Fugen eBooks

As Macaulay has said of Wycherley's
plays, "they are protected against the critics as a skunk is protected
against the hunters." They are "safe, because they are too filthy to
handle, and too noisome even to approach."
Yet the life even of these barbarous people is not without moments when
the lover of the picturesque might sympathise with their hopes and
fears. In the cool of the evening, when the sun has sunk behind the
mountains of Afghanistan, and the valleys are filled with a delicious
twilight, the elders of the village lead the way to the chenar trees by
the water's side, and there, while the men are cleaning their rifles, or
smoking their hookas, and the women are making rude ornaments from
beads, and cloves, and nuts, the Mullah drones the evening prayer. Few
white men have seen, and returned to tell the tale. But we may imagine
the conversation passing from the prices of arms and cattle, the
prospects of the harvest, or the village gossip, to the great Power,
that lies to the southward, and comes nearer year by year.


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