The Road to Oxiana (41 page)
Read The Road to Oxiana Online
Authors: Robert Byron
Seyid Jemal was in mad spirits. “Sarakh bisyar harab! What an absolutely rotten road!” he shouted, grinning at its shiny complexion. “Tonight you must be my guests in Khyber.” We passed Landi Kotal, where Hamber's regiment of Gurkhas was playing hockey, but saw no officers except those who whizzed by in tennis clothes and Morris cars, so that we could not deliver Hamber's messages. At Khyber village, a typical village of the pass, where every house was a fortified enclosure with its own watch-tower, Seyid Jemal stopped, and a crowd of scrofulous children leapt into the lorry, oblivious of our selves or luggage, to greet their father. The owner of the lorry, a walloping capitalist,
rushed out of his house to see how his property had fared on the Afghan roads. Seyid Jemal's assistant, lifting the front seat, disclosed a secret hoard of Russian sugar purchased in Mazar. His relations arrived too, and the whole village was soon assembled in a ring to welcome the lost, after three months' absence.
We should have liked to accept Seyid Jemal's invitation. It would have been amusing to have walked over to the Landi Kotal barracks next day and revealed casually that we were staying down the road with our chauffeur. But even now we are not sure if we shall catch the
Maloja
at Bombay. With his usual good-humour Seyid Jemal forsook his family and took us on. The hills opened out, disclosing the level tree-scattered eternity of India. At half-past seven we were drinking gin fizzes in the marble lounge of Dean's Hotel.
We said goodbye to Seyid Jemal with real regret. Between Mazar and Peshawar he had driven us altogether 840 miles. He was never ill-tempered or depressed by obstacles, but always calm and amused, punctual, polite, and efficient. During the whole journey, over the most difficult roads a motor could tackle, we did not once see the tool-box opened or a tyre changed.
The lorry was a Chevrolet.
The Frontier Mail
,
June 21st
.âWe stopped the night at Delhi, and next morning, before the sun was up, were standing beneath Lutyens's memorial arch. A few novelties have been added since the Viceroy went into residence: Jagger's Assyrio-Cartier elephants, a plan of the city in gold on the base of; the Jaipur Column, and statues of Irwin and Reading, which commonise the Great Palace. I suggested to Lord Irwin he should be done by Epstein. He answered, “I thought you'd say that”, and sat to Reid Dick. As for the gradient of the
King's Way, it won't be my fault if Baker is not remembered for calculating malevolence.
It was curious at the Kutb to see ornament in the Seljuk style carved out of stone instead of stucco. The virtue goes out of it in this other material; it becomes Indian and painstaking, and loses its freedom.
This train left Peshawar only fifteen hours after we did, so that we had not much time.
S.s. “Maloja”
,
June 25th
.âA big boat of 20,000 tons, pitching through an inky sea. Clouds of spray; salt and sweat and boredom everywhere. The sound of retching and an empty dining-room.
After previous experience of a really cheery voyage by P. and O. in the crowded season, I came on board with dread. But that was four years ago, when Italian competition had only just begun. Now I detect a change for the better in manners and obligingness. Also the boat is only half full, so that we escape the communal life of a boarding-house. None the less it is an appalling penalty: a fortnight blotted out of one's life at great expense.
S.s. “Maloja”
,
July 1st
.âWe have made friends with Mr. and Mrs. Chichester and Miss Wills. Seeing Christopher slopping about the deck in a pair of shorts and that red blouse he bought at Abbasabad, Miss Wills asked: “Are you an explorer?”
“No,” answered Christopher, “but I've been in Afghanistan.”
“Ah, Afghanistan,” said Chichester, “that's in India, isn't it?”
Savernake
,
July 8th
.âI left Christopher at Marseilles. He was going to Berlin to see Frau Wassmuss. England looked drab and ugly from the train, owing to the drought. At Paddington I began to feel dazed, dazed at the prospect of coming to a stop, at the impending collision between eleven months' momentum and the immobility of a beloved home. The collision happened; it was 19½ days since we left Kabul. Our dogs ran up. And then my motherâto whom, now it is finished, I deliver the whole record; what I have seen she taught me to see, and will tell me if I have honoured it.
