While mention has been already made of those Europeans who have passed through Kabul in the service of the Court, there are two others who, by the folly of their conduct, have trailed the reputation of the white races through the filth of the Kabul bazaars. These two, the one, Frau Liebertziet, a German woman with a family in Germany, and for some time maid to Mrs. Fleischer, the other an English woman, have permitted their passions to thrust them beyond the limits of decency. Frau Liebertziet left behind in Kabul to attend to Mr. Fleischer’s wants when Mrs. Fleischer went on leave to Europe, turned native, adopted the Mahommedan faith and petitioned the Amir to be given a husband. The Afghans themselves refused the lady and Habib Ullah would not allow any Hindustani to marry her. In the end he provided her with a Kaffir boy who had been converted to Islamism. The English woman, having contracted an alliance in India with an Afghan camel-man, disguised herself as a native woman and crossed the frontier riding her husband’s camel. Her arrival in Kabul quickened the curiosity of every native in the bazaar, raising a sensation which brought the story very speedily to the ears of Habib Ullah. Unfortunately, to an ignorance of all European languages saving her own, she added but a meagre acquaintanceship with the tongues of Asia; as a consequence, when summoned to the presence of the Amir she was literally speechless. Habib Ullah sent for the German woman to speak with the English woman from India, but communion was impossible as each was ignorant of the other’s tongue. Indeed, it was not until Mrs. Cleveland, the wife of Major Cleveland, arrived in Kabul with her husband, coming at the same time as the Misses Brown, that any explanation was forthcoming. It may be said here that, in both cases, the Amir endeavoured to induce the women to return to India: unluckily, each was obdurate, and the pair have been converted to Islamism taking up their residence in the hovels of the Kabul bazaar, where, enclosed from the world, they endure an existence the sordid tragedy of which forbids more detailed description. For the benefit of those women in this country whose delight it is to associate with coloured blood—whether it flows in the veins of negroes from Africa, of natives from Egypt, or of princes and students from India—one is constrained to remark that their lives are a degradation and their conduct an infamy. So long as they transgress racial limitations they should be properly regarded as beyond the pale.

[42] “At the Court of the Amir.” Dr. A. T. Gray.

[43] “Eight Years among the Afghans,” Mrs. Kate Daly.