How a Qizilbash warrior saved an Indian
woman from an Afghan
To men accustomed to the mildness of the European
Governments, the Turkish one appears barbarous. It is nevertheless a mild one,
when compared to the Government experienced by the Persians these eighty years.
Making a garden of men, as they term it, that is, burying a couple of hundred
of living men in the ground, some in an inverted position, with only their
thighs and legs out, and some with only their heads and arms, all the while
exposed to a raging sun, is no new, no uncommon practice. Shutting women in bags,
and then beating them with sticks, or pricking them with awls, at stat times,
until their fathers or husbands, fled into Turky or into India, should send up
such a sum of money, is a very common expedient. But the Persians themselves
are a civilized people, when compared to the Afghans of Candahar. In no part of
the world is human nature so abominably outraged.―Their method of carrying away
a male prisoner is this, although not even themselves would use it to carry an
ox or an ass. They bore a hole in his shoulder, under the clavicula bone so
remarkable in it, and passing a thong or rope through it, make the end of it
fast to their saddle, and then mount and trot away. If the prisoner cannot
follow at the rate of 30 or 40, 50 or 60 miles a day, he is instantly killed.
Anty-physicians of the first rate, no boy, no young man, of even twenty, can
escape them; and when disputes arise about a prize, the whole is pacified, by
cutting down the prize. The women, abused by them in an abominable manner, fled
from them, and always preferred a well, to an Afghan. Girls of twelve and
fourteen have become unmarriageable in their diabolical hands. And we have seen
a lady, who rather than submit to such an embrace, fought the Afghan
resolutely, although unarmed. He lifted his sabre, and was going to cut her
down, when she presented her arm loaded with one of those enormous bracelets, invented
by necessity, of two pounds weight of gold, and received the stroke upon
the gold, whilst she struck the man with the other bracelet, and made him
bleed; another stroke, another parade, and another heavy blow; a third; and the
poor woman fatigued, wounded, and spent, was going to fall. Nothing but a
miracle could save her, and a miracle was, in fact, wrought instantly. At the
moment of the third stroke, a Persian, one of the Cuzzelbash guards, hastening
his pace, cried out: In the name of God, most merciful! and with one
blow made the Afghan’s head fly off from his shoulders. The poor woman, who had
never been out of her house, and had never set a foot upon a street, marched
on, without knowing whither she went, and in the evening, she was lucky enough
to find her husband and family, at full twelve cosses from that fatal street.
We have spoke to the lady; she is at Lucknow, a Catrani by clan. Ex uno
disce omnes. An Afghan’s method of clearing himself, is a very plain one,
as the common soldiers wear nothing but felts, and go on with them for five
years together. He lights up a fire, straddles over it, and keeps his body and
abominable clothes in a semi-circular motion from right to left, and from left
to right. Nor are their officers much cleaner. Their beards and eye-brows swarm
with vermin, as well as their soldiers.
The Sëir Mutaqherin or review of modern times: being an history of
India, from the year 1118 to the year 1194, of the hedjrah, containing, in
general, the reigns of the seven last emperors of Hindostan, and, in particular,
an account of the English wars in Bengal; With a circumstantial detail of the
rise and fall of the families of Seradj-ed-Döwlah & Shudjah-ed-Döwlah, the
last sovereigns of Bengal and Owd. To which the author has added a critical
examination of the English government and policy in those countries, down to
the year 1783. The whole written in Persian, by Seid-Gholam-Hossein-Khan, an
Indian nobleman of high rank, who wrote both as actor and spectator. Vol. III. ―
Calcutta: R. Cambray & Co., 1902, pp. 349—350.
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