This picture, in the British Library, was taken at Jamrud Fort during the return from a Durbar at Umballa. Amir Sher Ali Khan is in the centre with Colonel Frederick Pollock standing, Colonel Crawford Trotter Chamberlain sitting on the right and to the left, Henry Walter Bellew, Indian Medical Service, acting as interpreter.
The Umballa Durbar was a Field of the Cloth of Gold-like pow-wow between the Viceroy, Earl Mayo, and the Amir of Cabool (as Kabul was called) in March 1869. The Spectator of 8th May 1869 published an article by “an eye-witness”, of which this is an extract.
“The meeting took place near the centre of a magnificent plain, about ten miles in circumference, intersected towards the southern extremity by the railway and Grand Trunk road, dotted towards the other end with great wells for the troops, worked by bullocks, and the old-fashioned Persian wheel ; the Himalayas rising in the far distant background, and walling out the heavens and the earth on the north. The southern half was surrounded by the camps of the regiments assembled for the ceremony, the eastern side being lined with the trim new barracks, which will do more than all the Army apothecaries to solve the question as to how English troops may be enabled to stand the Indian climate. About three hundred yards to the north of a road, running east and west across the centre of the plain, was pitched the Viceregal pavilion. From this a broad street of tents stretched southwards, on either side were lesser streets and lanes of canvas, and to the right and left of these the Viceroy’s bodyguard, and a mixed multitude of mounted messengers, tent-builders, sutlers, and hangers-on, of various races and costumes. To the right of the Viceregal camp was the Lieutenant-Governor of the Punjab’s, on the left that of the Commander-in-Chief, both arranged on the same plan of a grand central street, flanked by lesser alleys on either side. Seen from a distance, the whole looked like a vast white city, laid out in parallel streets, with high-pointed roofs ; tall flagstaffs displaying the British banner before the doors of the English chiefs; in one quarter a little forest of bright lanceheads with fluttering pennons belonging to the bodyguard ; in another the Viceregal elephants, about fifty in number, towering with their housings of scarlet and cloth of gold above the tents ; everywhere the glitter of the sentry’s bayonet; staff officers in cocked-hat and cockade galloping up and down ; and military groups in red and buff and tartan, mingled with dark green riflemen and civilians in their diplomatic blue and gold.
Each of the native chiefs had a camp of his own. As the Durbar was intended to be as specially as possible for the Amir, any great gathering of the Sikh nobles was avoided, and only half a dozen, the county gentlemen of the neighbourhood so to speak, were invited. One of them rode into camp with a little retinue of 2,500 men, another brought 1,200, and their camps were thronged by travelling merchants, musicians, priests, devotees, and every sort of hanger-on. It was amusing to notice how alert they were to notice and imitate the customs of the English encampment. In the morning, no sooner had the English bugles sounded, than there arose on all sides a series of gasping and uncertain trumpetings. When the gun fired at 12 o’clock, each of the Sikh chiefs let off a cannon on his own account ; one of them, who prided himself on a very big piece of ordnance, keeping his discharge to the last, in order to reduce all the rival reports to insignificance.”
The Spectator’s correspondent had access to the meeting itself.
“The Amir is a tall, rough highlander of fifty, with a Jewish countenance, and much shaggy hair about his face. His dress was of the quiet, dust-coloured stuff in which the Afghan nobles delight, almost shabby to look at, but of a fineness that is only made for the royal house of Cabool. A very slight binding of gold lace, so slight as to be almost invisible, formed its only ornament, and his contempt for the costly decorations worn by the Indian nobility found frequent expression. “The men here wear jewels; with us the women do.” A cap of Astrakan fur and plain leather-scabbarded scimitar completed the dress. His manners were cold. Like an Asiatic, he seemed to take little notice of what was going on, but in reality watched everything. On a barrack being shown to him, he said it was as fine as his palace ; but on being told that 100,000, had been paid for it, he added, “How much finer than my palace must be the house of the builder!” There was a curious mixture of roughness and natural refinement in his sayings and doings. On the Viceroy’s remarking that he was glad to be able to review his troops before such a connoisseur, he at once replied, “That it would require a connoisseur to appreciate such troops.” But, on the other hand, when introduced to a party of English ladies, he stared at them for a minute, and then turning gravely to the husband of one of them, remarked, ‘Ah! I see our customs are the same. You also leave the pretty ones at home.’ “
Now look again at the photograph. Amir Sher Ali Khan is the Amir of Cabool. His interpreter, Henry Bellew, is known as an author as well as a distinguished medicine man; he comments on sanitation in the article and is familiar with the discourse between Viceroy and Emir; I think he wrote the Spectator article. Incidentally the Durbar was judged a success with pledges of friendship and cooperation made on both sides. Of course it didn’t last. The Second Anglo-Afghan War began in 1878. A friend of mine still uses the Pashto Dictionary and Grammar Henry wrote.
Henry Bellew trained at St George’s Hospital in Tooting where he has a street named after him. He is from a cadet branch of my family.
