ZINDAN, EMIR'S PRISONS

Sadly famous, these prisons built in the 18th century tried to rival hell. On Fridays, some prisoners were freed from the chains around their necks, and compassionate relatives or passers-by could bring them food for the week. Perhaps the supreme punishment was not death, but a 6-metre deep well, the "black well", where the condemned were forgotten among the rats and all the most voracious insects of creation. Some captives managed to survive for several months. In 1839, an Englishman, Lieutenant Charles Stoddart, charged with making an alliance with Emir Nasrullah, tasted the distress of the Black Well for disrespecting the Emir by riding when he should have been walking, and walking when he should have been crawling. Furthermore, his mission statement was not from Queen Victoria. He spent six months at the bottom of the hole before earning his grace by converting to Islam. He remained a prisoner but was free to move around the city and stay in his own apartments. In September 1840, a captain of the Bengal Light Infantry, Arthur Conolly, came to inquire about the fate of his compatriot and to try to free him. Shortly after his arrival, the British army was defeated in Afghanistan at the Battle of Khyber Pass. The Emir, in a position of strength, convinced by his advisers that Conolly was a spy, had the two men thrown into the black well. In June 1842, when Conolly refused to convert to Islam, the two English officers were executed in Registan Square, where their bodies probably still lie. Nothing is known of their deaths, however, it is said that Stoddart, a convert to Islam, died beheaded or with his throat cut, but without suffering. Conolly, who refused conversion, probably wasn't so lucky. The story is known thanks to the notebook that Conolly held to the bottom of his well, which was found by the Reverend Joseph Wolff in 1845. Hopkirk's book, The Great Game, also tells the story of these two heroic victims of the "great game" in detail. Mannequins now replace the most famous prisoners of the Black Pit, but the two English officers are not represented. Outside the prisons is the tomb of Saint Kuchar Ata, overlooked by the traditional perch, where prisoners were allowed to practice religious rites.