Chapter XII

An Afghan Football Team

The reader must imagine himself on a flat open piece of ground covered by the hard alluvial earth known in the Panjab as pat. This kind of earth is somewhat saline, and has a universally smooth surface, unbroken by grass or shrub, which is utilized by the villagers for their games and fairs, and by the British for the evolutions of their troops. Around are a number of Bannu villages, but the men and children have all collected round this piece of ground in their gala-day attire, for it is the Day of the Feast, “’Id-el-fitr,” or the Breaking of the Fast, following the month of Ramazan, and is to be celebrated as usual by sports and merry-making. All the men who own or can borrow a horse are mounted upon steeds of all descriptions, more or less richly caparisoned, according to the ability of the owner. Saddles are of the high-backed pattern universally used in Afghanistan, with a long wooden croup, which helps the rider to retain his seat. They are all carrying the long bamboo iron-tipped lance for their national sport of tent-pegging, or nezabazi, as the Afghans call it. Some of the boys who are there as spectators are mounted two or even three on a horse, and others, mounted on riding camels, are able to get a good view of the games over the heads of the others.

The pegs, cut out of the wood of the date-palm, are fixed in the ground, three or four abreast, so that an equal number of horsemen may be able to compete simultaneously. The competitors, with their embroidered turbans and gay, many-coloured coats and shawls, form a brave show at one end of the course, as they pass the intervening time in showing off feats of horsemanship on their prancing chargers. Then, at a given word, three or four strike their heels into the horses’ sides—for they wear no spurs—and as often as not rousing their own excitement and that of their horses by shouting out the Muhammadan Kalimah (”La ilaha illa ’llahu, Muhammadun rasulu ’llah”), career wildly down on the pegs, and, if successful, gallop on triumphantly, waving the peg at the end of their lances.

This goes on till men and horses are weary, and then a new game commences. This is known as tod or kari. The people form a large circle; then some young athlete, stripped except for his loin-cloth, tied tightly round, or secured by a leather waistband, jumps lightly out into the arena, his muscular frame showing to advantage as he contracts his muscles under his glossy, well-oiled skin. Two other athletes, similar in attire and appearance, answer his challenge from the party on the opposite side. The endeavour of the challenger is to avoid capture, while yet allowing the pursuers to come near enough for him to give them at least three slaps with the open hand; while the pursuers in their turn try to seize him and throw him on to the ground, in which case they are adjudged the winners, and a fresh challenger comes forth. Both sides are apt to get very excited, and the throws are often so violent that bones are broken, or other injuries received; and if that side believes this to be due to malice prepense, the game not unfrequently terminates in a free fight.

These amusements and games go on until nightfall, when they may be followed by some fireworks, and competitors and spectators, both equally wearied, go home to their feast of pulao and halwa. Such scenes have no doubt been common in Afghanistan for centuries past, but the reader must now come with me to a different scene, and he will see how Western influences are changing even the sports of the people.

This time we are in a large grassy sward between Bannu city and the cantonments. There is a crowd, as before, of some thousands of spectators, but the football goal-posts and flags show that the game is something different. It is the day of the provincial tournament of all the schools of the province, and teams of the various frontier schools from Peshawur, Kohat, Dera Ismaïl Khan, as well as those of Bannu, have collected here to pit their skill and prowess against one another in games and athletics. The referee, an English officer from the garrison, has blown his whistle, and the youthful champions come out, amid the cheers of their supporters, from the opposite sides of the ground. The Bannu team are somewhat smaller in stature, and are wearing a uniform of the school colours—pink “shorts” and light blue shirts. The Peshawur team are heavier in build, and are wearing their blue-and-black uniform. The referee blows his whistle again, and both sides are exerting all their powers to reach their adversaries’ goal.

As the ball travels up and down, and the chances of one or other side appear in the ascendant, the cheers from their supporters redouble, and as goals are attempted and gained or lost the excitement of all the spectators is not less than may be witnessed at a similar match in England. The captain of the Bannu side is a native Christian, whose father is a convert from Muhammadanism; but the other Muhammadans and Hindus in his team are loyal to him to the backbone, and carry out his every order with that alacrity which displays the new esprit de corps which has developed in our mission schools.

On his outside left is a young Hindu, who carries the ball past the opposing half-backs and backs right up to the corner, from which he centres with great skill to the captain. The captain is, however, being marked by the other opposing back, so he passes to a Muhammadan lad on his inside right, and then the whole line of forwards—Muhammadan, Hindu, and Christian—rush the ball through the goal, amid the triumphant cheers of their side.

