The Republican., 1899-07-13
! THE GORGE OF SHAME
A Story of Indian Retaliation.


| chapter of life in India with a word
of caution, for the tale is grewsome.
1t is a story from life, a reminiscence
of the early colonial days, and forms
one of a series of tales illustrating the
march of British power in the East
Indian empire. The Waziris are tribe
inhabiting Afghanistan, which was
transferred to the British in 1894.
In their manner of dealing with the
woman question the Waziris are old
fashioned. With them, above all peo-
pies, chastity is the virtue of woman,
courage of the man. There is no place
among them for the wanton or the
coward and the expression of public
opinion seems to be founded on some
such maxim sS 1.-THE dead sin no
more"
Ludlow, the doctor, Gordon, my sub
altern, and myself were sitting outside
the little fort smoking after one of the
scrubby dinners of the country, and
Bakshan Khan, who had been invited
to share our cheroots, was smoking
with us. Ludlow had spent 13-hour
day tramping after elusive Markhor, in
in the course of which he had climbed
to 1000 feet above the sea level, and,
tough as he was, was very tired. He
showed no wish to tell us of his sport,
which had been confined to feeting
glimpses of distant Markhor; but,
somewhat wearily, he told us that he
had come across the bones of woman
i'll the soft sand under the lee of
bowlder at the mouth of a very ugly
gorge; bones curiously shattered
skull, arms, legs, ribs, not a bone whole.
And the sepoys who were acting as his
shikarris had spat on the bones and
covered them again, and would tell him
nothing, only that the gorge was called
t'The Gorge of Shame"
l looked at the Bakshan Khan. He
blew a slow cloud of smoke from his
mouth and said: years ago" We
pulled ourselves together to listen, for
we always listened to Bakshan Khan,
and he told us the story of Grierson.
Years ago, when the post was first
held by the English, there was sahib
in command named Grierson. Perhaps
it was Is, perhaps 20, years ago. What
is time to us who only know day and
night, summer and winter" He was
a brave man, but reckless. He loved
women too well. He also drank and
smoked very much, but was never
bit weaker for it. In those days the
caravans passing down had to fight for
it all the way along the Waziri border,
and it was out in the broad bed of the
Kuch where the rivers meet, that they
lay safest under the rifles of the little
post as it then was-only one-third as
big as it is now, and not half as many
men in it. Often the party at the post
used to sally out to fire on raiders, and
more often wounded traders used to
drop in at the post to be healed of gun
shot, sword and spear wounds. The
days were by no means dull. To a man
of Grierson's nature life of hard liv-
ing, fighting, drinking and no woman
to cheer him was but fuel to fire.
Grierson was not a sentimentahst.
Many men who mean and do no wrong
to women are not sentimentalists, and
they do not usually make the worst
husbands. One day there had been a
dash on a caravan at early dawn and
a pursuit. Grierson had succeeded in
overtal1ing and shooting Mahsud
Waziri who bore away a girl on his
camel, and she lay fainting from its
fall, for it dropped dead, shot at the
same time as its master. Grierson went
to her aid and found hen beautiful.
He brought her back to the caravan,
made terms and was married to her
by the Mohammedan law, and for the
handsome price of a thousand rupees
in money and kind. 1t was a difficult
matter to arrange, but in those days,
even more than now, might was right,
could slay as well as protect? If it had
pleased Grierson to have her abducted
for him the price would have been less;
and, suspicious as all savages are, the
caravan of Zillah Khel Waziris saw that
they stood a good chance of a greater
security if one of their women was the
wife of one of their protectors. Be-
sides, the girl was of no consequence.
She was an orphan, and the Malik had
the legal right to dispose of her. Her
relations were few and poor. Four
guns, 20 rounds of ammunition, a gun
and a substantial sum in cash, to say
nothing of the influence and security,
was good price for a ''tocherless las
sie." So Grierson got his way and his
wife. Now she was his wife in English
law, though he did not know it; but,
to do him justice, he meant honestly
by her, and treated her kindly and we'll
AT last there came day when the old
game of trailing the tail of my coat
was played by the government of India
Officially this is known as testing the
temper of the tribes;" and it is done
by sending parties more or less armed
to visit" various tribes in friendly
way. The tribes have the same OBJ
jections to being called upon in a
friendly way-with gun in your hand
that Englishmen have. They also get
alarmed, then they begin to shoot out
of funk, whereupon they are said tc
be uncertain" an expedition goes
forth, and a little more red paint is
added to the map of our Indian empire
1t was during one of these episodes that
Grierson's menage came to the notice