<^<«^C<^t^C^t^C«^C^C^<^<<£^ EX-KING OF AFGHANISTAN game, imagining himself already the complete hunter of the wild hills. And then, as an end to the wild free life of his boyhood, come the sedate mullahs with their books and papers under their arms, scripts and pens and texts, for the curbing of a young Afghan's impetuosity and the educa- tion of a roving, adventurous mind. They teach him history. They tell him of the feats in war of the Afghan hillmen, irregular troops from the out- skirts of a savage land. They tell him of the hordes of Persians who battered and crashed at the gates of Kabul. Of Mahmud, his ancestor, magnificent in his armour, marching at the head of 20,000 untrained men, to slash through the might of Persia, double their number. Of the dire revenge that followed, and the cold-blooded massacre of the two thousand guards and the whole of the Persian Royal Family. They tell, being bloodthirsty and loyal religious gentlemen, of the rout of the Turks, and the blood that flowed after that mighty feat of arms. They tell of Shah Alam, giving himself the title of " King of the World*" An Afghan, he, of the blood. The youth's eyes, we can imagine, wander often through the windows to the hills round Kabul, from which so many hundreds of thousands of arrogant eyes had looked down upon their prey. He muses upon Bala Hissar, which still retained for me, when I saw it, a glamour and a heritage of blood. The ruins of the great fort look down upon Kabul still. Perhaps the old mullahs tell of the Pass of Jagdalak, of terrible memory, where 4500 British and Indian soldiers perished in the greatest ambush known in Eastern history* And on his next journey to the old Winter Palace in Jallalabad, the young Prince rides through that valley of death with many a thought for the 19