The game is restarted, and Peshawur makes a number of desperate rallies and skilful rushes, which, however, are all foiled by the vigilance of the Bannu backs and the agility of the goal-keeper, a tall Muhammadan lad, whose weight and height both tell in his favour. Once one of the Peshawur forwards brought the ball right up to the mouth of the goal. The Bannu custodian seized it, but the Peshawari was upon him. The goal-keeper held the ball securely, awaited the charge of the Peshawari, who bounded back off him as from a wall, and then cleared the ball with his fist far up the field to the Bannu left half. The whistle for “time” is sounded, and the Bannu boys rush into the field and carry off their victorious schoolfellows shoulder high, amid great clapping and cheering.

The next day the final cricket-match is held. In this the Dera Ismaïl Khan boys are pitted against one of the Peshawur teams. Peshawur has already defeated Bannu and Kohat, and the Dera Ismaïl Khan boys have disposed of the other Peshawur team. All the technicalities of the game are observed with as much punctiliousness as in England, and their white flannels show off well under the bright Indian sun, and but for their dark faces and bare feet one might imagine that he was watching a public school match in England. To-day the laurels rest with Dera Ismaïl Khan, and they triumphantly bear off a belt with silver shields awarded annually to the winning team.

The old order changes and gives place to the new. Tent-pegging will always retain its charm, with its brave show and splendid opportunities for the display of manly courage and dextrous horsemanship, so dear to a militant nation like the Afghans, and will always remain their favourite pastime. But the simpler native games are gradually giving place to the superior attractions of cricket and football, and the tournaments which of recent years have been organized between the various native regiments and between the different tribes inhabiting each district and between the schools of the provinces are doing much to create a spirit of friendly rivalry, and to develop among these frontier people a fascination for those sports which have done so much to make England what she is. Some tribes among the Afghans, such as the Marwats, are very stay-at-home, and soon become homesick if they enlist in a regiment or undertake a journey. Others, like the Povindahs, are perhaps the greatest overland merchants of the East. They travel down from their mountains in Khorasan, through the passes in the North-West Frontier, and traverse with their merchandise the length and breadth of India, and numbers of them engaged in the trade in camels cross over the seas to Australia and take service there.

With the idea of developing the esprit de corps of the school, and gratifying their love of travel, while at the same time conferring on them the benefits of a well-planned educational tour through the chief cities of India, I arranged in the summer of 1906 to take the football team of the Mission High School at Bannu on a tour through a great part of Northern India. A number of colleges and schools from Calcutta to Karachi not only accepted our challenge for football matches, but offered us hospitality for such time as we should be in their town. Our team represented all classes—Muhammadans, Hindus, native Christians, and Sikhs. The captain of the team was an Afghan lad of the Khattak tribe, Shah Jahan Khan by name, while the vice-captain was a native Christian, James Benjamin. Various difficulties presented themselves, but all were eventually successfully surmounted. Stress of work and school duties compelled us to make the tour in the slacker time of the year—viz., in July, August, and September. This was also the hottest time in most of the places we visited, and some of the matches were played in a temperature bordering on 100° F., while the spectators were sitting under punkahs.

At this time of year the River Indus is in full flood, and presents a remarkable sight as, bursting forth from its rocky defile at Kalabagh, it spreads out over the flat alluvial plain of the Western Panjab. In the winter it may be confined to one, two, or three channels, each about one to four hundred yards wide; but in the early summer, swollen by the melting snows of the Himalayas, it overflows its banks, and not infrequently forms a wide expanse of water ten miles broad from bank to bank. At such a time the villages, which are built on the more raised areas of its bed, appear as little islands scattered here and there, the people of which get to and from the mainland in their boats. It is then that the tonga, or cart, has often to be dragged over miles of submerged road, with water from one to three feet deep, before it reaches the place where it is able to transfer its passengers and burden to the ferry-boats, which are waiting to carry them across the deeper portions of the river, and it may be that several changes from boat to cart and cart to boat have to be made before the traveller attains the farther shore, where is the railway-station and the train waiting to carry him down to Karachi or up to Lahore.

