“You have been to Peshawar, I perceive”

Sherlockians are an interesting bunch. They are interested in anything and everything remotely connected with Sherlock Homes. The Baker Street Journal is an “Irregular Quarterly of Sherlockiana” published from New York. In the journal, writers discuss and dissect Sherlock Holmes stories. They also introduce a lot of conjecture in their interpretations.

In the January 1991 issue of the Baker Street Journal H. Paul Jeffers wrote an article titled, “You have been to Peshawar, I perceive”, about Dr. John H Watson. The venerable Watson, an important fictional character in Sherlock Holmes stories was an army surgeon in the second Anglo-Afghan War in 1880 where he sustained a bullet injury. He was rescued and brought to Peshawar, where he recuperated before his eventual return to London.

“How are you? You have been to Afghanistan, I perceive,” are the first words spoken by Sherlock Holmes to Dr. Watson (Arthur Conan Doyle, A Study in Scarlet [1881]).

“How on earth did you know that?” Watson asks. This was one of the many displays of Holmes’s deductive prowess to the always-admiring Watson.

In the Baker Street Journal article, Paul Jeffers made some erroneous assumptions about Watson’s stay and recuperation at Peshawar. He said that Watson would have recovered in the British Hospital located in Bala Hisar Fort. Here is my attempt to put Watson’s fictional visit to Peshawar in the context of the realities prevailing in Peshawar during the time of the second Anglo-Afghan war.

Watson had sustained a bullet wound to his shoulder and leg during the fighting at Maiwand, a town about 50 miles from the southern Afghan city of Kandahar

We are not told how Watson made it to Peshawar after his faithful companion Murray picked him up and carried him to Peshawar. Watson had sustained a bullet wound to his shoulder and leg during the fighting at Maiwand, a town about 50 miles from the southern Afghan city of Kandahar. The British were roundly defeated in the battle, as they were in all their engagements with the Afghans, and retreated to the British side of the still unmarked border between Afghanistan and British India.

Murray and Watson could have taken the southern route through Kandahar and Balochistan to Peshawar or he could have traveled north within Afghanistan to reach the Khyber Pass in the Koh-e-Suleiman mountains and then made their way through the Afridi country down to the frontier town of Peshawar. Since the Khyber route was well traveled and relatively safe, the British troops would have used that route.

Though they had been in India for over a century, the British came to the Northwest Frontier in 1849 under the command of Sir Walter Gilbert. They laid the foundation of a new garrison town – the “cantonment” was thus introduced in the Indian Subcontinent’s lexicon – in the marshland west of the old walled city and settled down to an uneasy 100-year rule over the Frontier.

In 1895 the British took advantage of a weak Afghan king, Abdur Rahman

han, to force the border demarcation between Afghanistan and British India.

The new border known as the Durand Line, was drawn west of the Khyber Pass, slicing through Suleiman and Hindu Kush Mountains and tribal homelands instead of the age-old geographic line following the Indus River 80 miles to the east. This brought the Peshawar valley, the area between the Indus River and the Khyber Mountains, under British control. After the 1947 Partition of the Indian Subcontinent into India and Pakistan, Afghanistan demanded the return of the area and for the next 32 years the issue remained a bone of contention between the two countries. The Soviet military intervention into Afghanistan in 1979, however, changed the equation in favour of Pakistan.

In 1880 when Watson visited Peshawar, the city was still claimed by Afghanistan. Watson is believed to have been brought to Bala Hisar Fort, located just outside the city (#1 on the map here). The imposing fort was originally built by the Mughal Emperor Babur in 1530 and subsequently rebuilt by Hari Singh Nalwa, the trusted general of Maharaja Ranjit Singh, in the 1830s. The British reinforced it with bricks and made it their army headquarters.

“Here, I rallied”, says Watson about his recuperation at Peshawar. If he were indeed at the fort, he would have had a fantastic panoramic view of the city and the surrounding countryside.

Mr. Jeffers in his article says that Watson, knowing his adventurous spirit, would have ventured in the old city to “explore the fascinating settlement outside”. He further says that Watson would have entered the city through the Gunj Gate, one of the 18 gates that sheltered the walled city from the outside.

If Watson were to go to the city from the fort he would have gone into the city through the Asamai gate (2 on the map), the nearest gate to the fort and not through the Gunj gate (3) which happens to be on the opposite (eastern) part of the city.

