Rensselaer Standard, Volume 1, Number 1, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 21 June 1879 — Afghan Towers and Huts. [ARTICLE]

Afghan Towers and Huts.

These towers are structures about 30 feet high, and the same in diameter. The first ten feet are of solid , stone structure; the upper hollow and capable of holding fifteen or twenty men; the whole loop-holed and roofed in; above the roof is a lookout balcony. The only entrance is a small doorway above the stone substructure, approached either by a ladder or a single piece of rope, which, when the tower is occupied, is drawn up. Scattered around the towers are the huts or cave-dwell-ings of the people. The huts, surrounded generally by low, earthen walls, resemble those all over upper India—earthen walls and flat, mudcovered roofs some twenty feet long, ten or twelve broad and six high. Sometimes they are longer, and divided into apartments, in one of which the cows and buffaloes are housed, though quite as often they occupy the same apartment as their owners. Their portion is generally anything but clean; the portion occupied by the family is swept out daily by the women, who, as a rule, do not only all domestic work, but a good portion of outside duty also. The only furniture consists of two or three small bedsteads, covered with string, on which lie tumbled some dirty quilts or blankets; in one corner some seed-cases covered with a coating of mud, containing the grain for daily use and for the next sowing-season; a small stool or two and some spinning-wheels, at which the women sit when at leisure, which is seldom; a few ghurras, earthen vessels, holding water or buttermilk, and used as cooking pots. In one corner, or in the centre of the room, lies a heap of ashes or a wood re, on which the cooking is done; the moke of which, having no outlets, lackens walls and rafters, on which hang the warlike implements of the lords of the mansion. These consist of a match lock or flint lock musket, lately superseded in many A freedee homes by the Enfield, snatched from the Ameer’s panic-stricken infantry flying from Ali Musjid; a horn of powder, a bag of bullets, an old pistol or two, and the long knife, used as sword and dagger of some tribes, or the sword and others. All these are worn by the men not only when on the war-path, but almost invariably, even when plowing in their fields. Add to this a sheep skin bag containing about twenty pounds of flour, in which are imbedded some pieces of salt and goor (molasses), and the Pathan is equipped for a week’s campaign.—[Blackwood’s Magazine.