In our case, after getting across the main stream in the ferry-boat, we put our luggage into two carts, and, removing our superfluous clothing, started to trudge through the inundated country to the station of Darya Khan, on the eastern bank. Sometimes there was a quarter of a mile or so of fields not yet submerged; sometimes the water was up to our knees or hips for miles together, and in one place there was a deep channel about one hundred yards wide, where a ferry-boat was in readiness for the luggage, but we enjoyed having a swim across. Two of the team, who were less practised swimmers, and had miscalculated the strength of the current, found themselves being carried rapidly down the stream; but just as some of those who had already gained the opposite bank were about to return to the rescue, they found their feet on a sandbank, and were able to struggle across. The thirteen miles across the swollen river took us from nine in the morning till four in the afternoon, though it must be admitted we loitered several times to enjoy a swim in the cool waters of the deeper channels.

We found, too, that the football season differs in various places. While Calcutta plays football in July and August, Karachi plays from December to March, and Bombay in the spring. However, even those colleges which were not in their actual football season sportingly agreed to get up matches during our visit. In no place did we find greater enthusiasm among the colleges and schools for football and a more open-handed hospitality than in Hyderabad, the capital of the Nizam’s Government, and here our team experienced their first defeat in this tour.

We had had thirty hours’ travelling from Ahmadnagar, in the North, and the stations on this line were so ill supplied with refreshments that we had been unable to get anything except some biscuits and sweets, and, arriving at Hyderabad at midday, we found the match had been fixed for 4 p.m., so that the team had only time for a hastily-prepared meal before the match. The college of the Nizam put a strong team against us, and for the first time in the tour the Bannu boys were distinctly outmatched. It was, however, nice to see what good feeling was evinced by both teams in this and nearly all the matches of the tour, both sides fraternizing with the greatest bonhomie both before and after the matches, and friendships were made which continued long after our team got back to Bannu.

Tours such as this undoubtedly tend to promote that feeling of friendship and union between the races of various parts of India which has hitherto been so little in evidence. It also tends to widen sympathies and to lessen religious prejudices. Not only did the members of our team sink the prejudices which might have arisen from diversity of religious opinion, but our hosts, too, represented all classes and faiths. Thus, in Hyderabad the organizer of hospitality was a Christian missionary, the Rev. Canon Goldsmith. A house was lent us for residence by a Parsi gentleman, and dinners were given us by the Muhammadans of the place.

Further south the Hindus were more in evidence, and entertained us royally at Bezwada and Masulipatam. In the latter place we were the guests of the staff of the Noble College, belonging to the Church Missionary Society, and here an amusing incident took place. The boys in these parts are accustomed to play football with bare feet, and are light, lithe, and wiry, while our Northerners were heavy, big-boned, and wore the usual football boots; so it came about that when they saw our team arrive, their hearts melted within them for fear, and they refused to play unless our boys consented to play barefooted; and this they refused to do, as they had had no practice in playing like that. It seemed as though we should have to go away without a match, but a missionary there had a boarding-house of Christian lads of the district, and these sportingly declared that they were ready to play. Both teams appeared at the appointed time amid a great concourse of spectators. The Bannu boys, with their football boots, looked much the heavier team; but the Telegu boys proved themselves much the more nimble, and outran and ran round our boys time after time, and as the Bannu boys played very cleanly and were careful not to hack, they did not suffer from want of boots; but, on the other hand, several of our boys took off theirs at half-time, hoping thereby to become as nimble as their antagonists. They, however, lost by one goal to love, amid the greatest excitement. The teams which had refused to play were now most importunate in begging us to stop for other matches, but as we were engaged for a match next day at Guntur it could not be done.

With one exception, our Afghans had never seen the sea, and they were all greatly desirous of making its acquaintance. I accordingly arranged for the journey from Karachi to Bombay to be on one of the British India steamers which ply between those two ports. It was the height of the July monsoon, and they had not realized what their request entailed. There was a strong wind on our beam the whole of our forty hours’ journey, and the little steamer Kassara rolled continuously the whole time, the billows sometimes breaking over her fore-deck. All but three of them suffered the terrors of mal-de-mer in its worst form, and earnestly wished that they had never been so rash as to dare the terrors of the ocean at such a time. We arrived at Bombay amid a torrential rain—a bedraggled, dispirited, and staggering crew. It was pitch dark, and it was only with some difficulty that we found our way to the Money School of the Church Missionary Society, where we were to receive hospitality. The shops were closed and the watchman asleep, but after some delay we aroused him, got some tea at a belated coffee-shop, and lay down on the boards to wish for the morrow. It rained almost continuously during our stay at Bombay, but we managed one match with the City Club, of which the following account appeared in the Bombay Gazette:

