Chapter VIII

The Itinerant Missionary

There is this difference between the medical missionary and the preacher pure and simple: that while the latter has to seek his congregation, the former will have his congregation come to him, and often in such numbers that, like our Lord and His disciples, he will not have leisure even so much as to eat. But even a doctor, who finds his time at headquarters fully and profitably occupied, will be committing a great mistake if he never itinerates. For it is in camp and in village life that the missionary gets to know and understand the people, and by travelling from village to village, and living with them as their guest, he gets to know their real inner life in a way that otherwise he never would, and for a missionary, at least, such an experience is indispensable.

There are two methods of itineration. On the one hand, he may carry tents and a full camp equipment, and pitch his camp near some large village, or in the midst of several small ones, and may receive his patients and do his daily work there, while visiting the villages after his day’s work is done. By this plan he is independent, and can work at his own time, and can stay or move as his fancy dictates. On the other hand, he may become the guest of one of the chief men of the village, who will put his guest-house at his disposal and give him hospitality. By this plan he is brought into much closer contact with the people and will see more of them, but he will forfeit his independence, will be obliged to consult his host in all his plans, and must be prepared to put himself and his time at the disposal of his host and the villagers, both by day and night.

Both methods have their advantages. For a new district, and where the people are suspicious, the latter plan, though more exacting, is probably the better; when the missionary has become well known and has much work to do, the former is preferable.

The traveller who has spent a winter in touring India, but has only visited the large towns and show places, and has never lived in an Indian village, remains altogether a stranger to the deep inner life of the Indian. The real India is not seen in the Westernized bazaars of the large cities, but in the myriads of villages, wherein more than 80 per cent. of the population of India dwell. Moreover, a much better and more attractive side of Indian life is seen in the villages than in the towns, and it is among their less sophisticated population that the missionary spends his happiest hours.

When travelling without camp equipment, we generally follow the Bible precept. We arrive at a village, and, “inquiring who within it is worthy, abide there till we depart thence.” This is usually some malik, or head man, who possesses that great institution of Afghanistan, a hujra, or guest-house. We are shown to this house, usually a mud building with a low door and a few small apertures in the walls in the place of windows, and a clean-swept earthen floor, which may be covered by a few palm-mats. Hearing of our arrival, the owner of the guest-house comes to receive us in the Oriental fashion so familiar to readers of the Old Testament.

Thus, on one occasion I came rather late at night to one such guest-house. The host had already retired, but rose from his bed to receive me. I inquired if that was his hujra. He answered: “No; it is God’s, but I am in charge of it.” Such expressions are not mere form, as was shown by the cheerful and unostentatious way in which the owner put himself out in order to insure my comfort. Once I arrived about midnight at a village, the head man of which I did not know personally, though it appears he knew me well. He was not satisfied until I consented to occupy his bed, which he had just vacated for me, while he went off to make himself a shift elsewhere. The acceptance of such an offer might not always prove very attractive among those Afghans whose ideas of cleanliness are not the same as ours, but to refuse it would—at least, on the part of a missionary—be an act so discourteous as to injure the attainment of those relations with the people which he should desire.

The head man will at once call for some of his attendants, who, except at the busy time of sowing and harvest, are probably lounging about the chauk, and they at once bring a number of the plain wooden bedsteads of the country, which are almost universally used, even by the richer classes, in preference to chairs. Rugs and pillows are brought, and perhaps a carpet may be spread on the floor. Tea is then ordered, and an attendant brings in a tray on which is a very large teapot and a number of very small saucerless cups, called in these parts balghami, and used all over Central Asia for tea-drinking. The whole is covered by an embroidered cloth, which is removed by the attendant. Sugar is added to the teapot to a degree which to many Western palates appears nauseating. Cardamoms, and sometimes other spices, are also added. The milk, too, is usually added to the teapot, although some hosts, who have learnt by experience the peculiarity of Western taste, leave the milk and the sugar to be added by the guests themselves. Tea is poured out and handed round, and drunk usually very hot; and if the guests drink it with very loud smackings of the lips, it is supposed to indicate that they particularly appreciate it. The cups are filled repeatedly, and when the guest wishes to indicate that he has had enough he turns the cup upside down.

By this time the news of our arrival has spread through the village. There are probably a number of old patients there, who have once or oftener been inmates of the base hospital, and they help to collect all the blind, the halt, the maimed, and the sick of the village, and we proceed to unpack our medicines and commence prescribing and physicking.

Then will come the Mullah of the village, with his Quran under his arm and his rosary in his hand, and with a very sanctimonious and superior kind of air. He has come to see that the faith of the flock is not endangered, and is followed by a number of his talibs, or students, whose great desire is to hear a wordy battle between the Padre and the Mullah, and to see the former ignominiously defeated.

