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We think today of the Khyber Pass and the route through it to the Afghan
capital Kabul, as an entirely Muslim-dominated area but this has not
always been the case. Before the rise of Islam this area was home to
Buddhists who left numerous topes or burial chambers scattered about the
mountains and plains, nearly always with adjoining temples known as
viharas. The rediscovery of Buddhism in Afghanistan is a surprising and
welcome theme in this book which at first glance looks like another routine
account of the second Afghan war. What also came as a surprise was the
amount of time and energy that soldiers of the Peshawar Field Force
devoted to excavating, or in some cases, plundering, these topes. A third
revelation is the character of Simpson himself, an extraordinary man who
was born in a Glasgow slum, and who was barely educated until his teens, but who rose to be on nodding terms with a number of great Victorians,
including the Queen herself who intervened to stop him being sent to
sketch a war in 1859 for fear he might be killed. But Simpson, a favoured
artist of the Queen, already had war experience. He had been sent to the
Crimea in 1854 and remained there for nearly a year. So popular were his
sketches and water-colours which were subsequently published, that he
earned the nickname of 'Crimean Simpson'. In 1859 he was commissioned
by the Queen to record sites associated with the Indian Uprising that had
been quelled only a year earlier. When the Prince of Wales visited India in
1876, Simpson was invited to accompany him. So it was understandable
that at the beginning of the second Afghan War he was employed by the
Illustrated London News and later the Daily News to send back reports and
sketches from the front in eastern Afghanistan.
Leaving Holborn Viaduct at 8.15 pm on Tuesday 15 October 1878 he
travelled swiftly by train to Brindisi (those were the days) and boarded the
Mongolia bound for Alexandria. From here it was a short overland journey
to Suez then on board the Bokhara to Bombay. The whole journey took
just over three weeks. Then, rather oddly he takes a train eastwards to
Allahabad, before heading westward to Lahore. This four-day journey is
not explained by the editor, Peter Harrington, who one senses is not
familiar with India, so the reader has to suppose that at this period there
was no direct rail-link between Bombay and Lahore, although it would be
nice to have this confirmed. Simpson makes his way through the Khyber
Pass on camel-back and joins the Peshawar Field Force under General Sir
Sam Browne who had been tasked with establishing the best route from
Jallalabad to Kabul. This was in anticipation that it would be necessary
once more for the British to enter Kabul as king-makers, in spite of their
disastrous attempt nearly forty years earlier. Simpson finds a veteran of the
first Afghan war who points out significant features including the old
British cemetery at Jallalabad now almost entirely covered by a 'musjid'
because the spot where the bodies of those who fell were deliberately
concealed 'with the strong probability ..that the bodies were not disturbed'.
Apart from an encounter at Ali Masjid towards the end of November 1878
it was really a phoney war while Simpson was there. A peace treaty of
sorts had been signed at Gandamack and Simpson left Bombay for home
on 27 June 1879. It was only later that year that real hostilities began with
the murder of Louis Cavagnari, the British representative to the Kabul
Court in September. Simpson had become friendly with Cavagnari, who
encouraged the artist's archaeological digs while the Field Force marked
time. As Harrington points out, these excavations, which were really more
treasure-hunting than serious archaeological explorations, were a welcome diversion for bored officers waiting for something to happen. And there
was also plenty of man-power available to help with the heavy lifting once
a tope had been broken into. Engineers with the Field Force who were
there to ford rivers and set up picquets were adept at propping up the walls
of Buddhist burial chambers so Simpson and his pals could dive in and see
if there was any treasure to be found. Their methods and their attitudes
horrify us today. Simpson boasts about 'bagging topes' as if they were
some kind of exotic bird rather than the resting places of cremated remains
and reliquaries. The fact that one of his first excavations at Ahin Posh
Tope at Jallalabad did uncover gold coins and a golden relic holder spurred
him on to examine many similar sites. Buddhist topes, or stupas, were
usually signified by a dome resting on one or more platforms and treasure
hunters appear to have simply sliced off the tops of the domes rather as one
would decapitate a breakfast egg. But Simpson can be somewhat excused
because he did at least appreciate the value of his finds, sending the Ahin
Posh treasures to the Viceroy at Calcutta for transmission to London. He
also sketched many of the sites found and he reported on Buddhist statues
with strong Grecian sculptural influences which were later to be classified
as the Gandharan school.
This is a more interesting book than appears at first sight. It has a number
of sketches in colour, showing how skilled Simpson was at capturing exotic
people like the Afghan chief Yakoob Beg as well as the desolate hills
around Jallalabad and soldiers in camp. The Appendices include a useful
index of Persons' whom Simpson met or mentioned during his travels and
a catalogue resume of his original sketches together with the dates they
were published in the Illustrated London News. It has Simpson's
comments on his sketches, which were not included in his diary and a
number of letters to his fiiend Harry Rylands in which Simpson reveals
himself as a busy, always curious man, with a sense of humour and the
Victorian love of awful puns. Recommended.
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