One of the best matches of the tour was with the Y.M.C.A. of Karachi, which was thus described by the Sindh Gazette:

“An interesting football match was played on Tuesday evening last on the Howard Institute ground, between the team of the Y.M.C.A. and Dr. Pennell’s team of Pathan boys from the C.M.S. High School, Bannu. The first goal was scored soon after the match began, by a soft drive, and was in favour of Bannu. Almost immediately the Y.M.C.A. equalized by Bannu heading into their own goal during a mêlée from a corner kick. Soon afterwards the Y.M.C.A. took the lead through a clever run up by Wolfe, who passed neatly to Morton, who netted with a neat shot. On the whole play was very even till half-time, when the Y.M.C.A. led by two goals to one. At half-time the Y.M.C.A. lost the services of their outside right, who retired on account of a weak knee. Bannu generally took the lead in attacking, and scored twice again, the last time from a stinging shot well up the field. The Bannu team played consistently, and altogether without roughness. We are glad to have seen them in Karachi, and wish them all success in the remainder of their tour.”

From Guntur we travelled north to Calcutta, where a series of matches had been arranged, after which we had arranged a number of matches with the schools and colleges of the United Provinces of Agra and Oudh, and those of the Panjab; but an unforeseen and unaccountable misadventure brought our tour to a premature conclusion a few hours before the time fixed for our departure from Calcutta. It was the outcome of one of those waves of unrest which followed the outburst of the storm with which the Bengalis exhibited their resentment at the partition of Bengal. The Bengalis had organized a boycott of European goods, and in the fervour of their campaign had placed a number of boy sentinels at the doors of the shops of those merchants who dealt in articles of Western manufacture. These were largely Marwari merchants from the Bombay Presidency, and they thought to relieve themselves of this wasp-like horde of boy sentinels by circulating the rumour that a number of Panjabis and Afghans had come down from the North to kidnap boys and children whom they could lay hands on. This rumour was widely believed by the credulous mob of Calcutta, and, all unknown to us, who were ignorant even of the existence of the rumours, our team had been pointed out as some of the probable kidnappers.

We had returned on the morning of August 23, 1906, from playing a number of matches in Krishnagar, and were to leave Calcutta the same afternoon to play a match the following day at Bhagalpur. The team had broken up into two parties to get their breakfast in one of those eating shops which abound in the Calcutta Bazaar, and I had gone along to Howrah Station to purchase the tickets. It was a hot day, and on my return I stopped at a refreshment shop in the Harrison Road, near the Church Mission Boarding-House, where we were stopping, to get a glass of lemonade.

I was sitting quietly drinking it in the shop front, when I noticed the whole bazaar was in an uproar. The crowd was rushing to and fro, and the shopkeepers were hurriedly putting up their shutters. All ignorant of the fact that it was my own boys who were being attacked, I quietly finished my glass and strolled back to our hostel, thinking there was no reason why I should trouble myself about affairs of Calcutta which did not concern me. No sooner had I entered the gates of the compound when I saw one of our team—Rahim Bakhsh—his face covered with blood, and another one injured. “Do you not know,” cried one, “that our boys have been murderously assaulted, and perhaps killed?” “Where are they?” I hurriedly asked. “They are probably in the hospital by this time.” A cab was passing at the moment, and I jumped in, and drove off to the hospital. Running up into the casualty room, I was horrified to find six of the team lying about with their clothes all torn and covered with blood and mud. Their heads had been shaved by the casualty dressers, and were so cut and swollen that I could not recognize them all until I had spoken to them, and then for the first time I learnt what had happened.

A party of nine had gone in a refreshment room, and were having their breakfast. Meanwhile they noticed that a crowd of many hundreds had collected outside. Scarcely realizing that they were the cause of the crowd, after finishing their meal, they came out to return to the Mission Boarding-House, but were met by cries on all sides: “These are the kidnappers! Kill them! kill them!” Even now they did not understand the cause of the excitement, but when they asked what it was all about, and what was wanted from them, they were only answered by derisive shouts and a shower of stones and brickbats. Before they had time to organize any resistance they were separated one from another, in the midst of a raging mob, who belaboured them with stones and sticks until they fell senseless in the street. Two only managed to escape—Rahim Bakhsh, whom I had met in the hostel, and one other, who had managed to get into a passing carriage.

