AMANULLAII

heard that name and understood its meaning in the
country of bloody history.

Just outside Kabul, in the pretentious house which
saw the arrival of the youngest Prince, there were many
rites and ceremonies to be performed. For a month past
his mother had been in strict privacy. The midwivcs
had been carefully watching her health, .Relatives had
been in the house for some hours before his august
arrival, and the compound of the house was filled with
the tom-tom beaters who would announce the event to
the multitude waiting for news. Musicians are there too,
ready to expend all their energy in proclamation of the
event. And when the news is shouted from the portal,
no evil spirits may live near the child through the
hubbub which reigns in that happy household*

" May your days be happy and prosperous 1 "

" God is Great I "

So went the salutations in the crowded household,
between servants, the pampered midwives, practising
their art dictated by all the folk-lore of a superstitious
nation, relatives, and friends. The poor, outside the
gate, find their laps overflowing with precious grain,
money is scattered on the roads, while every man and
every woman reads the omens according to his own
knowledge of the art, and pronounces accordingly.

The chatter of the women, each offering their own
infallible remedies to ensure the strength of the child,
drown the clatter of the horses' hooves, as courier** &ro
despatched to far-away relatives to acquaint them
personally with the news ; though it is probable that the
rifle-fire has already told them all they wish to know, it
would have been a grave breach of etiquette to forget
this custom.

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