The day was one of great beauty, and the air was delightfully cool. Overhead spread the blue and unclouded vault of Heaven, and in the rarified atmosphere, even the remote details of the vast landscape and of the city were rendered visible. Viewed from the cantonments, the plains of Lombardy do not exceed in beauty and brilliance of colour those of Cabul, which moreover, in lieu of the Apennines (amid which Denzil and his parents had often resided) are overshadowed by the stupendous mountains of Kohistan.
Crowning two lofty ridges in the foreground rose Cabul within its walls of stone, and towering high above them, rose the Chola or citadel of the Bala Hissar. The city is picturesque, each house having, as in Spain, an open court-yard, though the streets of unburnt-brick are so narrow as to be frequently blocked up by one laden camel, or to prevent two horsemen riding abreast. Thus the great chiefs and nobles have always footmen running in front to prepare or clear the way for them. There all the different races live apart, and the Persians or fierce Kussilbashes have their own quarter fortified against all the rest.
The groups that gathered round the band were a sample of all the various tribes that resided in and about Cabul, for though many murderous outrages had been perpetrated on our people they were still anxious, if possible, to conciliate the natives.
Each type of humanity varied from the other in visage and in costume; the fair-faced and ruddy-looking Englishman; the lean, dark Hindoo sepoy, seeming intensely uncomfortable in his tight red coat and stiff shako; the sturdier Afghan; the wild Beloochee, the Dooranee, the Kussilbash and Arab, all of whom were admitted in limited number by the quarter-guard; some cruel and sly in expression; some lofty, proud and refined, with patriarchal beards that floated to their waists, and a solemnity of bearing that made one think of the days of Abraham; and many of them armed with ancient weapons made long anterior to the adoption of our villanous saltpetre; in their dresses and manners looking like the figures at a fancy-ball, so quiet and so brilliant in colour and variety, were their flowing Oriental robes.
Numbers of officers and ladies from the different compounds and villas in the vicinity were present; and the "chimney-pot hat of civilization," might be seen amid the white turbans of the Mussulmen, the yellow of the Khyberrees and abhorred Jews, and the scarlet _loonghee_ of the Kussilbash, for Khan Shireen Khan, chief of that warlike tribe, appeared mounted on a slow-paced, lank, patient and submissive-looking camel. Perched high up, he sat on a lofty saddle, with a tall tasselled lance slung behind him, and in front a small armoury of knives and pistols stuck in his girdle, which was a magnificent Cashmere shawl, that many a belle might have envied. Nor were veiled Afghan ladies wanting, and these surveyed with wonder their European sisters, as they openly laughed, chatted and--Bismillah!--shook hands with the Feringhee officers.