Five of them, having been reduced to a state of insensibility, were taken by the mob and thrown into a back alley, where the blood from their wounds continued to flow and trickle down in a red stream into the street gutter. One of them—Ganpat Rai—was rescued by a friendly Bengal gentleman, who bundled him into his house and attended to his wounds, and afterwards sent him under escort to the hospital. Another—Gurmukh Das—was being belaboured by some ruffians while lying in the middle of the road, when an English gentleman passed in his carriage. Naturally indignant at what he saw, he jumped down and asked them what they thought themselves to be, beating a senseless man in that way; and if he had committed a crime, why did they not take him to the police-station? Someone in the crowd called out, “This Englishman is their officer: let us kill him!” and, leaving the boy, they all set on him. He defended himself for some time, when some ruffian, coming up behind, turned a basket over his head, and it would have gone hard with him had not some friendly natives pulled him into the Ripon College, which was close at hand.

We would fain have got away from Calcutta as soon as the condition of the wounded enabled us to travel, for the unaccustomed diet and climate was affecting the health of all of us; but we found ourselves prisoners to the will of the Government, who required us to remain in Calcutta as witnesses in the prosecution which the Government was instituting, and we had to spend day after day of weary waiting, hanging about the police-courts of Bow Street Bazaar. The police had secured a number of men who had been shown to have taken part in the riot, and most of these had secured barristers and pleaders for their defence; consequently, there was a formidable array of advocates on the side of the defence, each one of whom thought it his duty to cross-examine each member of the team at tedious length, and regardless of some of the questions having been asked us time after time by his brothers of the law.

The brow-beating and cross-examining which we had to undergo could not have been worse had we been the aggressors instead of the victims, while the irrelevancy of the questions and the needless waste of time, entailing constant postponement from day to day, was exceedingly trying to us in our wounded and feeble condition, only anxious to get back to our homes on the frontier. The barristers and pleaders of the defence professed notwithstanding to be very sympathetic with us in our troubles, and one and another would come up and say something like this: “We people of Calcutta are most sorry for this very unfortunate occurrence. No doubt most of the men in the dock are guilty, and should be punished for so unwarranted an attack on innocent travellers, but there is one man who has been arrested by some mistake of the police. He had nothing to do with it, and should be released, because he is quite innocent.” As in each case the man “arrested by mistake” proved to be the one for which the barrister was holding a brief, their protestations lost something of their force.

A more pleasant feature was the genuine sympathy shown by a certain section of the Bengalis, a sympathy which was voiced by the Hon. Surendra Nath Bannerji, who convened a public meeting, in which he expressed the regrets of the Calcutta citizens in an address which was presented to us in a silver casket.

At last the court, taking pity on our uncomfortable condition, consented to take our examination and cross-examination previous to that of the hundred and more witnesses which the defence were going to bring, and which would have entailed some months’ stay in Calcutta, had we been kept back to the end of the trial.

When we reached Bannu we were honoured with a civic reception, which went far to make up to the members of the team for the discomforts that they had undergone. The Civil Officer of the district, the Municipal Commissioners, and a great number of the citizens, met us with a band some few miles before reaching Bannu, and we were escorted in amid great rejoicings.

Chapter XIII

’Alam Gul’s Choice

Pir Badshah was a well-to-do farmer of the Bangash tribe, not far from Kohat, and he had married a woman of the Afridi tribe from over the border, called Margilarri, or “the Pearl.”

He had not to pay for her, because it was arranged that his sister was to marry her brother, and in cases where an exchange like this is made nothing further is required.

They had two sons, ’Alam Gul and Abdul Majid. The father intended that the elder should be educated, and one day he hoped would become a great man, perhaps Tahsildar (meaning Revenue Officer) of the British Government, so he was going to give him the best education he could afford; while Abdul Majid was to look after the lands and become a farmer, for which it is not supposed that any education is necessary.

Pir Badshah was very orthodox and punctilious in all the observances of his religion, so the two boys were not to learn anything else until they had sat at the feet of the village Mullah, and learnt to read the Quran.

The mosque was a little building on the hillside. It was built of stones cemented together with mud, and in the centre was a little niche towards the setting sun, where the Mullah, with his face towards Mecca, led the congregation in their prayers. There was a wooden verandah, the corners of which were ornamented with the horns of the markhor, or mountain goat. Beyond this was the open court, in which prayers were said when the weather was fine, and either in this verandah or the courtyard ’Alam Gul and his brother used to sit at the feet of the old Mullah, reciting verses from the Quran in a drawling monotone, and swaying their bodies backwards and forwards in the way that all Easterns learn to do from the cradle when reciting or singing.

