ABDUR-RAHMAN AND HIS SON.*

THB visit of his Majesty the Amir Habib-ullah Khan to Lord Minto, following so closely upon the somewhat futile Mission of Sir Louis Dane, invests with an especial interest any first- hand information from the mysterious region that lies beyond the Khyber. And Mr. Martin, who for the eight years 1895-1902 was Engineer-in-Chief to the present Amir and his father before him, has much to tell that is new and illuminating. For part of that time he was the only Englishman in Kabul, and he formed one of the tiny band of Europeans whose lives hung in the balance at the critical moment of Habib-Wish's accession. He possesses a lively pen and an observant eye, and some of his drawings reproduce the effects of Oriental portraiture in a quite unusual degree. The book will rank with Dr. Gray's entertaining volume, My Residence at the

• Under the Absolute Amis By Prank A. Martin. Moslasted by the Author'. Drawings and Photographs, sad by other Photographs. London; Harper sad Brothers. [10o. Sel. net.]

Court of the Amir, and with Miss Daly's record of Eight Years among the Afghans, for its description of a people and a country with which some of the most melancholy pages in Anglo-Indian history are indelibly connected.

The Afghanistan that Abdur-rahman bequeathed to Habib- nllah is a very different heritage from the welter of blood. feuds and warring tribes which marked the years of the last British occupation :—

"Abdur-rahman was undoubtedly the strongest ruler Afghanistan has ever known," says Mr. Martin," for when he came to the throne lawlessness reigned and had reigned for all time throughout the country. and no man's life was safe who could not protect himself; and when he died a solitary traveller might journey from one end of the country to the other in safety. He was also a man of great personal courage, as those who fought against him knew, and he was relentless in vengeance for any wrong done Ruthless even when judged by Oriental standards, he swept all dynastic rivals from his path. By alternations of force and treachery he deprived the hill clansmen of their leaders, and he suppressed rising after rising in fire and blood. His hand was heavy on the Moollahe, who regarded him as little better than a Kafir or infidel. An elaborate system of espionage borrowed from his Russian hosts made him aware of the earliest breath of ambition or disaffection. He put down brigandage by the simple expedient of a heavy fine on all villages within a ten-mile radius, and by quartering a regiment or two of soldiers on the district until payment was secured. These dragannades were seldom known to fail When an Afghan soldier is quartered on any one he takes the best of everything in the house, the best bed, the best room, and best food, and it there are no fowls or sheep the man of the house must procure them at ones even if he has to sell all he has to get them. If he does not do this, then the butt end of a rifle is applied to the small of his back, or even worse befalls."

The least infraction of the law was punished with horrible cruelty ; death was "the King's mercy," and Mr. Martin's chapters on the Afghan penal code are a catalogue of blindings, flaying's, starvings, beatings, and miscellaneous mutilations which the squeamish reader would do well to avoid. The prisons are dens of filth and misery compared with which the Khalifa's House of Stone was a model penitentiary. The terrible "old well" in the Bala Hisser challenges comparison with the " bag-hole " at Bokhara in which Stoddart and Conolly were left by a British Govern- ment to die. It was no light thing to cross Abdar-rahman in the hour of his displeasure :—

" When roused to anger his face became drawn and his teeth would show until he looked wolfish, and then he hissed words rather than spoke them, and there were few of those before him who did not tremble when he was in that mood, for it was then that the least fault involved some horrible punishment."

And the Amir was an adept at making the penalty fit the crime. Mr. Rndyard Kipling was not inventing when he told, in his "Ballad of the King's Test," how

"Hotfoot, southward, forgotten of God, Back to the city ran Wall Dad,"

to warn the Amir of the coming Russian invasion, and how "Those who would laugh restrained their breath When the face of the King showed dark as death."

Very quietly the Monarch bade the messenger mount a peach-tree on the wall and shout aloud when he saw the approaching host. Sentries with fixed bayonets were set below, and at the end of seven days and nights the miserable Wall. Dad "fell and was caught on the points and died."

No wonder that Abdur-rahman was hated as much as he was feared, and that a plot was set on foot to seize his lifeless body and cut it into pieces for the dogs. Yet he had the virtues as well as the vices of the Oriental despot. He had graduated in the hard school Of adversity. He had eaten the bread of exile, and had been hunted like a partridge on the hills. Possessed of very exceptional ability, he was as conscientious in all matters of routine as Philip IL of Spain. His whole time and attention was given to the task before him, working from the hour he quitted his bed until he lay down again " He put off no work until a later date that was possible of completion, but tried to get each day's work finished the same day It was his custom to sit up working most of the night and not to retire to restuntil about four in the mcening. Ho vrould than rise between twelve and two o'clock in the day, and after dressing and food would hold durba,r. This. habit of keeping awake most of the night was probably due to fear of a rising, or treachery, which would be attempted atnight rather tharidming the day when all the people were about."

He spent comparatively little time in the company of the women of the harem serai, and his amusements were few and simple,—indoors, chess, at which he was an expert, and the broad repartees of the Court jester; out-of-doors, duck. shooting in the marshy plains so long as his health permitted. He was passionately fond of flowers, and woe betide the gardeners if the proper bloom and fragrance were wanting. And he was full of aspirations for the good of those over whom he ruled. When he started his workshops he told Mr. Martin that his intention was not only to be able to turn out guns and rifles, but to educate his people :—

"He said he wanted to teach them the trades of other countries in order that they might raise themselves to a level with the people of other nations, whereby they would not only make them- selves and their country as prosperous as others were, but also by having an interest in work, would lose their habits of idleness which caused them to drift into lawlessness and wrongdoing. He afterwards complained many times that, in spite of all he had done for them, his people were still the same, and that although he had killed so many thousands, the lesson failed to have the effect he desired on the rest of his subjects."