Eastern ideas are cast in such a very different mould to Western, and their system of logic and habit of mind are so unlike ours, that the young missionary may consider himself fortunate if he is not frequently held up to ridicule by some ignorant Mullah, who on such an occasion as this, before an audience who are naturally inclined to side with him, and can appreciate his language and arguments very much better than ours, has all the advantage on his side. It is no doubt better to avoid such discussions as far as possible. But this cannot always be done, as the refusal to answer questions would be assumed to imply inability to do so, and would be taken by the audience to indicate defeat. What really impresses the people would not usually be our arguments, but the patience and courtesy with which we meet, or ought to meet, the endeavours of our opponent to make us lose our temper. According to Eastern ideas, the mere stroking of the beard is supposed to indicate irritation arising from the inability to answer the questions, and if the inexperienced disputant incautiously puts his hand to his beard, his opponent will most probably show off his advantage by pretending to apologize to him for having made him lose his temper.

On one occasion, while touring among the frontier villages, I was spending the night at a hujra, and after dark a Mullah had come in for discussion, and a great number of the men of the village, attracted by the hope of an interesting conflict between their champion and the Padre Sahib, had collected to listen.

It was winter, and there was a fire of twigs burning in the middle of the room, which was filling the place with its smoke, as there was only one quite inadequate aperture in the centre of the room by which it could find its exit. Round all four sides were a number of the native beds, on which both disputants and audience were seated cross-legged or reclining at their ease.

As the fire burnt low a boy would bring in some crackling thorns and branches which were piled outside the room, and throw some on the fire, which would blaze up and illuminate the faces of all around; for the only other light was the little earthen oil lamp in a niche in one corner, which only served to make the darkness visible.

The Mullah was evidently bent on making a display of his own dialectic skill at my expense, and began in a rather condescending tone to ask if I knew anything about theology; and on my replying that I had come to the country in order to teach the Christian religion, he turned to the audience, and said somewhat contemptuously:

“I do not suppose these Padres know much, but we will see.” He then turned to me and said: “Can you tell me the colour of faith?”

Rather puzzled by the question, I asked what he meant. He said:

“Why, is it white, or green, or red, or what colour?”

I replied that, as an abstract idea, it did not possess the quality of colour.

Mullah: “Then can you tell me what shape it is? Is it round, or square, or what?”

I: “Neither has it any shape. It is only an abstract quality.”

Mullah: “It is evident that he does not know much about theology, seeing he cannot answer such simple questions as the colour and shape of faith.”

At this time I did not know that the Muhammadans ascribed such concrete qualities to all their abstract religious ideas.

Mullah: “Do you know anything about astronomy?”

I thought that here at least my knowledge might not be far inferior to that of this Mullah, and said:

“Yes, I think I can answer you any questions on that subject.”

Mullah: “Tell me, then, what becomes of the sun when it sinks below the horizon every evening?”

I then proceeded to as simple and lucid an explanation as I could of the revolutions of the earth on its axis, but could see from the looks and ejaculations of the audience that they thought the idea rather a mad one.

The Mullah himself made no effort to conceal his contempt, and said:

“That, then, is all you know about it?”

A little nettled, I said:

“Well, what explanation do you give?”

“We all know that the fires of hell are under the earth. The sun passes down there every night, and therefore comes up blazing hot in the morning.”

I rather had my breath taken away by this explanation, which met with ejaculations of approbation from the men around me, and I incautiously asked the Mullah if he could explain the seasons.

Mullah (turning to the people): “It is evident that I shall have to teach him everything from the beginning.”

To me: “It is in the spring that the devil makes up his fires, and piles on the firewood. Therefore the fires get very hot in the summer, and cool down later on. That is why the summer sun is so hot.”

Needless to say, the explanations of the Mullah appeared to the audience as rational and lucid as mine were far-fetched and incomprehensible, and they had no doubt as to which of the disputants had won the day.

From this it can be seen that if a young missionary thinks that a mere knowledge of Western learning and Western logic will enable him to cope with the very limited learning of the Afghan Mullahs on their own ground, he is vastly mistaken, and will before long be put to ridicule, as I was on the above occasion, which was one of my earliest experiences on the frontier.

Since then I have learnt how to argue with Afghan logic, and from the Afghan point of view.

If it happens that the Mullah, or some friend of his, is in need of medical or surgical advice, his attitude to you will undergo a great change, and you will have much greater facilities for carrying on your work among the people. Sometimes, when he sees the benefits accruing to the poor people who had no other prospect of getting medical relief, his attitude becomes unexpectedly friendly, as his better feelings prevail over his religious animosity.

Once, having set out on an itineration, some Pathans came to tell me I might as well save myself the trouble of going in that direction because a certain Mullah, who had much influence in those parts, had gone before us, warning the people not to accept our treatment, listen to our preaching, or even come near us. I answered by the remark which appeals to the Muhammadan mind under almost every conceivable circumstance: “Whatever God’s will has ordained will be,” and told him we should adhere to our original plan.

