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Machine transcription
chance left the capital and took shelter in the
remotest parts of the country, out of the
reach of the Bacha and his colleagues.
Others who could not afford to leave their
families imprisoned themselves within the
four walls of their houses. But even this step
of voluntary confinement was of no avail to
them; they could not escape the wrath of the
tyrant or his officers. They were hunted out
and dragged through the bazaars in the most
ignominious manner and large sums of money
were extorted from them by torture. In some
cases the demand was so exorbitant that the
victim finding no other choice had to pay
with his life. Bands of these marauders
prowling about the city would catch hold of
passers-by and make them pay large sums of
money or on their refusal enter their houses
and take whatever they could lay their hands
upon. Theoretically the Bacha was the head
of the state, but in practice every one of his
officers had unlimited power and was not res-
ponsible to anybody or answerable under any
code of law. Even an ordinary soldier would
call himself mustaqil (i.e. independent) and
could by his own authority shoot any one who
dared to incur his displeasure. But of these
44
Roughly two thirds of characters agree with a modern printed edition of the same text. Much of the disagreement is editorial, not misreading. Treat the transcription as a finding aid and read the page image before quoting. How this was measured.