October 21, 1887.] 



SCIENCE. 



195 



and the same practice prevails at Berlin and elsewhere. There was 

 some discussion as to the advantages of this practice. The chief 

 advantage claimed for it by Dr. Backler was that it afforded better 

 facilities for hearing, as some orators speak from the tribune, and 

 others from their seats. One of the two writers remains in his official 

 place in front of the tribune, and the other places himself near the 

 speaker for the time being. In America a complete verbatim re- 

 port of all debates is printed at the public expense. It is even more 

 complete than the debates themselves, as it frequently contains 

 speeches which are not actually delivered, but only taken as 

 delivered (if we may use the expression), owing to lack of time. 



The congress, if it serves no other purpose, will at least serve to 

 show the general public of England that there are other systems 

 doing good work in the world besides the one with which they are 

 best acquainted. Mr. Gurney-Salter read a paper giving valuable 

 information as to the official and non-official reporting performed 

 by the staff who work under his direction. Each 'shorthand- 

 writer ' has his own ' shorthand clerk,' to whom his notes are carried 

 ever)' half-hour, and who reads them aloud to two longhand clerks 

 at once, the shorthand-writer all the time never leaving his place, 

 but writing on continuously for two, three, or more hours. When 

 his 'turn' of writing is over, he begins to revise the longhand tran- 

 script, which is read over to him while he follows it in his own notes. 

 This is the process pursued in taking the evidence at parliamentary 

 committees, and about 2,Soo words of manuscript are produced per 

 hour. All the ' shorthand-writers ' but one use the Gurney system, 

 and this one is a phonographer. 



Mr. Gurney-Salter also gave some interesting information as 

 to changes which have gradually been introduced in the mode 

 of writing certain words. Comparing the present mode of writ- 

 ing with that in use at the beginning of this century, he de- 

 scribed the changes as including a briefer writing of certain words, 

 but as consisting chiefly in two things ; namely, the writing of every 

 word separately, and a fuller insertion of vowels — not initial vowels, 

 for they were always inserted, but vowels in the middle of words. 

 These medial vowels are inserted by lifting the pen and writing the 

 remainder of the word in position. 



AFGHAN LIFE IN AFGHAN SONGS. 

 In The Contemporary Review for October, 1887, is an article by 

 James Darmesteter on Afghan life in Afghan songs. Mr. Dar- 

 mesteter has much to say on the political relations of Afghan to 

 the British Empire of India, but introduces his article with some 

 account of the native folk-songs. On the night of the 7th of April, 

 1886 (Wednesday, 11 P.M.), as he was sitting in the garden of his 

 bungalow at Peshawer, gazing at the stars and the silver moon, 

 ■etc., Mr. Darmesteter heard his Afghan chaukidar (life and prop- 

 •erty not being very safe at Peshawer, it is usual to keep an armed 

 watchman, called chaukidar), old Piro, of the Khalil tribe, mutter- 

 ing in a broken voice fragments of a song that sounded like a love- 

 song. He asked him to repeat the song to him. This he modestly 

 declined to do for a longtime, but at last he gave way, and began, — 



" My love is gone to Dekhan, and has left me alone ; 

 I have gone to him to entreat him. 



' What IS it to me that thou shouldst become a Raja at Azrabad ? ' ' 

 I seized him by the skirt of his garment and said, ' Look at me ! ' " 



Here old Piro stopped, and neither for love nor for money could he 

 prevail upon him to go on : his repertoire was exhausted. But 

 Mr. Darmesteter's interest had been awakened, and from that night 

 he resolved to collect what he could of the Afghan popular poetry. 

 The field was new and unexplored. English people in India care 

 little for Indian songs. 



He had gone to the border to study the Afghan language and 

 literature, but had soon to recognize that the so-called Afghan 

 literature is hardly worth the trouble of a journey from Paris to 

 Peshawer. It consists mainly of imitations and translations from 

 the Persian, Arabic, and Hindustani. For a time, under the 

 Moguls, an original and free spirit permeated those imitations, and 

 Mirza Ansari, the mystical poet, or Khushhal Khan, prince of the 

 Khatak tribe, would be accounted a true poet in any nation and 

 any literature. But these are rare exceptions, and the theological 



1 Hyderabad, a favorite place of resort for Afghan adventurers and soldats de /oy 



lucubrations of the much-revered Akhun Darveza, that narrow, 

 foul-mouthed, rancorous, and truly pious exponent of Afghan 

 orthodoxy, the endless rifacimenti of Hatim Tai, the most liberal 

 of Arabs, of Ali Hamza and the companions of the Prophet, or the 

 ever-retold edifying storj' of Joseph and Zuleikha, — all seem as if 

 they had been written or copied by mediaeval monks or unimagi- 

 native children. 