On the first two days the people certainly seemed suspicious, and very few came near us. While we were on the march on the third day, passing not very far from a village, a man who had apparently noticed us from the village, which was situated on an eminence above the road, came running down to us, and, after the usual salutations, said: “There is an old patient of yours here who is very anxious to see you; please turn aside and come to the house.” On arrival we found that it was a woman who, a year before, had been an inmate of the Bannu Hospital for malignant tumour on the leg, which had required amputation. Before she left the hospital we had made her a rough wooden pin leg, on which she now appeared hobbling along to greet us. She showed great delight at unexpectedly meeting us, and had apparently been telling her fellow-villagers wonderful stories of what she had seen and heard in the mission hospital, and of the unaccountable love and sympathy which had been shown her there, for others of her neighbours came crowding into her little courtyard, and among them, though unknown to us, the Mullah who was supposed to be preaching a crusade against us. He had apparently come in on the quiet to see for himself what we and our work were like, and was greatly struck at the undisguised delight with which we were greeted by our old patients; for when the woman of the house begged us to stop while she prepared us a meal, he came forward and disclosed himself, saying: “No; my house is in the next village, and it is my prerogative to entertain the Padre Sahib. He must come on to my house.” At the same time he took up some Pashtu Gospels which we had been giving away, but which the people, for fear of theological displeasure, had been afraid to take openly, and said: “This is Kalam Ullah [Word of God], and is a good book.” Thus, in a moment, by this providential presence of the Mullah, the whole attitude of our reception was changed. Word was passed on from village to village that we had become the guests and eaten the bread of the Mullah himself, and that he had pronounced in favour of our books, telling the people that we were Ahl-el-Kitab, or people of the Book, the term which Muhammadan theologians apply to Christians and Jews when they wish to speak of them in a friendly spirit.

We were not always equally fortunate, especially in our earlier years on the frontier.

About two years after I first went to Bannu I went out on a short itineration with my assistant Jahan Khan, an account of whom is given in Chapter XVI.

We came to one village where the Mullahs had been exciting the feelings of the people against us, and telling them that any food or vessel we touched was thereby defiled. We found it difficult to get food or drinking-vessel even on payment, and some of the patients who came to us were induced to go away, and in some cases to throw away the medicine they had already received.

With some difficulty we got a lodging for the night, and early next morning we started off to look for a village where we might get a more hospitable reception. But the minds of the people had already been poisoned against us.

We went into the courtyard of the Patwar-Khana (village bailiff), and sat down and opened our medicines. Some Hindus came for treatment, and we got one of them to bring us some food; but the Muhammadans were universally hostile, and stationed one of their number at the gate to prevent any Muhammadan communicating with us. They then apparently became annoyed with the Hindus, that they should be participating in benefits from which they had excluded themselves, and stones began to fall into the courtyard where we were seated; and as the Hindus in these villages are not only in a small minority, but live in dread of the fiercer Muhammadans, even they who had already come to us disappeared, and we were left alone. It seemed useless to stop in a village where we were not welcomed, so we saddled our animals and departed.

Many years have passed since this experience. Patients from both these villages frequently come to the Bannu Hospital, and now I and my assistants get a welcome and hospitality whenever we visit them.

At other times the difficulties of itineration are not so much from the people as from the hardships of travelling among the frontier mountains, where the roads are nil, and the bridle-tracks such that it is often impossible to get a loaded camel through.

I will therefore give a short account of a journey from Bannu across the Wazir Hills to Thal, which we made in the summer of 1904.

As our route lay chiefly through independent territory, it was difficult to procure camel-men for so trying a journey.

The men with the first camels we hired ran away when they found we were going into the hills, as not only is the road very difficult for laden animals, but they are afraid of being attacked by Wazir robbers, the Wazirs having the worst reputation of all the tribes of Afghans who live on the border. With some difficulty we got four more camels, and as their owners were themselves Wazirs, we prevailed on them to accompany us. We loaded up our tents, medicines, and bedding, and about 9 a. m., when the sun was already very hot, we finally started. Besides the two camel-men, there were a hospital assistant, two servants, a Muhammadan inquirer, whom I was taking along for the sake of instructing him, and one of the schoolboys, who had persuaded me to let him accompany us, so that we were quite a large party. After toiling for some hours along a mountain defile we came to Gumatti Post, one of those frontier forts that line the North-West Border. This was built close to an old Wazir fort, in capturing which, two years ago, Colonel Tonnochy and Captain White lost their lives, as described in Chapter I. We passed through the wire entanglement, and spent the heat of the day talking to the native officer and soldiers in charge. In the afternoon we set out again, and marched along the bed of the Kurram River, which we had to ford six times, so that before we reached our night camp it had become quite dark. Taking advantage of the dark, some light-fingered Wazir thieves managed to steal the tent carpet off the back of a camel without our catching sight of them. Our camp was in a Wazir village, built on a cliff overhanging the river. The people were rather excited, as another Wazir clan had been up during the day and made off with twenty head of cattle. However, there were some old patients among the people, so we got a hearty welcome. They made us some tea, and set some of their number to watch round our beds with their Martini-Henrys ready loaded in case enemies should come during the night. The Mullah of the place came and had a talk with us, and then we were soon all fast asleep.

