All of them recognize a common code or unwritten law called Pukhtunwali, which appears to be similar in general character to the old Hebraic law, though modified by Mahommedan ordinances, and strangely similar in certain particulars to Rajput custom. 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 Durani and with the Ghilzai.
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 the Ghilzai Povindahs 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 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.
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 traveller 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 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.
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 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 the Afghan is as cruel and crafty as he is independent. No trustworthy statistics exist showing either present numbers or fluctuations in the population of Afghanistan. Within the amir’s dominions there are probably from four to five millions of people, and of these the vast majority are agriculturists.
The cultivators, including landowners, tenants, hired labourers and slaves, represent the working population of the country, and as industrious and successful agriculturists they are unsurpassed in Asia. They have carried the art of irrigation to great perfection, and they utilize every acre of profitable soil. Certain Ghilzai clans are specially famous for their skill in the construction of the karez or underground water-channel.
The religion of the country throughout is Mahommedan. Next to Turkey, Afghanistan is the most powerful Mahommedan kingdom in existence. The vast majority of Afghans are of the Sunni sect; but there are, in their midst, such powerful communities of Shiahs as the Hazaras of the central Religion.districts, the Kizilbashes of Kabul and the Turis of the Kurram border, nor is there between them that bitterness of sectarian animosity which is so marked a feature in India. The Kafirs of the mountainous region of Kafiristan alone are non-Mahommedan. They are sunk in a paganism which seems to embrace some faint reflexion of Greek mythology, Zoroastrian principles and the tenets of Buddhism, originally gathered, no doubt, from the varied elements of their mixed extraction. Those contiguous Afghan tribes, who have not so long ago been converted to the faith of Islam, are naturally the most fanatical and the most virulent upholders of the faith around them. In and about the centre of civilization at Kabul, instances of Ghazism are comparatively rare. In the western provinces about Kandahar (amongst the Durani Afghans—the people who claim to be Beni-Israel), and especially in Zamindawar, the spirit of fanaticism runs high, and every other Afghan is a possible Ghazi—a man who has devoted his life to the extinction of other creeds.
Persian is the vernacular of a large part of the non-Afghan population, and is familiar to all educated Afghans; it is the language of the court and of literature. Pushtu, however, is the prevailing language, though it does not seem to be spoken in Herat, or, roughly speaking, west Language and literature.of the Helmund. Turki is spoken in Afghan Turkestan. There is a respectable amount of Afghan literature. The oldest work in Pushtu is a history of the conquest of Swat by Shaikh Mali, a chief of the Yusafzais, and leader in the conquest (A.D. 1413–24). In 1494 Kaju Khan became chief of the same clan; during his rule Buner and Panjkora were completely conquered, and he wrote a history of the events. In the reign of Akbar, Bayazid Ansari, called Pir-i-Roshan, “the Saint of Light,” the founder of an heretical sect, wrote in Pushtu; as did his chief antagonist, a famous Afghan saint called Akhund Darweza. The literature is richest in poetry. Abdur Rahman (17th century) is the best known poet. Another very popular poet is Khushal Khan, the warlike chief of the Khattaks in the time of Aurangzeb. Many other members of his family were poets also. Ahmad Shah, the founder of the monarchy, likewise wrote poetry. Ballads are numerous.
Education is confined to most elementary principles in Afghanistan. Of schools or colleges for the purposes of a higher education befitted to the sons of noblemen and the more wealthy merchants there are absolutely none; but the village school is an ever-present and very open spectacle to Education.the passer-by. Here the younger boys are collected and instructed in the rudiments of reading, writing and religious creed by the village mullah, or priest, who thereby acquires an early influence over the Afghan mind. The method of teaching is confined to that wearisome system of loud-voiced repetition which is so annoying a feature in Indian schools; and the Koran is, of course, the text-book in all forms of education. Every Afghan gentleman can read and speak Persian, but beyond this acquirement education seems to be limited to the physical development of the youth by instruction in horsemanship and feats of skill. Such advanced education as exists in Afghanistan is centred in the priests and physicians; but the ignorance of both is extreme.
The government of Afghanistan is an absolute monarchy under the amir, and succession to the throne is hereditary. There are five chief political divisions in the country—namely, Kabul, Turkestan, Herat, Kandahar and Badakshan, each of which is ruled by a “naib” or governor, who Constitution
and laws.is directly responsible to the amir. Under the governors of provinces the nobles and kazis (or district judges) dispense justice much in the feudal fashion. There are three classes of