The popular, unwritten poetry, though despised and ignored by 

 the reading-classes, is of quite a different character. It is the work 

 of illiterate poets : but it represents their feelings ; it has life in it, 



— the life of the people; it is simple, because the natural range of 

 ideas of an Afghan is simple and limited ; it is true to nature, be- 

 cause it represents those ideas without any moral bias or literary 

 after-thought. Sometimes, therefore, it is powerful and beautiful, 

 because it renders simply and truly powerful passions or beautiful 

 feelings. 



During a few months' stay on the border, Mr. Darmesteter col- 

 lected about one hundred and twenty songs (to be published, with 

 text, translation, and commentary, in the Bibliothcque Orientate of 

 the French Asiatic Society) of every description, — love-songs, 

 folk-lore, hymns, romantic songs, and political ballads. If we 

 want to know what an Afghan is, let us put all books aside and re- 

 ceive his own unconscious confession from the lips of his favorite 

 poets. The confession, it is to be feared, would not be much to 

 their honor on the whole, but it will be the more sincere. This is 

 the value of the wild, unpremeditated accents of these people : a 

 poor thing it is, but it expresses their nature. 



The Afghans {Afghan is their Persian name ; their Indian name 

 is Pathan ; their national name, Pukhtun or Pushtun) are divided 

 into three independent groups : — 



1. The Afghans under British rule, or what we may call the 

 Queen's Afghans, who inhabit the border districts along the Indus, 

 Dera Ismail Khan, Bannu, Kohat, Peshawer, and Hazara. They 

 were conquered in 1849, with the Sikhs, their then masters. 



2. The Afghans of Afghanistan proper, or the Emir's Afghans, 



— the only part of the race that forms something like an organized 

 power. 



3. The Afghans of Yaghistan, " the rebel or independent 

 country," that is to say, those Afghans who do not belong either to 

 the British Raj or to the Emir, but live in the native national an- 

 archy in the western basin of the upper Indus, — Svat, Buner, Panj- 

 kora, Dher, etc. The Afghan of Yaghistan is the true, unsophis- 

 ticated Afghan. 



The songs were collected in the British districts of Peshawer and 

 Hazara, but most of them express, nevertheless, the general views 

 of the Afghans to whatever part they belong : for though there is 

 no real nationality amongst the Afghans, yet there is a strongly 

 marked national character ; and though nothing is more offensive 

 to an Afghan than another Afghan, still there is nothing so much 

 like an Afghan as another. Moreover, many of these songs come 

 from Yaghistan, or Afghanistan. Songs travel quickly. The 

 thousands of Powindas that every year pass twice across the 

 Suleiman range, bringing the wealth of Central Asia and carrying 

 back the wealth of India, bring also and carry back all the treas- 

 ures of the Afghan Muse on both sides the mountain ; and a new 

 song freshly flown at Naushehra, from the lips of Mohammed the 

 Oil-Presser, will very soon be heard upon the mountains of Buner, 

 or down the valley of the Helmend. 



There are two sorts of poets, — the Sha-ir and the Dwn. With 

 the Sha-ir we have nothing to do : he is the literary poet, who can 

 read, who knows Hafiz and Saadi, who writes Afghan Ghazals on 

 the Persian model, who has composed a Divan. Every educated 

 man is a Sha-ir, though, if he be a man of good taste, he will not 

 assume the title. Writing Ghazal was one of the accomplishments 

 of the old Afghan chiefs. Hafiz Rahmat, the great Rohilla captain, 

 and Ahmed Shah, the founder of the Durani empire, had written 

 Divans, were 'Divan people,' — Ahli Divan, as the expression runs. 

 The Sha-ir may be a clever writer, he may be a fine writer ; but he 

 has nothing to teach us about his people. We may safely dismiss 

 him with honor and due respect. 



The Dum is the popular singer and poet, for he combines the 

 two qualities, like our Jongleicr of the middle ages. The Diims 

 form a caste : the profession is hereditary. The Dum is despised 