When they had finished the Quran and learnt the prayers and other essentials of the Muhammadan religion, ’Alam Gul was sent to the village school, while Abdul Majid began to make himself useful on the farm.

He used to go out with his father’s buffaloes to take them to pasture, and sometimes he used to take his brother out for a ride on one of these ungainly animals. Then, when the harvest was ripening, a bed was fastened up at the top of four high poles, and he had to sit all day on this to protect the crops from the birds. For this purpose cords are fastened across the field up to the bed, and oil-cans or other pieces of tin are fastened to them here and there, so that as Abdul Majid had all the ends of the cords in his hands, he could make a din in any part of the field where he wished to frighten away the birds, and sometimes was able to take half a dozen home for the evening meal.

’Alam Gul, on the other hand, was being initiated into the mysteries of the Hindustani language and of arithmetic.

The school was a little mud building in the centre of the village, and the schoolmaster was a Muhammadan from the Panjab, who found himself rather uncomfortable in the midst of these frontier Pathans, whose language seemed to him so uncouth and their habits so barbarous. His meagre salary of ten rupees (13s. 4d.) a month was somewhat augmented by his holding the additional post of village postmaster; but it had this disadvantage—that when one of the villagers came in to buy an envelope, and get the postmaster to address it, as probably he did not know how to write himself, teaching had to be dropped for a season: for it must be remembered that for a Pathan villager to send off a letter is quite an event, and he may well afford to spend a quarter of an hour or so, and give the postmaster a few annas extra to get it properly addressed and despatched to his satisfaction. Meantime, ’Alam Gul and his companions would take the opportunity of drawing figures on the sand of the floor, or of playing with a tame bullfinch or a quail, which they were fond of bringing into the school.

To make up for these little interruptions, the schoolmaster used to sit from morning to night, and expect his pupils to be there almost as long, only giving them an interval of about an hour or so in the middle of the day to go home and get their morning meal. Friday used to be a whole holiday, for it was on that day that all the men of the village had to assemble in the mosque for the morning prayers, and when these were over ’Alam Gul used to go out with some of the elder village boys to catch quails in the fields. This they did by means of a long net spread across about thirty or forty feet of the field. The quails were driven up into this, and the meshes of it were of such a size that, though they could get their heads through, their wings became hopelessly entangled, and they fell an easy prey to the fowlers. The male quails were then kept in little string or wicker baskets for the great quail fights, which were one of the chief excitements and pastimes of the village. This pastime is one of the most universal in Afghanistan, and even well-to-do men think there is no shame in spending a great part of the day toying with their favourite quails, and backing the more redoubtable ones against some quail belonging to a friend, while all the men of the neighbourhood will be collected round to see the two champions fight.

’Alam Gul had to spend five years in this school. At the end of this time the Government Inspector came round to examine the pupils for the Government primary examination. This was an eventful day for the schoolmaster, for on the report of the Inspector his promotion to some more congenial sphere and the increase of his salary would depend. The boys, too, were all excitement, for if they passed this examination, they would be allowed to go to the big school at Hangu or Kohat.

The schoolmaster would spend days drilling them how they were to answer the questions of the Inspector; how they were to salaam him; how they were to bring him a hookah if he required one, bring him tea, or do him any other service which it might be supposed would put him in a better mood for making a good report of the school.

The Inspector was a Peshawuri Pathan of portly presence (it is commonly believed that among the upper ranks of native Government officials a man’s salary may be gauged by the girth of his body) and of supercilious manners, as though his chief aim in life were to criticize everyone and everything.

All the boys had put on their best clothes for the occasion, and ’Alam Gul had borrowed the turban which his father was accustomed to wear on feast days.

On the arrival of the Inspector, the boys hurriedly got into line. The schoolmaster called out: “Right-hand salute!” for though not a boy in the school knew a word of English, it is the custom to give all the class orders in that language. Then one boy was hurried off to hold his horse, another to go and get it some hay, a third to get a chair for the great man, while the schoolmaster himself was obsequious in obeying his every sign.

The boys were examined in Urdu, writing and reading, arithmetic, geography, and Persian. There were five boys altogether in the top class, and of these, to the delight of the schoolmaster, the Inspector declared four to have passed, among them being ’Alam Gul.

