Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1930-08-17
.PESHAWAR QUEER
PEACE-T|ME CITY
Packed With Native AfridiS,
Yet Deadly Dull as a
Cantonment.

Peshawar, frontier city OF India haro
by the mouth of the world-famous khy-
her Pass. where British forces nave
been attacked by large groups OF nall
wild Afridis, is the subject OF COM
nlunication to the National Geographic
Society from Maynard owen Williams.
Describing the town in peace times, Mr..
Williams writes:
"Peshawar, like many another city IN
India, is a combination of native city
and cantonment--the former closely
packed and interesting, the latter widely
sprawled and as deadly dull to the cas-
ual visitor as the outside Of an exclusive
club.
Polo an Ancient Sport.
"There is tennis on excellent courts,
sensational polo by military men mount
ed on splendid ponies, with wnlte-leg-
Ringed groomS lined up behind the
goals, and the side lines, a sandwich OF
attractive Europeans wedged in between
the less attractive and more interesting
natives, to whom polo seems artStocratic
and exotic, although this most ancient
of hockey games came overland from
Persia through Turkestan hundreos OF
years ago and was played in India long
before the English, smashing the SPAN
ish Armada which barred the water
East India Co.
THE cantonment Ia the place where
the visitor sleeps and eats and where he
obtains permission to traverse Khyber
Pass, that cash in the barren hills
through which the Central Asian COM
merce GIBBS and flows. But for interest
he drives or. better, plods along the 2
mile dusty road which leads to the ma,
tive city, composed, like its Central
Asian counterparts, of mud walls and
mud houses, with an added story, which
is often nothing more than a waffle
fence plaStered with mud, on the roof.
Here live the women-folk, and hither
the natives climb when the hot breath
lessneSs of the dark rooms below drives
them to Summer refuge beneath the
stars.
Streets Rich in Color.
"Peshawar's streets are always of in
terest. Ones eyes are entranced by
rich carpets from Bokhara and Merv
and Afghanistan, bright copper trays,
the high color of geometrically piled
fruit, the white wells, shaped like col
lapsed circular tents, beneath which the
Moslem women seem struggling to ex-
tricate themselves; the Navajo savagery
of the painted pottery and the silken
sheen of the toright-colored lungiS,
which, bound round a. pointed red or
gold skull-cap, transform ordinary
looking Punjabis or Pathans into SUI
permen.
''The turbans Of India, like the sheep
skin shakos of Turkestan and the SOM
brero of the cowboy West, are magical
headgear which makes heroic figures of
commonplace men. After these sturdy
men of the frontier hills, the fat Ben
gall will be a comic figure.
The grain market in Peshawar is
like the one in Samarkand, although 1t
has less color. The beautiful lungis, or
turbans, of soft tones, with bright bands
Of o contrasting hue across the free end,
alternate with solid-colored ones of yell
low, lemon, pink or white. The coats
still reveal much of the khaki Of war
times, although many Pathan wears a
foreign-style vest over a long white shirt
hanging outside full trousers, which are
gathered up on the inside of the leg
so that they hang in concentric folds
Topped downward from the knee"