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Authors: James A. Michener
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easy, really. All you have to do is read what Colonel Sir Hungerford Holdich said about us in the Eleventh Edition of the Encyclopaedia Britannica.” He pronounced the names with exaggerated precision.
“What are you saying?” the Swedish girl asked in French.
“With your permission,” Moheb Khan said, bowing to Sir Herbert and taking down from the library shelf Volume I of the Britannica. Opening it to the article on Afghanistan he read in a sardonic accent:
“The Afghans, inured to bloodshed from childhood, are familiar with death, and audacious in attack, but easily discouraged by failure; excessively turbulent and unsubmissive to law or discipline; apparently frank and affable in manner, especially when they hope to gain some object, but capable of the grossest brutality when that hope ceases. They are unscrupulous in perjury, treacherous, vain and insatiable, passionate in vindictiveness, which they will satisfy at the cost of their own lives and in the most cruel manner. Nowhere is crime committed on such trifling grounds, or with such general impunity, though when it is punished the punishment is atrocious. Among themselves the Afghans are quarrelsome, intriguing and distrustful; estrangements and affrays are of constant occurrence; the traveler conceals and misrepresents the time and direction of his journey. The Afghan is by breed and nature a bird of prey. If from habit and tradition he respects a stranger within his threshold, he yet considers it legitimate to warn a neighbor of the prey that is afoot, or even to overtake and plunder his guest after he has quitted his roof. The repression of crime and the demand of taxation he regards alike as tyranny. The Afghans are eternally boasting of their lineage, their independence and their prowess. They look on the Afghans as the first of nations, and each man looks on himself as the equal of any Afghan.
“Now that’s all one paragraph, mind you,” Moheb Khan warned us, “and I used to wonderhow long it would take me to acquire the attributes I was, as a typical Afghan, supposed to have. Crafty, lying, deceitful I was, but what do you suppose kept me from qualifying? That troublesome bit about the bird of prey. How does one transform himself into a bird of prey? Well, I gave up on that first paragraph, but the next one offered hope. May I continue?”
“Proceed,” Sir Herbert said.
Moheb Khan smiled, adjusted the heavy volume and read on:
“They are capable of enduring great privation, and make excellent soldiers under British discipline, though there are but few in the Indian army. Sobriety and hardiness characterize the bulk of the people, though the higher classes are too often stained with deep and degrading debauchery. The first impression made by the Afghan is favorable. The European, especially if he come from India, is charmed by their apparently frank, openhearted, hospitable and manly manners; but the charm is not of long duration, and he finds that the Afghan is as cruel and crafty as he is independent.”
With a flourish, Moheb Khan slammed the encyclopedia shut and stared at the readers. “You know, there’s a funny thing about this. It was written by an Englishman who was totally perplexed as to how we Afghans had managed to thrash the living daylights out of English armies … twice. The man who wrote this must have perched himself on a stool in a little room and thought for some time: What kind of men are these Afghans, that they can defeat our armies? And he composed thedescription of a man who was as unlike an Englishman as possible, and then he wrote it properly in this big book, which I first read at Oxford. And what was my reaction? At that time? I was proud that a ferangi had seen so deeply into my character and had written with such respect. Today, when I am older, these seem like words of hatred or ignorance. They are not. They are profound words of respect from a scholar who simply had to know how we Afghans generated our
“What are you saying?” the Swedish girl asked in French.
“With your permission,” Moheb Khan said, bowing to Sir Herbert and taking down from the library shelf Volume I of the Britannica. Opening it to the article on Afghanistan he read in a sardonic accent:
“The Afghans, inured to bloodshed from childhood, are familiar with death, and audacious in attack, but easily discouraged by failure; excessively turbulent and unsubmissive to law or discipline; apparently frank and affable in manner, especially when they hope to gain some object, but capable of the grossest brutality when that hope ceases. They are unscrupulous in perjury, treacherous, vain and insatiable, passionate in vindictiveness, which they will satisfy at the cost of their own lives and in the most cruel manner. Nowhere is crime committed on such trifling grounds, or with such general impunity, though when it is punished the punishment is atrocious. Among themselves the Afghans are quarrelsome, intriguing and distrustful; estrangements and affrays are of constant occurrence; the traveler conceals and misrepresents the time and direction of his journey. The Afghan is by breed and nature a bird of prey. If from habit and tradition he respects a stranger within his threshold, he yet considers it legitimate to warn a neighbor of the prey that is afoot, or even to overtake and plunder his guest after he has quitted his roof. The repression of crime and the demand of taxation he regards alike as tyranny. The Afghans are eternally boasting of their lineage, their independence and their prowess. They look on the Afghans as the first of nations, and each man looks on himself as the equal of any Afghan.
“Now that’s all one paragraph, mind you,” Moheb Khan warned us, “and I used to wonderhow long it would take me to acquire the attributes I was, as a typical Afghan, supposed to have. Crafty, lying, deceitful I was, but what do you suppose kept me from qualifying? That troublesome bit about the bird of prey. How does one transform himself into a bird of prey? Well, I gave up on that first paragraph, but the next one offered hope. May I continue?”
“Proceed,” Sir Herbert said.
Moheb Khan smiled, adjusted the heavy volume and read on:
“They are capable of enduring great privation, and make excellent soldiers under British discipline, though there are but few in the Indian army. Sobriety and hardiness characterize the bulk of the people, though the higher classes are too often stained with deep and degrading debauchery. The first impression made by the Afghan is favorable. The European, especially if he come from India, is charmed by their apparently frank, openhearted, hospitable and manly manners; but the charm is not of long duration, and he finds that the Afghan is as cruel and crafty as he is independent.”
With a flourish, Moheb Khan slammed the encyclopedia shut and stared at the readers. “You know, there’s a funny thing about this. It was written by an Englishman who was totally perplexed as to how we Afghans had managed to thrash the living daylights out of English armies … twice. The man who wrote this must have perched himself on a stool in a little room and thought for some time: What kind of men are these Afghans, that they can defeat our armies? And he composed thedescription of a man who was as unlike an Englishman as possible, and then he wrote it properly in this big book, which I first read at Oxford. And what was my reaction? At that time? I was proud that a ferangi had seen so deeply into my character and had written with such respect. Today, when I am older, these seem like words of hatred or ignorance. They are not. They are profound words of respect from a scholar who simply had to know how we Afghans generated our
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