Newby in Nuristan

By 1956, Eric Newby had devoted ten years of his life to working as a dress buyer for a London fashion house. Then one day, discouraged by his future prospects, he sent a telegram to Hugh Carless, a casual friend working as a British diplomat in South America, asking "CAN YOU TRAVEL NURISTAN JUNE?"

Nuristan -- which until 1896, when its people were forcibly converted to Islam, had been called Kafiristan (land of the infidels) -- is one of the most remote and backward provinces in Afghanistan, nestled in the mountains of the Hindu Kush, northeast of Kabul. Afghanistan itself, at the time, was a nation so primitive that it had virtually no paved roads. Carless suggested not only exploring Nuristan, but also bagging a first ascent of near-by Mir Samir (19,878 ft.).

Carless replied "OF COURSE." Newby walked away from his career in the fashion industry. And thus was born his best-selling travel adventure, A Short Walk in the Hindu Kush.

Although Newby's life to that point had been a bit more adventuresome than his account of it suggests -- distinguished military service, and shipping out as an 18-year-old apprentice on a four-masted sailing vessel carrying grain as cargo between Europe and Australia -- neither Carless nor he had any mountaineering experience. To prepare for their adventure, they took a short course in elementary techniques from some experienced climbers, mountaineers who appeared concerned not only for the pair's safety but also for their sanity.

Newby writes in a humorous, self-deprecating and understated style about their efforts to properly outfit themselves and prepare for what he increasingly realized would be a totally foolhardy ordeal. The early chapters read like "Laurel and Hardy Go Mountaineering." Carless appears insouciant and confident; Newby was in a constant state of panic and alarm.

Their travel cross-country from Europe to Kabul was in itself the adventure of a lifetime. Once past Kabul, and on the trail up into the Hindu Kush, Newby's account becomes less manically funny and more humorously observant of the real dangers and problems they encountered. Newby's feet were blistered and in bandages from the outset, and both suffered from chronic dysentary. The local helpers whom they had secured in Kabul were difficult to deal with, often obdurate and unwilling to do what was asked of them, and difficult to communicate with. (Carless did speak Persian, of which the local languages were variants or dialects; Newby spoke only English.) The pack horses were in poor condition, and often terrified by the trail they were forced to follow.

Despite unspeakable hardships, primitive food rations, and unfriendly villagers, the two adventurers dragged themselves up higher and higher into the Hindu Kush. Facing miseries that would cause many experienced climbers to give up, and needing to pull out a sort of "Climbing for Dummies" manual whenever they confronted a technical challenge, they somehow managed to reach a point just 700 vertical feet below the summit of Mir Samir. They could have continued successfully to the summit but for the lateness in the day and their lack of any equipment for an overnight bivouac -- even turning around at that point, they returned to their camp after dark.

Rather than then returning to England, tails between their legs, they proceeded onward with a difficult climb over a mountain ridge and down into the next valley, thus passing into Nuristan. They had a number of adventures among a people so isolated that they thought Newby and Carless must be Russians, with whom they were familiar as rifle salesmen -- and so wild and incomprensible that Newby feared they must be mad.

The book comes with a sketchy map, hand-drawn by the author, on which the reader can follow a dotted line marking Newby's route. The map, indeed the entire trek, brings to mind Frodo's quest in Lord of the Rings. Although no orcs or dwarves come bounding out of any of the many caves Newby and Carless pass, their adventure is odd enough, and divorced enough from how we picture the world of 1956, that we would hardly have been surprised. Newby even happens upon a faded inscription carved into stone in an unknown tongue -- strangely reminiscent of Tolkien's elvish runes.

Until I had read Newby's book, I'd never heard of Nuristan, despite the fact that the remote valley was the core sanctuary of the Afghan opponents to the Russian occupation in the 1980's. We think of Afghanistan as a bleak, ugly country filled with murderous fanatics. But before the Russian invasion in 1979, Afghanistan was a popular stop on the "hippie highway" to India. Newby's book reminds us of how beautiful and undeveloped much of Afghanistan remains, and of how primitive and isolated many of its people were as late as the Eisenhower era. And, for all I know, may still be.

Afghanistan as a tourist (or trekking) destination may seem improbable any time in the near future. It wasn't so long ago, however, that Americans felt the same way about Vietnam.
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Photo: Eric Newby climbing Mir Samir