The latter said not a word, took her quietly home in the
evening, and cut her throat from ear to ear. The Khan, on hearing
of the murder next day, made no remonstrance, nor was the offender
punished. He was an Afghan.
The second case is even more disgraceful. One of the Khan's own suite,
a well-known libertine and drunkard, contracted an alliance with
a young girl of eighteen. He had endeavoured in vain to marry her
younger sister, almost a child, and so beautiful that she was known
for many miles round the city as the "Pearl of Kelat."
Six weeks after marriage this ruffian, in a fit of drunken frenzy
caused by jealousy, almost decapitated his wife with a tulwar, and
afterwards mutilated her body past recognition. The shrieks of the
poor woman having summoned the neighbours, he was seized, bound, and
led before the Khan, who at once sentenced him to death. The execution
was fixed for sunrise the following day. At midnight, however,
a messenger appeared at the gates of the Mir with a canvas bag
containing two thousand rupees. "Tell him he is free," said the ruler
of Kelat. "And if he sends in another thousand, I will _order_ the
younger sister to marry him." The money was paid, and the poor child
handed over to the tender mercies of the human devil who had so
ruthlessly butchered her sister.
I have mentioned that Azim Khan showed me a sword of beautiful
workmanship. It had, the very morning of my visit to the palace, cut
down and hacked to pieces a waiting-maid, not sixteen years old, in
the Khan's harem. I myself saw the corpse of the poor girl the same
evening, as it was being carried outside the walls for interment. [C]
This, then, is the state of things existing at Kelat, not a hundred
miles from the British outposts; this the enlightened sovereign who
has been made "Companion of the Star of India," an order which, among
his own people, he affects to look upon with the greatest contempt.
The few women I saw at Kelat were distinctly good looking, far more so
than those further south. Most of them have an Italian type of face,
olive complexion, and large dark eyes, with sweeping lashes. But very
few wore the hideous nose-rings so common at Beila and Sonmiani.
Morality is at a discount in the capital, and prostitution common.
The Wazir sent me a bag of dates the morning of my departure, with
a short note, written in English, begging that I would send him in
return the best gold watch and rifle "that could be bought for gold"
in London. The note ended jocosely, "Exchange is no robbery!" The old
man seemed well _au fait_ with Central Asian affairs.