Abadeh,
151
Abbas, Shah,
79
,
105
,
106
,
130
,
132
,
149
,
197
â198,
225
,
226
Abbott, J., British officer,
94
Abdul Rahim Khan, Governor of Herat,
86
,
96
,
104
,
111
,
260
Abdullah, Emir of Transjordania,
36
Abdullah Ansari, Khoja,
105
â106
Abdullatif, son of Ulugh Beg,
255
,
256
â257
Abdurrahman, Emir of Afghanistan,
98
Abu Bakr, first Caliph,
34
Abulkasim, Babur, son of Baisanghor,
257
,
296
,
297
Abu Nasr Parsa, Khoja,
296
Abul Ghanaim Marzuban,
197
Afghanistan,
87
â88,
89
,
90
,
95
,
96
,
97
,
130
,
138
â139,
140
,
141
,
211
,
212
,
213
,
236
,
237
â238,
268
,
282
,
291
,
293
â295,
318
Agacha, Khoja,
297
Ala-ad-Daula, son of Baisanghor,
255
,
256
,
257
Alexander the Great,
20
,
187
,
190
,
267
“Alexander's Wall”,
231
Ali, ex-King,
36
Ali, Hazrat, fourth Caliph,
285
â286
Ali Shir Nevai,
90
,
93
,
109
â110
Ali-ar-Riza,
see
Riza, Imam
Allenby, Lord,
23
Amanullah, King of Afghanistan,
39
,
86
,
88
,
95
,
111
,
114
,
145
,
293
,
295
,
327
,
328
Amu Darya river,
see
Oxus
Anau,
298
Aprsam, minister of Ardeshir,
174
Arch of Ctesiphon,
see
Ctesiphon
Ardarun V,
174
Ardekan,
208
Ardistan,
Mosque
,
208
Arnold, Matthew,
290
Artaxerxes,
42
Palace,
225
â226
Assadi, Mutavali Bashi of Meshed Shrine,
218
,
238
Avicenna,
322
Ayn Varzan,
76
Ayrum, Chief of Police in Teheran,
175
,
192
,
213
Baalbek,
30
â33
Babur, Emperor of India,
90
,
91
-92,
93
,
94
,
100
,
101
,
102
,
105
,
110
,
324
Baglan,
312
Bahramabad,
204
Baisanghor, son of Shah Rukh,
244
,
254
,
255
,
257
,
258
Baker, Sir Herbert,
332
Bala Murghab,
261
,
263
,
266
,
267
â269,
270
,
287
,
294
Balkh,
237
,
283
â285,
286
,
295
,
296
,
297
Shrine of Khoja Abu Nasr Parsa,
284
,
296
,
297
Shrine of Khoja Agacha,
297
Buddhas and caves,
314
â317
Barfak,
see
Tala-Barfak
Barnabas,
6
Bassewitz, Graf von,
86
Bazl, Farajollah,
47
Bell, Gertrude,
38
Bella Paese Abbey,
8
Bisitun,
43
Blücher, German Minister to Persia,
144
Bokhara,
245
,
256
,
269
,
277
,
295
,
298
Bokhara Kala plain,
274
B
OSTAM
,
133
Mosque of Bayazid,
133
Bouriachenko, M., Russian Consul at Mazar-i-Sherif,
298
â301,
302
Bretschneider, E.,
93
Burnes, Sir Alexander,
94
Byron, Lord,
45
Catherine Cornaro, Queen of Cyprus,
7
Chardin, Jean Baptiste,
132
Chinaran,
239
Clavijo, Gonzalez de,
252
Constantinople,
108
,
115
,
169
,
183
,
254
Coste, P.,
174
Cotton, Sir Dodmore,
225
Cyprus,
6
â13
Cyrus,
190
Dacca,
329
Omayad Mosque,
27
â28
Pir Alam Dar,
202
Tarikh Khana,
77
Dar-al-Aman,
327
â328
Dash Bulagh,
62
Datiev, Russian Consul in Teheran,
143
,
144
Daulat Shah,
99
Dehdadi fort,
293
D
ELHI
,
331
â332
King's Way,
332
Viceroy's House,
331
Delijan,
147
â148
Dick, William Reid,
331
Dieulafoy, Marcel,
155
,
165
,
167
,
168
Diez, Professor Ernst,
95
,
99
,
227
,
248
Diver, Maud,
94
Dost Mohammad, Emir of Afghanistan,
105
,
268
Doughty, Charles,
35
Durah pass,
309
Durand, Major E. L.,
253
Egypt,
33
Einstein, Professor,
23
Elburz mountains,
44
,
46
,
76
,
77
,
146
,
224
,
228
,
230
Ellenborough, Lord,
324
Enver Pasha,
295
Faizabad,
279
F
AMAGUSTA
,
10
â12
Citadel,
11
Martinengo bastion,
12
“Othello's Tower”,
12
Palace,
11
Ferishta,
324
Ferrier, J. P.,
94
,
98
,
106
,
282
â283
Firuza Begum,
296