Next morning we were up betimes, and I found my bed surrounded by a number of women with squalling babies. One mother wanted me to see her baby’s eyes, another the stomach of hers, another the ears; in fact, all the babies seemed to have made common cause to delay my departure as long as possible. However, after doling out various lotions and pills, and giving the mothers many instructions, which, I fear, were only heard to be forgotten, we managed to get the camels loaded and started. Now, however, a new difficulty confronted us. During the night there must have been heavy rain higher up the valley, for the river was in flood and unfordable. I knew by experience how strong yet deceptive the currents of the river are when it is in flood, for a few weeks before I had been out on a bathing excursion with some of our schoolboys in another part of the same river. I had dived into a deep pool, when I found myself in a return current, which was carrying me back under a small waterfall, where the water was sweeping over an obstruction like a mill-race, with a fall of about four feet. As soon as I got to the fall I went down, down, down, till I thought I was never coming up again. However, I did come up, only, however, to be pulled back at once under the waterfall and down into the depths again. The third time I came up I got a momentary glimpse of two of the boys trying to throw me the end of a pagari. They were, however, much too far away for me to reach it, and I was pulled under again before I had time to get even one good breath. As I went down I wondered if I should ever see the boys again, and how many times I should come up before it was all over. Then all at once it struck me that I was very foolish trying to get out at the surface, where the current was beyond my strength, and I must change my tactics; so I turned over and dived down till I felt the boulders at the bottom, and then crept along the bottom with the aid of the current—which there, of course, was flowing downstream—as long as I could. When I could do so no more, and had to strike upwards, I found, to my delight and thankfulness, that I was out of the eddy and going downstream. So it was clearly impossible to keep along the river, even if we had not had laden animals with us. We were obliged, therefore, to make a long détour through the hills, which took us nearly all day. So rough and precipitous was the path that we had the greatest difficulty in getting the camels along, and had several times to unload them in order to get them over bad places.

During the afternoon we saw a party of fifteen or sixteen armed Wazirs hastening towards us. At first we thought they were coming to loot us, and one of the Wazirs with us told us to stop, while he went forward and called out, “Are you friends or enemies?” When they replied “Friends” he went up to them, and then called us on to join him, when I found that they were a party of outlaws who had fallen foul of the Government, and, therefore, had made their escape across the frontier. They got me to sit down with them in the shade of a rock and write down a list of their grievances for them, so that they might propitiate the Political Officer and obtain permission to return to British India. I was very happy to render them this service, and we parted good friends. I noticed, however, that the Wazirs with us seemed uncomfortable, and kept their rifles ready cocked till they had disappeared behind a turn in the defile. I make it a principle never to carry any arms myself, and think I am much safer on that account, but the villagers who accompany me always go well armed; in fact, across the border few Afghans can go out of their houses without their rifles on their shoulders ready for use, so terribly prevalent are the blood-feuds and village quarrels. We spent that night in a Wazir village, where we saw a number of patients and made fresh friends. The head man of the village apologized next morning for not accompanying us more than half a mile. He said that he had blood-feuds with most of the villages round, and could not, therefore, venture farther. The fame of the Bannu Mission Hospital, however, was our best escort, and passport too, and we got a welcome at almost every village we passed, through the mediation of numerous old patients, who had recounted in all the villages the kind treatment they had received at the hands of the feringis (Europeans) in Bannu.

Progress was somewhat delayed by frequent calls to visit a sick person in one or another village, but openings for the Gospel were at the same time secured, and the lessons of the parable of the Good Samaritan imparted. By midday we reached Thal, which was for some days to be our field hospital. Here we pitched our tents, under the shade of some willows, by a small stream outside the town, and early the next morning started work. A large crowd of sick and their friends had collected from Thal itself and the villages round. I first read a passage out of the Pashtu Testament, and explained it to them in that language. The Gospel address over, I wrote out prescriptions for each one in order, which my assistant dispensed to them. After a minor operation or two, a fresh crowd had collected, another address was given, and they, too, were seen and attended to. In this way five lots of patients were treated, and about 200 or 300 people heard the Gospel story in their own language. Then, as evening was drawing on, we shut up our books and our boxes, washed off the dust of the day’s work in the brook hard by, and proceeded to interest ourselves in the operations which the cook was conducting over an improvised fireplace, made of a couple of bricks placed on either side of a small hole in the ground. Dinner over, we had family prayers, and then fell soundly asleep.

An interesting town where we have sometimes stopped in our itinerations is that of Kalabagh. It is situated on the right bank of the River Indus where it finally breaks forth from the rocky gorge that has hemmed it in with high, often precipitous, sides, which rise at Dimdot to a sheer height of four hundred feet above the surging river, on to the boundless alluvial plain of the Panjab. In some of the bends between Attock and Kalabagh, it rushes at a great speed over rapids, where the boatmen warily guide their heavy river boats, lest they be drawn into some whirlpool, or dashed against the precipitous sides; at others there are deep, silent reaches where the bottom is two hundred feet from the surface. During the hot weather, when the river is in flood, it is an exciting experience to be ferried across its dark grey surging stream. At Kalabagh there are extensive quarries of salt of a beautiful pink and white colour and great purity; these bring in a considerable revenue to the Government. The town itself is built on the side of a hill of red salt marl, some of the houses being quarried out of the salt itself, so that the owner has only to chip off a bit of his own wall in order to season his cooking-pot. It is a standing grievance with the inhabitants that their own walls are Government contraband, and they are subject to a fine if they sell a brick from their wall without paying duty on it. The streets are narrow and winding, and being, many of them, roofed and even built over, are very dark, and in the hot summer nights insufferably close and hot, and at all times distinctly insanitary and malodorous.

