THE TRAVELLER.

Marlborough Daily Times, Volume II, Issue 142, 30 July 1880, Page 1 (Supplement)

THE TRAVELLER.

CABUL. A city built among a wildernes of heights and mountains is Cabul, and far its stately river has to travel before pouring its waters into the Indus, nowhere does it visit a fairer scene than where, not very far from its source, it passes through the quaint old town, washing, and at certain seasons threatening, the foundations of the houses and fortalicc-like inclosures which hang over it. Within the city all is deligtfully Oriental, picturesque, and irregular —just the author of ‘ Eothen’ would revel in the open-air life of more genial Eastern dimes going on in full force, notwithstanding the cold, which compels, however, shopkeepeivs of the better classs to draw blankets over limbs, and kindle fires seemingly right in the middle of their wares. Different sets of tradesmen and artisans have each their own quarters, or as it is called in the East, ‘muballa. ’ Here a savoury smell of roast meat, and piles of hot unleavened bread, indicate where any number of cooks are ready to feed the hungry at a mere trifle a head, without giving them the trouble of stepping aside from the public way, far less of sitting down at a table. Windows or front walls there are none in these all fiesco restaurants; and blocks of yellow butter frozen into the consistency of cheese, hung out of them almost into the street. Then the traveller, sated with kakabs may find over the way a brotherhood of fruiterers, whose tasteful and variegated arrangements of their dried apples and. grapes form even at this season one of the bright features of Cabul. So with the sellers of liorse-gear—a numerous and flourishing guild apparently—the shoemakers, tailors, furriers, carpenters, armourers, barbers, and workersiu gold, silver,, and other metals—the whole representing a hive of industry and focus of money-making such as British intromission and Islamite irruptions seems alike powerless to disturb. Some of the streets have a shed or partial roof set up over them, letting in oaly the son’s oblique rays, and excluding doubtless, a certain amount of rain and snow. In spite of this, however, the thoroughfares, which are the merest lanes in point of breath, are at this season deep in mud aud half-frozen water, not the most rudimentaay elements of scavengering or roadconservancy having sprung up as yet iu Cabul. Toward afternoon ohe tide of human traffic sets in strong. Marta-looking Khans, mounted on stout nags, aud followed by retainers, have to make head as best they can against, perhaps, a line ®f Bukhara camels laden with merchandise, but, notwithstanding the incessant jostile, all is goodhumor and give and take. Happily, there are no gin-palaces. Neither has Cabul and workhouses or poor-rates. No sooner has ’ he keeper of a tea-shop heated his urn, and filled his prettily-paiuced little cups, than crowds of sturdy beggars and gaberlunzies, in, the highest degree picturesque, assail him as courageously as if everyoue of them had money in his hand, instead of only a patched garment on his back and features blue with cold; and Cabul mendicants not even a Bumble could deal with on other thau their oun terms. ‘ Blackwood’s Magazine.’