His father wanted to send ’Alam Gul to the Government school at Kohat, but ’Alam Gul had a friend who had been reading in the Bannu Mission School, and the tales that he had heard from him had given him a great desire to be allowed to go there to study. His father, however, was opposed to the idea, because the Mullah told him that people who went to mission schools must become infidels, because they were taught by Feringis, who were all infidels, and that if he sent his son there he would excommunicate him.

There would have been no hope of ’Alam Gul attaining his wish had it not been that just at that time the Subadar (native officer), an uncle of ’Alam Gul’s, came to the village on leave from his regiment, which was stationed at Bannu, and it so happened that he had made the acquaintance of the missionary in charge of the Bannu School, and had been very favourably impressed with what he had seen of the institution, and he offered to take ’Alam Gul back with him to the regiment, and let him live with him.

The father had now to propitiate the Mullah, so he killed a sheep, and made some luscious dishes with the meat, and some halwa, or sweet pudding, which is supposed to be a delicacy to which the Mullahs are very partial, and called his reverence in to partake of the feast; and when his heart was merry, he propounded the scheme to him.

After he had heard the arguments of the Subadar, the Mullah relented, and said that he knew how to make a charm which, if it were always worn round the boy’s neck, would effectually prevent him from being contaminated by any heretical teaching which he might have in the school; and if ’Alam Gul were admonished to be careful always to wear this charm, he might safely be allowed to go with his uncle. So when the leave of the latter expired, ’Alam Gul was put into his charge, and went off with great excitement, filled with hopes of what he would do in the great school of which he had heard so much.

The day after his arrival in Bannu the Subadar sent ’Alam Gul down to the school in charge of a soldier of his regiment.

The soldier and ’Alam Gul came into the mission compound, and, seeing some boys standing about, told them their errand. One of the boys offered to take them to the head-master. They were taken to the school office, and here they found the head-master. He was an old gentleman with a grey beard and a kindly face, Mr. Benjamin by name. When a young man he had himself been converted from Muhammadanism to Christianity, so that he was able to sympathize with the religious difficulties of the boys under his charge, and he had been for thirty years head-master in this school, and was looked up to by the boys as their father.

’Alam Gul’s certificates were examined, and he was told what books he must obtain, and that if he came the next morning he would be enrolled as a scholar of the Bannu Mission School.

This being an Anglo-vernacular school, where English is taught in all but the very lowest classes, boys who come from the village schools have to spend one whole year in learning English, in order that the following year they may be able to take their place with the other boys in the class to which they are entitled; so ’Alam Gul was enrolled in this, which is called the “Special Class.”

The next day the soldier again brought him, and left him alone in the school. Here he was surrounded by a greater number of boys than he had ever seen before in his life—boys of all ages, all sorts, all sizes, and all religions.

There were some Muhammadans from his district, but none from his village, or that he knew, so he felt very nervous, and wished himself back again in the little village school on the mountain-side among his old playmates.

Then the letters of the English language seemed so uncouth and different from the euphonious sounds of the Arabic and Persian alphabet, to which he had been accustomed.

“A, B, C,” said the master, and “A, B, C,” repeated the other boys in the class; but he found he could not shape his mouth to these unfamiliar sounds, and tears began to flow at the apparent hopelessness of the task which he had undertaken with so much enthusiasm. However, day by day the work grew easier, and new friends and acquaintances began to be made among his class-mates. Every day there was some fresh astonishment for him.

In the village school he had played what they called Balli-ball, a village imitation of cricket, played with rough imitations of bats and wickets; but here he found that every class had its own cricket team, which played with real polished bats and balls brought all the way from Lahore. And above all was the School Eleven, composed of boys who were looked up to by young hopefuls of the lower classes, much as we might regard a County Eleven in England—boys who played in real wilayiti flannels, and had matches with the English officers of the garrison, and saw that the other boys in the school treated them with the respect due to their position.

’Alam Gul wondered if ever the day would come when he would find himself numbered among this favoured throng. It was not long before the captain of his class told him that he must come and practise, to see if they could make him one of their class cricket team. He would have accepted with alacrity had it not been for one circumstance, which gave his unformed religious ideas a rude shock. The captain of the party was a Hindu! It seemed to him ignominious, if not subversive of his religion, that he should subject himself to the orders of a Hindu class-fellow, and he would have refused had not a Muhammadan from his district, reading in the class above him, to whom he confided his scruples, laughed at him, and said: “You silly fellow! we do not trouble about that here; everyone has his religion ordained by Fate. What does it matter, be he Muhammadan, Hindu, or Christian, if he play cricket well?” When his fears had been thus allayed, ’Alam Gul joined his party, and soon became as enthusiastic a member of it as any.