His failure, however, was largely due to the absence of a class of trained subordinates whom he could trust, to the corruption and misconduct of officials, who invariably abused any authority that might be given them, and to his own unwillingness to persevere with any scheme which did not offer immediate reimbursement.

During the term of his engagement Mr. Martin was fre- quently admitted to the much-coveted privilege of a private audience with the Aniir, who could assume, when he chose, the most gracious, courtly manner, and would tell stories of his vicissitudes and his exile in Russia, much as Charles H. loved to discourse in the galleries at Whitehall on Worcester fight and the Royal oak :— " When with the Amir on an occasion like this, it was unnecessary to talk one's self. The Amir did all the talking, and all he required of one was to listen and answer shortly, except when some matter required full explanation, and then he would listen very attentively. In relating anything humorous he would laugh very heartily, sometimes rolling on his bed, but whether serious or laughing, the Amir was always the king, and there was that about him which forbade any one taking advantage of his humour In appearance he looked about forty-five years of age, although nearer sixty, and this was due to his hair and beard being dyed black, making him look younger than he was. In person he was very stout and broad, with a rather long body and short legs. His eyes were very dark, almost black, and looked out from under his heavy brows with quick keen glances, while in complexion he was sallow, but his skin was not darker than the average Portuguese. The Amir had a full set of false teeth, and these he would take out at times and lish with his handkerchief while continuing to speak, but the • erenoe in his pronunciation made it difficult to follow him. He once handed me his teeth to examine, and explained that one of his own men

had made them for him, having learnt the art from an English dentist."

Though Abdur-rahman had taken every precaution to ensure his son's peaceable accession, the event was in grave doubt. It was confidently expected by all classes in Kabul that the death of the Amir would be the signal for a general insurrection, in which the Army would lead. The well-to-do buried their jewels and treasure, laid in provisions, and prepared to stand a siege in their houses. The wild tribes- men from the hills flocked in like vultures on the scent of loot. The morning that Habib-ullah was proclaimed before the troops, one regiment raised the battle-my of revolt, and a general mutiny was only averted by the loyalty of the Guard and the want of a leader. They were terribly anxious days for the little European colony, six in all,—Miss Daly, Mr. Martin, Mr. Fleischer and his wife, child, and nurse. The escort could not be depended on to fight against their own people, and it was known that the "infidels" would be the first to be attacked :— " Although we talked the matter over thoroughly, we could see no means of escape from the city or the country, and there seemed nothing to be done to safeguard ourselves but to decide on getting all together in one home as soon as rioting started, provided we had sufficient time to do so, and barricade and defend that as long as possible."

it was always said that Sir Salter Pyne, Mr. Martin's prede- cessor, had a fleet horse standing ready to be saddled day and night on which to ride for his life if anything happened to Abdur-rahrnan. His one chance was to reach a certain ford on the 'Kabul River before the avengers were fairly on his track.

It is not so easy to extract from Mr. Martin's pages a clear conception of Habib-ullah Khan. Some of the stories about him contained in these pages make him as cruel as his father without the latter's excuse. For some time after his accession his position was an exceedingly difficult one, and the elements of danger still remain. "He has neither the experi- ence nor the self-reliance of his father." He was profuse in promises of reform at the time of his accession, but they have not been kept, and the country is getting poorer and poorer every year. Discontent is rife, for high taxation is driving the people from their lands to seek work as coolies, food is growing dearer and fuel scarcer, and epidemics are .constantly recurrent.

The present Amir resembles his father in his love of out- door sports, and in spite of his bulk he can stand a good deal of fatigue. He is fond of hawking and shooting, and drives his own dog-cart. He likes to watch tennis and cricket, the latter especially, because it resembles the national game of toophazee ; but his principal amusement is cooking, in which, it is said, he can excel the beat professional among his subjects. He also takes the keenest interest in things mechanical, and when quite a boy he was made chief officer of the Government workshops, in which capacity he visited them every week, and inspected each department He does not inherit his father's fondness for noisy merriment; he exacts the strictest decorum from all about him, and he seldom, if ever, unbends; he treats the moollahs with a respect to which they were entirely un- accustomed in his father's reign.

Politics in Eastern and Central Asia have undergone such changes since Mr. Martin left Kabul that his comments are somewhat out of date. Habib-ullah has now visited India, a step which he had previously declined on the ground that the internal government of his country required his constant presence. It is apparent, however, that the much-vaunted workshops have done little to increase the real efficiency of the Afghan Army. The guns are badly sighted and of short range ; the fuses are unreliable and the shells of small efficiency. Neither the rifles which are turned out in the Government shops nor the Gatlings and Maxims can be depended upon, and the home-made gunpowder fouls the bore after five or six rounds. Should Afghanistan ever be invaded again either from the north or south, her strength would lie, as it always has done, in her mountains, in her lack of roads, and in the untamable spirit of the Ghana and the hillmen. Mr. Martin considers that the cost of an effective army of occupation, by whatever foreign Power, would equal that of the whole Indian Army.