After entering the city, Watson would have passed by the imposing Mahabat Khan Mosque, built a century-and-a-half earlier by the Mughal governor of Peshawar of the same name. He would have found that the top cupolas of the mosque minarets had been removed, leaving the tops of the minarets flat. When the Sikhs captured Peshawar in 1826, they destroyed – as was their custom – the tops of the minarets.

He would have also learnt about the cruelty of the Sikh governor of Peshawar, an Italian mercenary by the name of Paolo Avitabile, who ruled the area with an iron fist. Every morning before breakfast he used to have a few of the Muslim “true believers” hurled from atop a minaret to “teach the unruly people a lesson”. His ruthless cruelty has passed on into local folklore where even today mothers in the inner city of Peshawar scare their naughty children citing the wrath of Abu Tabela, a local corruption of Avitabile.

A short uphill walk from the City Square, later called Chowk Yaadgaar or the Hasting Memorial Square, Watson would have come to the hilltop citadel of Gorkhatree, once the residence of Avitabile. It was originally built as a caravanserai by the Mughals. In its early history the place was, around the beginning of the Common Era, the repository of  the begging bowl of Lord Buddha.

Avitabile lived in the citadel and, according to another bit of local folklore, he kept an eye on the citizens from his hilltop residence with the help of a powerful telescope.

Records from the era of the fictional Dr. Watson do not show the presence of a full-scale hospital inside the fort. There was, however, a British-run hospital on Egerton Road (5) within the walled city that catered to the needs of the local population and possibly the needs of the British soldiers as well. It is quite possible that Watson recuperated at the Egerton Road facility. This would have given him the opportunity to leave the hospital in the company of Murray and enjoy the sights and smells of the city. He probably drank from the famous cold water well of Shahbaz (Shahbaz-da-Khoo) within sight of the hospital.

Before refrigeration came on the scene in the early 1950s, the city dwellers, in the summer months, relied on ice-cold water drawn from deep wells in various parts of the city.

A short westwardly walk from the hospital would have brought Watson to the fabled Bazaar of Storytellers or the Kissa Khani Bazaar (6). Lowell Thomas, the famous American traveler, called the bazaar the Piccadilly of Central Asia. In its tea shops and caravanserais travelers from all parts of the world would lean against carpet cushions and trade stories over cups of green tea. Watson would have certainly enjoyed the steaming hot and spicy chapli kabob, raisin pilaf and fried Mahseer fish from the Indus.

Close to the Bazaar of Story Tellers on the bank of the tiny Bara River stood a magnificent peepal tree that had stood guard for 2,000 years. In the days of King Kanishka in the first century of the Common Era, Buddhist pilgrims came from all over the eastern world to pray at the site and visit the Buddha’s begging bowl on the hilltop.

Little did Watson know that within 100 years of his visit to Peshawar, the tree would be mercilessly cut down by the city without any regard for its history.

I also think that Watson would have wandered the city disguised as a fair-skinned traveler from the Caucasus and not as an Englishman. To do otherwise would have meant courting personal injury and even death.

Though Peshawar was at the time – unlike the turbulent frontier – in firm control of the British, the colonial masters never mixed with the local population and never visited the city without an escort. A solitary Englishman was liable to have a Khyber knife driven through his heart if found roaming the labyrinthine streets and alleys of the old city.

Ever since the time of the fictional Dr. Watson, over the past century, Peshawar has changed in many ways. Overpopulation, influx of two million Afghan refugees, economic hardship, uncontrolled urban sprawl and the resultant urban decay has changed the face of this historic frontier outpost. But more than any city in the Subcontinent, Peshawar remains an exciting place where while taking a walk through its narrow streets and alleys, one sees the past merge seamlessly with the present. Indeed, one might hear the echoes of a drama that has been unfolding here for over 3,000 years.

One could imagine myriad scenarios for Watson’s visit to Peshawar. It is, of course, pure conjecture. But then conjecture is not a new concept for Holmes or his fans, the Sherlockians.

In the story of The Empty House, Sherlock Holmes says:

“Ah! My dear Watson, there we come into the realm of conjecture where the most logical mind may be at fault. Each may form his own hypothesis upon the present evidence, and yours is as likely to be correct as mine.”

Dr. Sayed Amjad Hussain holds Emeritus professorships in Humanities and cardiovascular surgery at the University of Toledo, USA. He is also an op-ed columnist for Toledo Blade and daily Aaj of Peshawar.

Contact: aghaji@bex.net