Sherlock Holmes, the wonderfully marvelous English sleuth, still captivates with his powers of observation and reasoning. He was the creation of Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, a physician who deftly put himself in many of the Holmes stories as a thinly disguised Dr. John H. Watson.

In A Study in Scarlet, on meeting Dr. Watson, Sherlock Holmes casually remarks “you have been in Afghanistan, I perceive’. Yes, he had been and there is a good tale to be told as to how Watson ended up in Peshawar. Baker Street Journal is an eclectic periodical published by the Baker Street Irregulars in Philadelphia and devoted to analyzing people in the stories of Sherlock Holmes. In January 1991 issue Mr. H. Paul Jeffers wrote an article about Watson’s visit to Peshawar in 1880. In his article I found some factual errors about Peshawar of that era. Now for a die-hard Peshawarite it is hard to accept someone else’s mis-interpretation about his city. Hence the reason for this off the wall article.

Watson, a military surgeon in the British India Army sustained a bullet wound to his shoulder during the second Afghan War in 1880 at Maiwand, a town about 50 miles from the southern Afghan city of Kandahar (focus of the recent Indian Airline hijacking in December 1999). The British were roundly defeated in that 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.

We are not told how Watson made it to Peshawar after his faithful orderly Murray picked him up. Along with the other wounded they could have taken the southern route to Peshawar or could have traveled north within Afghanistan to reach the Khyber Pass in the Suleman Koh (mountain) ranges 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 have 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- cantonment in the subcontinent lexicon- in the marshland west of the old walled city and settled down to a 100-year uneasy rule over the Frontier.

Fifteen years after the debacle at Maiwand, in 1895, the British took advantage of a week Afghan king, Abdur Rahman Khan, to force border demarcation between Afghanistan and British India. The new border known as the Durand Line, was drawn west of the Khyber pass slicing through Suleman 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 Peshawar valley, the area between the Indus River and the Khyber Mountains, in British control. After the 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 occupation of Afghanistan in1979 changed the equation in favor of Pakistan. In 1888 when Watson visited Peshawar, this remote out post of the British Empire on the crossroads of Asia was still claimed and coveted by Afghanistan.

Watson is believed to have been brought to the Balahisar Fort located just outside the city (1). The imposing fort was originally built by the Mogul emperor Babur in 1530 and subsequently rebuilt by Hari Singh Nalwa, the trusted general of Maharaja Ranjit Singh in 1830’s. The British reinforced it with brick and made it their head quarters. ‘Here, I rallied and had already improved so far as to walk about the wards and even to bask a little upon the veranda….’, says Watson about his recuperation at Peshawar. If he were indeed at the fort he would have 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 into the old city to ‘explore the fascinating settlement outside’. He further says that Watson would have entered the city through Gunj Gate, one of the 18 gates that sheltered the walled city from outside. If Watson were to go to the city from the fort he would have gone into the city through Asamai gate (2), 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 half earlier by the Mogul governor of Peshawar of the same name. He would have found that the top cupolas of the mosque minarets had been removed leaving the top of the minarets flat. When the Sikhs captured Peshawar in 1826 they destroyed, as was their custom, the top of the minarets. He would have also learnt about the cruelty of the Sikh governor of Peshawar, an Italian mercenary by name of Avitabile, who ruled the area with an iron fist. Every morning before breakfast he would have a few of the’Muslim true believers’ hurtled from atop the minaret to ‘teach the unruly people a lesson’. His ruthless cruelty has passed on into the local folklore where even today mothers in the inner city of Peshawar scare their naughty children from the wrath of Abu Tabela, local corruption of

Avitabile.

A short easterly uphill walk from the City Square, later called Chowk Yaadgaar or the Memorial Square, he would have come to the hill top citadel of Gorkhatree (4). The Moguls built this ancient structure as a caravan sarai but in the beginning of the Christian era it housed the begging bowl of Lord Buddha. Avitabile lived in this citadel and according to another local folklore kept an eye on the citizens from his hill top residence with the help of a powerful telescope.

The era records do not show the presence of a full-scale hospital within the fort. But there was 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 his orderly Murray and enjoy the sight and smells of the city. He probably drank from the famous cold water well of Shahbaz (Shabaz-da-Khoo) within sight of the hospital on Egerton Road. Before refrigeration came on the scene in the early fifties these deep wells, scattered about the city, were the only source of ice-cold water in the suffocating summers of Peshawar.

A short west-wardly walk from the hospital would have brought him to the fabled bazaar of Storytellers or the Kissa Khani Bazaar (6). Lowell Thomas the famous American traveler called this bazaar the Piccadilly of Central Asia. In its tea shops and caravan sarais travelers from all parts of the world leaned against the carpet cushions and traded stories over the cups of green tea. Watson would have certainly enjoyed steaming hot dishes of chapli kabob, resin pilaf and fried mahsher fish from the Indus. The enteric fever that he contacted in Peshawar was probably the result of his exploring the city. The fever was the reason that he was sent back to England.

Close to the Bazaar of StoryTellers on the bank of the tiny Bara River stood a magnificent Peepal tree. The tree stood guard at the confluence of the present day bazaars of the cloth merchants and the bird sellers for over 2000-years. Buddhist pilgrims came from all over the eastern world to pray at the site and visit the Buddha’s begging bowl at the hilltop citadel of Gorkhatree. Within 100-years of Watson’s visit to Peshawar the tree was mercilessly cut down by the city fathers.

I also think that Watson would have wandered the city disguised as a fair-skinned traveler from the Caucuses rather than 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.

In the past century Peshawar has changed in many ways. Overpopulation, influx of two million Afghan refugees, economic hardships, 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 and hear the echoes of a drama that has been unfolding here for over three thousand 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 the Sherlockians. In 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.”