The people are pale and anæmic, and nearly all suffer from goitre in a greater or less degree. They form a great contrast to the hardy mountaineers of the Bangi Khel Khattak tribe on the hills behind them. These form one of the great recruiting grounds of the Pathan regiments of the frontier, while from Kalabagh itself it would be hard to find a score of men who could pass the recruiting officer. In the sultry summer weather the inhabitants spend the day under a number of large banyan-trees (Ficus Indica) which are scattered along the edge of the river. Here, too, the civil officers of the district hold their courts, and I was encamped under a spacious banyan. Its spreading branches not only sheltered me and all the sick and visitors who thronged around me, but also the Deputy Commissioner of the district and his court, together with the crowd of suitors and applicants that always followed in his train; and the District Judge, with his court, and a crowd of litigants, pleaders and witnesses—and this all without incommoding one another.

The land away from the river is pulsating with the fervid heat of the summer sun, and the town itself is like an oven; but there is nearly always a cool breeze blowing on the bank of the river, and, when heated and dusty with the day’s work, one can throw off one’s clothes and cool oneself with a swim in the river, where the young men of the place are disporting themselves all their leisure time. They use the inflated skin of a goat or of a cow, and, supporting themselves on this, can rest on the deep, cool bosom of the river as long as they like without fatigue. The river is too rapid for them to travel upstream, but when business takes them downstream, they simply fasten their clothes in a bundle on their heads, lie across their inflated skin, and quietly drift downstream at about four miles an hour as far as they desire. On returning, they simply deflate their skin, and sling it over their shoulders.

We were usually thronged with patients here from morning to evening, and I have seen as many as three hundred in one day, the work including a number of operations. One day a noted Muhammadan Sheikh visited the place. He was a convert from Hinduism, and was travelling about the country preaching Islam and decrying the Christian and Hindu religions. He sent us a challenge to meet him in a public discussion on the respective merits of the Cross and the Crescent. I was reluctant, as such discussions are seldom conducted fairly or sincerely; but, finding my reluctance was being misunderstood, I consented, and we met one evening, a Muhammadan gentleman of the place being appointed chairman. It was arranged that we were each in turn to ask a question, which the other was to answer. He was given the first question, and asked how it was that we had not miraculous powers, seeing that the Bible said that those who believed in Christ should be able to take poison or be bitten of snakes without suffering injury. The catechist with me gave so lucid and categorical a reply that the Muhammadan disputant and chairman changed their tone, and said that, as the time was getting late, it would be better to postpone my question till another time. Needless to say, that more convenient time never came, and we were not again challenged to a discussion at Kalabagh, and the Sheikh left for fresh pastures a few days later.

Chapter IX

Afghan Mullahs

Here we are met by an apparent paradox. There is no section of the people of Afghanistan which has a greater influence on the life of the people than the Mullahs, yet it has been truly said that there is no priesthood in Islam. According to the tenets of Islam, there is no act of worship and no religious rite which may not, in the absence of a Mullah, be equally well performed by any pious layman; yet, on the other hand, circumstances have enabled the Mullahs of Afghanistan to wield a power over the populations which is sometimes, it appears, greater than the power of the throne itself. For one thing, knowledge has been almost limited to the priestly class, and in a village where the Mullahs are almost the only men who can lay claim to anything more than the most rudimentary learning it is only natural that they should have the people of the village entirely in their own control. Then, the Afghan is a Muhammadan to the backbone, and prides himself on his religious zeal, so that the Mullah becomes to him the embodiment of what is most national and sacred.

The Mullahs are, too, the ultimate dispensers of justice, for there are only two legal appeals in Afghanistan—one to the theological law, as laid down by Muhammad and interpreted by the Mullahs; the other to the autocracy of the throne—and even the absolute Amir would hesitate to give an order at variance with Muhammadan law, as laid down by the leading Mullahs. His religion enters into the minutest detail of an Afghan’s everyday life, so that there is no affair, however trivial, in which it may not become necessary to make an appeal to the Mullah. Birth, betrothal, marriage, sickness, death—all require his presence, and as often as not the Afghan thinks that if he has called in a Mullah to a sick relation there is no further necessity of calling in a doctor. Thus the Mullah becomes an integral part of Afghan life, and as he naturally feels that the advance of mission work and of education must mean the steady diminishing of his influence, he leaves no stone unturned to withstand the teaching of missionaries and to prejudice the minds of the people against them.

The great religious fervour of the Afghans must be evident to anyone who has had even a cursory acquaintance with them, whether in their mountain homes or as travellers through India. I remember once sitting in a village chauk while a religious discussion was going on which threatened to launch the two opponent parties into making bodily attacks on each other, and the whole of the matter under discussion was whether prayers said by a worshipper on the skin of a jackal were efficacious or not. According to the tenets of Islam, if a worshipper were to perform his genuflections on the bare ground they would be of no effect, because the ground might certainly be assumed to be ceremonially polluted. Ordinarily, the worshipper will spread a piece of clean cloth, or mat, or skin on the ground, and, removing his shoes beforehand, will perform his prayers thereon. It might be contended, however, that even though the skin of the jackal were absolutely clean, yet the unclean nature of the animal still attached to it, and rendered the prayers ineffective. The matter in this case was referred to a renowned Mullah who lived some way off, and to whom both parties had to send deputations several days’ journey.