A year passed, and he was promoted to the first middle class, where he took up the full curriculum of subjects, learning not only English, but arithmetic, Urdu, Persian, Arabic, geography, Indian history, and elementary science.

Before he had been many months in this class he was attacked by malarial fever, which is so virulent in the Bannu Valley in the autumn months. His uncle sent a soldier to say that he had sent him back to his village in charge of a man of his regiment, and that he would come back after recovering; so his name was entered on the roll of those absent for sick-leave.

About three weeks later his father himself appeared at the school one day, and requested to interview the head-master.

After the usual salutations were over, the father began:

“Sir, I have a request to make.”

“What is it?”

“I wish you to strike the name of my son off the roll-call of your school.”

“Why so? What has happened?”

“He is ill—very ill.”

“But I have given him sick-leave. He can stop at home as long as he is ill, and then come back to school. His name can remain on the register, and he return when he is quite well.”

“Certainly, he will come back if he recovers; but, then, he is very ill. Supposing he were to die?”

“If he were to die, then what matter whether his name be on our register or not?”

“Sir, the Mullah tells me that if he die with his name still on the register of the mission school, he could never go to heaven.”

Arguments were useless, and the head-master had perforce to satisfy the father by giving the boy a leaving certificate.

Ultimately, however, ’Alam Gul recovered, and was allowed to go back to the mission school; but a few months later the regiment in which his uncle the Subadar was was transferred to another station, and the uncle wished to take his nephew with him there. But the boy had by this time formed a great attachment to the school, and begged to be allowed to remain, so it was arranged that he should be entered in the school boarding-house.

This hostel accommodated a number of those pupils whose homes were too far from Bannu for them to attend as day scholars, and who had no relations in the town with whom they might lodge. Each boy is provided with a bedstead and a mat, and he brings his own bedding, books and utensils.

The first night ’Alam Gul felt very strange. Instead of the small crowded room of his house was a large airy dormitory, shared by some twenty of his schoolfellows. At one end of the dormitory was the room of the Superintendent, so that he could supervise the boys both by day and night. The Superintendent was a Hindu, but ’Alam Gul had got used by this time to respect his masters, even though they were not Muhammadan, and had overcome some of his old prejudice. As the Superintendent treated him kindly, and there was a Muhammadan friend of his in the next bed, he was soon very happy there.

Attached to the hostel was a pond of water supplied daily from the Kurram River, in which it was the duty of every boarder to bathe regularly. This tank served other purposes too, as ’Alam Gul found to his cost. It was the rule that all boarders were to be up and have their bedding tidily folded by sunrise. The Principal of the school every now and again paid surprise visits to the boarding-house about that time, and woe betide the luckless boy who was found still asleep in bed! Two of the monitors were told to take him by the head and heels and swing him far into the middle of the tank.

’Alam Gul had not been many weeks in the boarding-house before one morning he overslept himself, and before he had time to rub his eyes or change his clothes he found himself plunged in the water, which at that time—the early spring—was cold enough to become a real incentive to early rising.

Schoolboys freshly joined were often found to have the bad habit of freely abusing each other, and using foul language. The swimming-tank formed an excellent corrective for this too, because the boy found guilty was treated in the same way, being pitched in with all his clothes on, and allowed to creep out and dry himself at leisure.

Once, indeed, ’Alam Gul felt very much like leaving the school altogether. Every day in each class a period is set apart for the Scripture lesson. At first ’Alam Gul did not wish to be present at this, but when he found that all the other boys attended it without demur, and remembered the power of the charm which the Mullah had given him, he thought it did not, after all, matter; he need not pay attention to what was taught, and so he went. But this day a verse came to his turn to read in which were the words, “Jesus Christ, the Son of God.” He remained silent. The catechist who was teaching him said:

“Why do you not read?”

“I cannot read that.”

“Why, what is wrong? Read it.”

“That is blasphemy. God had no son. I cannot read that.”

“It is written in the Book, and you must read it.”

“I will not read it!”

The catechist was not willing, however, to grant him exemption, and gave him some punishment.

’Alam Gul had a fit of Pathan temper then, and there was a serious breach of discipline, which could not be overlooked. Before, however, he had time to arrange with his father for leaving the school, he had cooled down sufficiently to take a less prejudiced view of the case, and decided to undergo the discipline, and stay on with us.