from a certain wonderful Dr Pinner who has a hospital at Banu [Bannu] on the frontier): There came in to him an Afridi with a bullet in his leg, placed there by an uncle with whom he had a feud. He asked Dr P. to take it out. "And if I do" said he "I suppose I shall have your uncle in next, with your bullet in his leg." "No, no! sahib" he said. " I am a better shot than my uncle." Someday I will tell you (in private) the tale of the Afghan who swallowed 55 rupees and kept them, for safety, in his inside, but not now, for it would disgust Mother. (NB Hugo ought to do that - we've just lost a 50 rupee note!) No I must tell it you - it's too complete to be omitted. There arrived in Peshawar a Kabuli who went to the hospital and said he had 55 rupees inside him, which he had swallowed for better security before crossing the Pass and also because, having nothing he could conveniently get at, he escaped paying all dues, and would they cut them out, because he wanted the money to buy his ticket to Calcutta. The Dr replied that he would probably die under the operation. He said he would take his chance of that and anyway he wd probably die if they were left inside. So the operation was done - it was awful - and 55 heavy Kabuli rupees were duly extracted. An hour after the man siezed a big glass of milk, which ought to have been given to him in teaspoonfuls, and drank it off. Thereupon he recovered. After which he accused the Dr of having kept 3 rupees for himself, saying he had certainly swallowed 58. Mr Waldegrave saw the man and had the rupees in his hand. Isn't that a tale!

Tuesday 27. [27 January 1903] Well, we've been up the Khyber in gorgeous weather. The ground was frozen early in the morning and all the air clear with frost, a glorious sun all day and the hills capped with new snow. We set off at 9, in a tum tum with a pair of horses, one in the shafts, and one hitched on at the side. They went the whole 40 miles without turning a hair and pranced into Peshawar again. 5 miles to Burj Hari Singh, the Venours house (passing a long line of immense Sangars) then 5 miles on to Jamrud, which is a big mud built fort, with barracks for the Khyber Rifles and a huge serai for the caravans. Here we got into broken country and saw fortified Afridi villages at the foot of the hills. Also several underground villages of which you saw only the cave like entrances. From Burj Hari Singh the plain is a desolate stony waste. A mile or two beyond Jamrud we entered the gates of the Pass, guarded by a high perched fort. The road began to wind upwards in magnificent zigzags - cut out of the hillside and quite unprotected on the precipice side and here we fell in with the caravan from Peshawar, an endless train of huge Bactrian camels, shaggy ponies and fur coated Kabulis, with a guard of Khyber Rifles. Two days a week the Pass is guarded - we saw a small piquet at intervals all along the road - and on each of these days 2 caravans pass over, one from Peshawar and one from Kabul. It's an 8 days' journey. Our Rifles take the Peshawar caravan 5 miles beyond Lundi Kotul [Landi Kotal] (which is itself 10 miles beyond Ali Masjid, where we went) and there hand it over to a Kabuli guard. At the top of the zigzags we came out onto a great rolling stretch of country, set between high hills. The furthest to our left were the Terah [Tirah] mountains, capped with snow. We went down a little to the edge of a small stream, by which there was a walled village with a tiny patch of green corn round it, and then turned to the right, upstream still, to Ali Masjid, 10 miles from Jamrud. This is as far as travellers may go. Ali Masjed is a stone fort high up on the top of a hill which guards a very narrow ravine. It's a magnificent position to hold. The valley, higher up, takes a turn to the left and you can see no more. We were 15 miles from Afghanistan, 20 yards on either side of the road you are in tribal country where no man's life is worth an hour's purchase. Mr Grant told us that the casualties in the Khyber had been known to run up to 40 a week - 40 well known men killed in blood feuds. No one can pass over the road at night, and on the other 5 days of the week I fancy the Afridis have it pretty much to themselves also. The caravans pay us toll for our guard and we subsidize the Afridis - as compensation for what they used to get by pillaging and blackmailing the caravans. We are rather out of pocket by it, for since the old Amir put on large export and import duties, the merchandize has fallen off. There was a furious bitter wind blowing along the pass - I was wrapped up in a fur coat all day and none too warm - but we found a little wall to sit under, in the sun, and eat our lunch. We shared it with some enchanting ravens, which came begging and sat on the wall a few feet from us. They ran up within 4 feet of us for bits of biscuit and some had their mouths quite full of scraps, for there were lots of tourists besides ourselves. They don't seem to have heard of the proper relations between men and ravens; they reversed the rìles as regards feeding. At one o'clock the Kabuli caravan came padding out of the gorge and almost at the same moment the Peshawaris, whom we had passed in the morning, appeared round the corner Bellow us. The wild desolate valley was quite full of camels and men and ponies, tramping tramping up to Kabul and down to Peshawar. It was a wonderful thing to stand at the gates of Central Asia and see the merchant train passing up and down, [several words deleted], on a road older than all history. So we turned back and drove down to Jamrud. At the top of the zigzags you first catch sight of the Plains of India - think of conqueror after conqueror standing there and looking down on the richest land of Asia! Aryans and Greeks and Mongols and Pathans - they've all looked down that valley and smelt the hot breath of India and the plunder to come. Alexander and Timur and Muhammad of Ghazni and Babur and who comes next over the Pass? It has another association scarcely less interesting: it was the road of the Buddhist pilgrims when India was the home of Buddhism. There was a great monastery at Peshawar and Captain Venour told me that there are remains of Buddhist Topes all along the road, that's a fine picture too, the barefoot Chinese pilgrims coming down the Conqueror's road. At Jamrud we found Captain Venour and a cheerful little lieutenant, Musprat by name and Musprat in appearance, who lives in the Fort. They took us in to tea; it was only a little past 2 but we managed to eat an incredible amount of cake and the best chocolate toffee in the world. We loved these two Lords of the Pass, and their Khaki Khyber uniform, who sat and told us tales between the slices of cake and the toffee. And so we drove home over the plain and got in at 4.30, packed and dined and left at 7, wishing that we had another week to spend in Peshawar.