Then, in the mission hospital the question has frequently been raised by the Afghan patients as to whether it was lawful to say prayers in the clothes provided by the mission for the patients, even though these may have come direct from the washing; and we have been unable to persuade patients to put on clothes, however clean, which might possibly prevent them from saying their prayers until they have brought the case before some Mullah who was willing to give an ex cathedrâ pronouncement in our favour. Mullahs sometimes use the power and influence they possess to rouse the tribes to concerted warfare against the infidels, as they tell them that the English are; and often a prelude to one of the little frontier wars has been some ardent Mullah going up and down on the frontier, like Peter the Hermit, rousing the tribes to come down and fight. Often they lay claim to magical powers whereby those who submit themselves to their incantations become invulnerable, so that they are able to stand up before the bullets of the English troops unscathed. Before the war of 1897, a Mullah, known as the Mullah Povindah, was reputed to have this power; and many of the Afghans I met maintained that they had put it to the test, and seen with their own eyes the bullets fall harmless off the people to whom he had extended his protection. It was useless to say that they were trying to impose upon them, for they thoroughly believed it themselves, as was shown in many cases by the reckless daring with which they charged down on the British troops. Even those who may be supposed to be free from the superstition of the ignorant believe with equal fervour in this power of the Mullahs and holy men. An instance of this occurs in the Memoirs of the late Amir Abdurrahman, who relates that once during a military review a soldier deliberately shot at him as he was sitting in a chair. The bullet passed through the back of the chair, and wounded a page-boy standing behind. He attributes his escape entirely to a charm written on a piece of paper which a holy man had given to him when a boy. He says: “At first I did not believe in its power to protect; I therefore tried it by tying it round the neck of a sheep, and though I tried hard to shoot the animal, no bullet injured her.”

One of the commonest experiences of the open-air preacher on the borders of Afghanistan is the wordy warfare in which he is obliged to engage with some bellicose Mullah. The Mullah has heard that the missionary has begun to preach, and he regards it as his duty to come down and champion Islam. He brings a big volume of the Quran ostentatiously under his arm, and is followed by four or five students, or talibs, ready to applaud all his thrusts, while ridiculing in a very forcible way the replies of the preacher. Such arguments can hardly be expected to bear any reasonable fruit, because the object of the Mullah is not to ascertain what your views on any doctrine really are, but only to gain a strategical victory and hold you up to ridicule; but it is equally impossible to refuse the challenge, for then not only would the audience conclude that you had no answer to give, but the Mullah would take care that no one remained to listen to you. Frequently the object of the Mullah is to egg the people on to acts of open violence, and then, when they see that the row is well started, they suddenly make themselves scarce, and leave their flock to take the risk of any subsequent police investigations which may result.

On one occasion I had a providential deliverance from an unpleasant incident. On proceeding to the place in the market where I usually preached, I found a Mullah in possession preaching to a scowling crowd of townsmen. As we had always preached in that particular place for years, I saw it was only a ruse to oust us from preaching first there and then anywhere else where we might go, so I promptly took my place by the Mullah’s side, and commenced preaching to the same audience. The Mullah vociferated, and the audience scowled more and more, and then the Mullah, turning to me, said: “Look here, you had better get out of this, as these people here are up to mischief, and it may go hard with you.” I felt much like Micah when the Danites said to him: “Let not thy voice be heard among us, lest angry fellows run upon thee.” But I told the Mullah that I held him responsible for the acts of his followers, and I did not intend to forsake the place to which long custom had given us a right. Just as the storm seemed about to break, and I momentarily expected to be pitched across the street, a stalwart smith, a well-known Muhammadan, himself respected by the people, pushed through the crowd, and, taking the Mullah by the arm, said: “Now, Mullah Sahib, you know the Padre Sahib never interferes with you in your place, and that this is not your proper preaching-place. Why do you want to make a row and injure him?” So saying, he took the rather unwilling Mullah off to his usual place, and the more unruly portion of the crowd, after hurling a few imprecations at me, followed him, too. Our friend the smith was an old hospital patient, so this, too, may be set down, under the overruling providence of God, to the mollifying influence of a medical mission.

One of the most influential Mullahs on the British side of the Afghan border is the Mullah Karbogha, so called from the village which forms his Canterbury. In some respects his influence was directed towards the moral improvement of the people, while in others his religious schools became hotbeds of fanaticism. Thus he set his face steadily against the evil practice, which is so prevalent among the frontier Afghans, of selling their daughters in marriage to the highest bidder. Not long ago a Mullah of considerable power, who had himself sold his daughter in marriage, had to make the most abject profession of repentance lest the Mullah Karbogha should excommunicate him, and he should have to fly the country. He regards the smoking of tobacco as one of the works of the devil, and when the Mullah makes his visitation to some village there is a general scramble to hide away all the pipes; for not only would any that he found be publicly broken, but the owner would incur his displeasure. As the Afghans do not confine themselves to the soothing weed, but mix it up with a number of intoxicating and injurious substances, such as Indian hemp or charras, this attitude of the Mullah may be regarded in the light of a reform. Unfortunately, he regards it as a heinous sin for any Muhammadan to take service with, or to receive pay from, the British Government. Often on the frontier a grave crisis has threatened to result from the refusal of one of his underlings, or Sheikhs, as they are called, to grant the rites of marriage or burial to some unfortunate Pathan who has enlisted in one of the regiments of the Indian Army. The missionaries, of course, are regarded by him and his Sheikhs as the embodiment of the heresies of an infidel Government.

