Not many days after his arrival at Kabul our traveller was seized by a
malignant fever, which for several days menaced him with a much longer
journey than the one he had undertaken. Hot and cold fits succeeded each
other with singular violence; he was tormented by insatiable thirst,
and, as he endeavoured to quench this by the constant drinking of cold
water, a most profuse perspiration was maintained, which probably saved
his life. His whole body was covered with spots of a very bright colour,
shaded between purple and crimson, which he should have beheld, he says,
with pleasure, supposing that such an eruption would diminish the force
of the disease, but that some of his neighbours regarded them as signs
of the plague. This created a general alarm, and they were about to
exclude him from their quarter, when he confidently asserted that the
fever of the plague always produced its crisis in three days, whereas
his had now continued seven; which, together with the conduct of
Bagdasir, who never deserted him, somewhat assuaged their terrors, and
induced them to suffer his presence. His disorder continued three weeks,
and at length, when it disappeared, left him so weak that he could with
difficulty crawl about the streets.
The religious toleration which prevailed at Kabul, where Turk, Jew, and
Christian lived equally unmolested, induced him in an evil hour to throw
off his Mohammedan disguise and profess himself a Christian; not
considering, that however tolerant the Afghans of this capital might be,
the remainder of his road, until he should reach the Caspian, lay among
bigots of the most desperate stamp, who regarded the professors of all
heterodox religions with abhorrence, and reckoned it a merit to revile
and persecute them.
Having remained a full month at Kabul, he hired one side of a camel, on
which a pannier was suspended for his accommodation, and on the 1st of
September joined a party proceeding to Kandahar. The mode of travelling
which he had now adopted is peculiar to that part of the world, and
deserves to be particularly described. The camel appropriated to the
service of passengers, he observes, carries two persons, who are lodged
in a kind of pannier laid loosely on the back of the animal. The
pannier, in Persian _kidjahwah_, is a wooden frame, with the sides and
bottom of netted cords, of about three feet long and two broad. The
depth likewise is generally about two feet. The provisions of the
passengers are conveyed in the kidjahwah, and, the journey being
commonly performed in the night, this swinging nest becomes his only
place of rest; for on the kafilah’s arrival at its station he must
immediately exert himself in procuring provisions, water, and fuel, as
well as in keeping an eye over his property.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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