We recently came across an extraordinary article originally published in the July 17, 1902 edition of Leslie's Weekly — a popular American illustrated newspaper of the era. The article, titled "A Silver-Mine in a Man's Stomach," tells one of the most remarkable stories we have ever encountered involving Afghan coins.
We are republishing it here in full, with a brief note from us at the end.
We often hear of a man swallowing a fortune, in a figurative sense, in wild and riotous living, and out in the rural regions they sometimes apply to such gourmands the expressive praise, "He has swallowed a farm, stones, and all."
Numerous cases are on record also where persons have concealed precious stones in their mouths and have sometimes swallowed them to evade the scrutiny of custom-house inspectors.
Most wonderful of all, however, is the story related in the "London Lancet" of an Afghan, who actually swallowed all his movable property in the shape of fifty-nine Kabuli rupees, equal to about $12 in American money, in order to avoid a tax-gatherer.
The details are given at length in the "Lancet," where the case is recorded, because of the great surgical interest attaching to the removal of the coins from the man's stomach, an operation which was successfully performed in a hospital at Peshawar.
The story of the concealment of the coins as told to the hospital officials by the Afghan is not without its humorous aspects. He said that he resided in a village in Afghan territory several marches across the border, and that he was an ardent disciple of a mulla (holy man), who lived in the Peshawar district.
He had been in the habit of making periodical visits to the mulla with the object of receiving religious instruction in the Mohammedan faith. Eight days before he arrived at Peshawar, he said that he was coming into British territory on a visit to his mulla.
On arriving at a place called Dakhi, he found that all travelers were searched by the Amir of Kabul's order and that all property in their possession, including money, was taxed. He said that a tax of three per cent was levied on all cash in the possession of travelers, and that in order to evade this tax he conceived the idea of swallowing all the money he had with him.
While some of his companions were being searched he said to work to swallow, as fast as he could, the sum of 65 Kabuli rupees, which he had with him. He had nearly completed his wonderful feat, when the Amir's officials detected his game and rushed at him. He took to his heels and ran down the road, swallowing as fast as he could as he ran the remainder of the cash, but before he could finish his "meal" he was caught and six remaining rupees (some of which were in his mouth still) were seized by the officials and forfeited.
As the patient had sixty-five rupees to start with and as six only remained when he was caught, he was satisfied that he had swallowed fifty-nine of the coins. He was, however, allowed to proceed on his journey.
Arriving at Peshawar, the fellow repaired at once to a British hospital surgeon located there and besought him to cut him open and restore his lost treasure. The silver had then been in his stomach eight days, but had caused him no special discomfort except a feeling of weight.
The man was told that the operation would be difficult and dangerous, but he insisted upon it and it was finally performed. He was kept under chloroform for nearly an hour and a half before the coins were reached and removed from where they had lodged in the interior of the stomach.
The man rallied from the operation with astonishing rapidity, and seemed never to realize the serious condition in which he had been placed.
He was very indignant when told that only fifty-five rupees had been found inside him, for he contended that he had swallowed fifty-nine, but he afterward admitted that he might have dropped some when he was being chased by the Amir's official. The exact weight of these 55 Kabuli rupees was found to be 17 3/4 ounces.
A Note from Chicken Street Trading Co.
This article was originally published in the July 17, 1902 edition of Leslie's Weekly.
The Kabuli rupee referenced here would have been struck during the reign of Abdur Rahman Khan, Amir of Afghanistan from 1880 to 1901, or possibly his son and successor Habibullah Khan, who ruled from 1901 to 1919. These silver rupees — the same type of coin that our unnamed Afghan hero deemed worth swallowing, running for, and going under the knife for — are among the most collectible Afghan coins in the world today.
The border crossing at Dakhi and the hospital at Peshawar place this story in what was then the North-West Frontier of British India, a region that sat at the crossroads of Afghan and British imperial interests. The three percent tax levied by the Amir's officials on travelers' cash was a real feature of Afghan border administration during this period, and evasion of it — apparently — was not unheard of.
What strikes us most about this story is not the surgery, remarkable as it was, but the man's determination. He ran. He swallowed. He survived a ninety-minute operation under chloroform. And then he argued with the surgeon about the coin count.
We think he would have been a formidable collector.