For many years the Mullah Karbogha apparently ignored me, but finally I had information that his attitude was going to become more distinctly hostile. I thought it better, therefore, to act on the Biblical adage to “agree with thine adversary quickly, whilst thou art in the way with him,” and to seek to modify his attitude by a personal interview. It was one hot August day that found me and an Indian medical assistant riding to this frontier Mecca. It was a part of the district notorious for deeds of violence, and after riding some ten miles, when the hot summer sun made us feel the need of some refreshment, we came to one of those villages where is posted a guard of some twenty Militia Sepoys, who represent the army of the Government in their midst. It was only a roughly-built house, loopholed and strengthened in some parts to simulate a fort, and the soldiers themselves were only removed by a few months’ military training, a simple uniform, and the salt of the Sarkar, which they had eaten, from the families of brigands and highwaymen from which they had been enlisted. There had been a double murder that morning in a village a few miles off, and most of the soldiers were scouring the country round in quest of the marauders; but, as usually happens, the murderers had got a good start, and were already probably well across the frontier. When the soldiers who remained in charge found that it was the Bannu Daktar Sahib who had come so suddenly upon them, they were all attention. Tea was brewed, and milk and unleavened cakes were fetched from the village, while men suffering from ague and women bringing their children suffering from various ailments to which Afghan children are liable soon came crowding in, and a little store of medicines that we had carried on our saddles was in great request.

After refreshing ourselves with their simple hospitality, and chatting with them on the various subjects which come most naturally to travellers and to missionaries, we tightened our saddle-girths, which had been loosened to give the horses a feed, mounted, and rode on. The road lay through a wide and picturesque valley. A small river was dashing into silver spray over the boulders on some steep descent, and elsewhere deepening into some pool overshadowed by acacias and oleanders, where the fish could be seen disporting themselves on the shingly bottom. The sides of the valley rose up to right and left in rough escarpments, where the olive and the gurguri-berry gave a clothing of green to the bare rocks, while here and there the hills receded sufficiently to enable the thrifty husbandman to clear a little piece of land from stones and to plant it with millet, which in good seasons would supply his household with bread through the winter months.

After a couple of hours of such riding, we approached the watershed of the valley, northward of which the streams flowed in the opposite direction towards the Miranzai and the Kurram. It was one of those wide stony plains called in Afghanistan raghzas, covered for the most part with stones stained black by oxides of iron and manganese, and called by the people dozakhi kanrai, or “hell-stones,” from their tradition that they were thrown there in some ancient conflict between the devils and the angels. The coarse grass springs up in tufts between the stones, and affords a pasturage to the flocks of hardy goats and sheep. Shepherds may be seen here and there guarding and attending them, while in parts there may be sufficient soil to give in a rainy season a fair crop of millet or of barley. Before long we descried four tall minarets rising up beyond an undulation of the plain. This was our first view of the famed cathedral of this Canterbury of the frontier where the Mullah Karbogha held his court and issued his decrees and excommunications, which carried dismay into any hapless chief’s home or village against whom they had been fulminated. As we drew near we met various other travellers, who had come, it may be, to bear the Mullah their respects and some votive offerings, or it may be to bring some long-standing dispute for settlement. We wondered within ourselves what the result of our pilgrimage would be.

As we drew near we got a fine view of the really beautiful and artistic mosque which the offerings of the faithful had enabled the Mullah to build at no little cost in this wild region, where both skilled labour and building material were at a premium. There was a beautiful tank of clear limpid water, supplied by a fountain in the hill above, and here the faithful performed their ablutions before worship. Some of the talibs and Sheikhs were sitting round the tank and in the courtyard of the mosque, and appeared not a little surprised to see the Bannu Daktar Sahib come to their own Mecca. We were informed that the Mullah himself had gone to a neighbouring village to decide some dispute, but two of the sons came out to receive us, and led us into a verandah, where we were soon surrounded by the curious of the place. They led our horses away with the promise to look after their needs, and inquired as to the reason of our unexpected arrival.

We told them how the fame of the Mullah Karbogha had reached Bannu, and how we had long been desirous of ourselves making his personal acquaintance. After some hesitation, the Mullah’s eldest son, who was the chief in authority during his absence, asked if he should bring us refreshments. This was what we wished, not so much because the hot August sun had made us both tired and thirsty, but because it had a deeper signification; for, after having once offered us hospitality and broken bread with us, we should be recognized as guests of the Mullah, and any opposition which he might have been contemplating against us would be seen at once by the observant Afghans around to have been laid aside in favour of the reception due to an honoured guest. We therefore accepted the offer without demur, and tea sweetened with plenty of sugar and flavoured with cardamoms was brought, with biscuits, for our refection. Our repast over, and various questions asked and answered, we were left for a time to ourselves, for in the hot summer days of India the noonday hours are as sacred to retirement and repose as those of midnight.

