Page:Encyclopædia Britannica, Ninth Edition, v. 1.djvu/254

Rh 23G AFGHANISTAN [INHABITANTS, There remain a variety of tribes in the hill country north of the Kabul river, speaking various languages, seemingly of Prakritic character, and known as Kohistanis, Laghmanis, Pashais, &c. ; apparently converted remnants of the aboriginal tribes of the Kabul basin, and more or less kindred to the still unconverted tribes of Kafiristan, to the Chitral people, and perhaps to the Dard tribes who lie to the north of the Afghan country on the Indus. An able officer of the staff in India (Col. Macgregor) has lately made a diligent attempt to estimate the population of Afghanistan, which he bring to 4,901,000 souls. This includes the estimated population of Afghan Turkestan, the people of Chitral, the Kafirs, and the independent Yusuf zais. We shall deduct the three first: 4,901,000 Afghan Turkestan 642,000 Chitralis and Kafirs 150,000 792,000 which may be thus roughly divided Eimaks and Hazaras Taj i k s Kizilbashes Hindkis and Jats , Kohistanis, &c Afghans and Pathans, including 400,000 in dependent Yusufzais, &c 4,109,000 400,000 500,000 150,000 500,000 200,000 2,359,000 Total 4,109,000 The Afghans, in government and general manners, have a likeness to other Mahommedan nations; but they have also many peculiarities. Besides their division into clans and tribes, the whole Afghan people may be divided into dwellers in tents and dwellers in houses; and this division is apparently not coincident with tribal divisions, for of several of the great clans, at least a part is nomad and a part settled. Such, e.g., is the case with the Durrani and with the Ghilzai. Nomad Afghans exist in the Kabul basin, but their proper field is that part of their territory which the Afghans include in Khorasan, with its wide plains. These people subsist on the produce of their flocks, and rarely cultivate. They may, perhaps, pay something to the Kabul govern ment through their chief, and they contribute soldiers to the regular army, besides forming the bulk of the militia; but they have little relation to the government, and seldom enter towns unless to sell their produce. They are under some indefinite control by their chiefs, to whom serious disputes are referred. Petty matters are settled by the &quot; greybeards &quot; of the community, guided by the Afghan traditional code. Many of the nomad tribes are professed and incorrigible thieves. Among certain tribes the cere mony of naming a male child is accompanied by the sym bolical act of passing him through a hole made in the wall of a house, whilst a volley of musketry is fired overhead. 1 The settled Afghans form the village communities, and in part the population of the few towns. Their chief occupation is with the soil. They form the core of the nation and the main part of the army. Nearly all own the land on which they live, and which they cultivate with their own hands or by hired labour. Roundly speaking, agriculture and soldiering are their sole occupations. No Afghan will pursue a handicraft or keep a shop, though, as we have seen, certain pastoral tribes engage largely in travelling trade and transport of goods. As a race, the Afghans are very handsome and athletic, often with fair complexion and flowing beard, generally black or brown, sometimes, though rarely, red; the features 1 Of one tribe, at least, of which this is told, the Afghan blood is Doubtful. highly aquiline. The hair is shaved off from the forehead to the top of the head, the remainder at the sides being allowed to fall in large curls over the shoulders. Their step is full of resolution; their bearing proud and apt to be rough. The women have handsome features of Jewish cast (the last trait often true also of the men); fair complexions, sometimes rosy, though usually a pale sallow; hair braided and plaited behind in two long tresses terminating in silken tassels. They are rigidly secluded, but intrigue is frequent. In some parts of the country the engaged lover is admitted to visits of courtship, analogous to old Welsh customs. The Afghans, inured to bloodshed from childhood, are familiar with death, and are audacious in attack, but easily discouraged by failure; excessively turbulent and unsub missive 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 in satiable, 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 traveller con ceals 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 neighbour 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, if not as the superior of all others. Yet when they hear of some atro cious deed they will exclaim &quot;An Afghan job that !&quot; They are capable of enduring great privation, but when abund ance conies their powers of eating astonish an European Still, sobriety and hardiness characterise the bulk of tlu.- people, though the higher classes are too often stained with deep and degrading debauchery. The first impression made by the Afghans is favourable. The European, especially if he come from India, is charmed by their apparently frank, open-hearted, hospitable, and manly manners; but the charm is not of long duration, and he finds that under this frank demeanour there is craft at inveterate, if not as accomplished, as in any Hindu. Such is the character of the Afghans as drawn by Ferrier and other recent writers, and undoubtedly founded on their experience, though perhaps the dark colour is laid on too universally. The impression is very different from that left by the accounts of Elphinstone and Barnes. Yet most of the individual features can be traced in Elphinstone, though drawn certainly under less temptation to look on the darker side, owing to the favourable circumstances of his intercourse with the Afghans, and touched with a more delicate and friendly hand, perhaps lightened by wider sympathies. Sir H. Edwardes, who had intimate dealings with the Afghans for many years, takes special exception to Elphinstone s high estimate of their character, and appeals to the experience of every officer who had served in the country. &quot; Nothing,&quot; he sums up, &quot; is finer than their physique, or worse than their morale.&quot; Many things in Afghan character point to a nation in decadence the frank manners and joyous temper, the hospitable traditions, the martial and independent spirit, the love of field sports, the nobility of aspect, suggest a