'THIM DAYS IS GONE' [‎74r] (147/248)

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and was able to give "Father" a certain amount of information
which he found of interest.
Peshawar City was fascinating. The streets teemed not only with
indus, Sikhs, and Panjabi Mussalmans, but with Afghans, Hazaras,
Chitralis, Kashmiris, and even Kazakhs from Central Asia.
Loud-speakers played the Z ak hm i S and arr a endlessly and nothing
else. It is a love-song o~f which the words are alleged (by the
English) to go "There's a boy across the river with a bottom like
a peach, but alas I cannot swim!"
A horrifying sight was the prostitutes, who would sit at their
upper windows at night heavily made-up and discreetly
illuminated; but when they came down to the street in the morning
to do their shopping, they all revealed themselves to be
hideously old women! It was possible to imagine that boys across
rivers might be positively desirable by comparison.
After a few days of this I made my way back to Lahore and Kenneth
Hendersons's house - to the utter amazement of his servants - and
resumed my own identity.
It was then time to take up my post as Assistant Commissioner in
Kohat where I was rewarded by overhearing one of the locals
whisper to another "By Allah! How he speaks Pashtu!"
★★★ * ****
My Deputy Commissioner was one Mahbub Ali Khan, a Pathan promoted
from the Provincial Civil Service, extremely fat, wily and
experienced in all the ins and outs of Frontier administration,
but he did not like witnessing executions.
This duty (there had to be a magistrate present) he deputed to
me » dn d I to turn out before dawn to watch convicted
murderers receive their just deserts. The procedure was that, at
first light, the condemned man would be escorted from his cell by
half a dozen policemen and stood on the trap-door in the presence
°f a small party, including the Jail Superintendent, Doctor
religious guide, and the Magistrate. If a Moslem, he would say a
last prayer with all the ritual obeisances; if a Sikh, he was
more likely to shout religious slogans. He was then hooded and
noosed, the signal given, the lever pulled, he
disappeared through the trap-door, and the rope was suddenly
taut. The local hangman must have been an expert for I never saw
so much as a twitch from the body hanging at the end of the rope.
All the same it was a chilling procedure
relect that, not only had the man been
right of appeal against sentence, but
might well be the only way of stopping
lead to countless further murders.
and it was comforting to
duly convicted with the
that his extermination
a blood-feud which could
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