After a few hours’ interval, wherein we were left to rest ourselves, the Mullahs returned and commenced conversation somewhat more affably. They had no doubt found themselves between the horns of a dilemma, for their outward rejection of our advances might have led to acts of open violence on the part of the fanatical inhabitants of the town, the responsibility for which would ultimately have come home to themselves in a way far from pleasant; while, on the other hand, our reception as guests broke down their attitude of hostility, as at once it would be noised all down the countryside that the great Mullah had broken the bread of friendship with the Daktar Sahib from Bannu, and among the Afghans the relationship between host and guest is inviolable. Thus, it came about that on our host making inquiries as to where we intended to spend the night, and finding that we had no other plans, he insisted on our stopping as his guests, and there and then sent his servants for the preparation of our lodging and our evening repast. The ice thus broken, we were able to proceed from general topics to the more abstruse theological speculations, in which his reverence excelled, and, like a summer shower, this friendly interchange of ideas washed away the dust of many old prejudices and misunderstandings, and as the evening hours drew on our talk continued under the starlit canopy of the glorious Eastern night, and we were vowing mutual friendship, and he promising on his own behalf and on that of his father himself to become our guests on the next occasion of a visit to Bannu. When at last we lay down to rest, we first thanked God, who had so prospered our journey, and broken down the great barrier of prejudice, and opened a way for us to carry on our work in the villages round.

Many of the people still looked askance at us, and spoke of us as “infidels” and “blasphemers,” and would, no doubt, have been led to proceed further at a hint from the Mullahs; but our mission had been accepted, and we knew it was only a matter of time that we should be actually welcomed. Even now, grown bolder by the attitude of the Mullah, some old patients appeared, and insisted on our accompanying them to various houses in the village where there were patients in need of medical help and advice. One cannot overestimate the religious influences emanating from a place like Karbogha. Numbers of religious students are attracted there by the fame of the Mullah even from distant places on both sides of the border, and the offerings of the faithful enable the Mullah to give a free-handed hospitality to one and all, and in Afghanistan there is no quicker road to influence than the ability to do this. It was a tradition in the villages round that when the Mullah daily prepared his saucepans of rice and cakes of unleavened bread in his kitchens, the amount was always found to be sufficient for the pilgrims of that day, even though hundreds might come in before night, unexpected and unprepared for.

After imbibing not only his theological teaching, but his religious and political ideals, these students are scattered far and wide from Kabul to Peshawur, and from Zwat to Waziristan, where they become his staunch adherents against rival Mullahs or against a materialistic Government. The more fanatical of these Mullahs do not hesitate to incite their pupils to acts of religious fanaticism, or ghaza, as it is called. The ghazi is a man who has taken an oath to kill some non-Muhammadan, preferably a European, as representing the ruling race; but, failing that, a Hindu or a Sikh is a lawful object of his fanaticism. The Mullah instils into him the idea that if in so doing he loses his own life, he goes at once to Paradise, and enjoys the special delights of the houris and the gardens which are set apart for religious martyrs. When such a disciple has been worked up to the requisite degree of religious excitement, he is usually further fortified by copious draughts of bhang, or Indian hemp, which produces a kind of intoxication in which one sees everything red, and the bullet and the bayonet have no longer any terror for him. Not a year passes on the frontier but some young officer falls a victim to one of these ghazi fanatics. Probably the ghazi has never seen him before in his life, and can have no grudge against him as a man; but he is a “dog and a heretic,” and his death a sure road to Paradise.

One summer afternoon in Bannu I went out with some of our schoolboys who were training for the mile race in the coming school tournament. I was accompanying them on my bicycle as they were running round the polo-ground, where some officers of the garrison were enjoying a game of golf. Suddenly a young Afghan of some eighteen summers, who had been able to arm himself with no more formidable weapon than a sharp axe, rushed up to one of the officers, and, before he could realize what was coming, dealt him a violent blow across the neck. The officer partly shielded himself with his golf-club, and probably thereby saved his life, for the axe came within a hair-breadth of severing the main arteries, and before the fanatic could deal another stroke he was felled to the ground by a blow from another officer with his golf-club. He was only a village youth, with little knowledge of the world, but had been incited to this act of suicidal fanaticism by a Mullah, who, without the grit to become a martyr himself, thought it an act of piety to incite the ignorant boy to the murder of an innocent fellow-creature at the sacrifice of his own life. In this case it became known who the Mullah in question was, and which was the mosque in which he had given this teaching, and while the boy himself suffered the extreme penalty of the law, the Mullah and the mosque were not exempted from its operation. The former was transported to the Andamans and the latter dismantled. Still, it is well known that other Mullahs are daily engaged in the same teaching on both sides of the frontier, and other young bloods are equally desirous of obtaining the sweets of martyrdom.