EX-KING OF AFGHANISTAN

being noised abroad in Jallalabad. With his usual
insouciance, Habibullah had sent to their deaths a
hundred or so of his erring people. Once more came
the half-satirical saying from his heart: "I rule an
iron people. They need an iron rule.55

Amanullah was not content. He flung out a rejoinder,
which, however, never reached the ears of his father,
or the history of Afghanistan might have been changed.

" We are a wild people,'5 was the reply. u But we
can be tamed ! "

His career, looked at in its most favourable light,
appears more justifiable if that saying, hushed up by
his friends, is kept in mind.

There must have been many times when relations
were strained between the Amir and his warrior son,
Amanullah left the Court boiling with anger more than
once. Some injustice done to a soldier; some flagrant
act of cruelty to a poor man of the people; some
breach of the code of honour which ruled him, even
though it was the rough honour of the wild; he had
cause enough for being dissatisfied with the present
regime.

Nothing was done when he denounced, in the face of
his father, the graft which permeated the whole of the
State. Nothing was done when he produced instance
after instance of chicanery which must already have
come to the notice of high ministers in the Amir's
service. He fumed, and held his peace.

Perhaps Souriya curbed his growing impatience.
She was more of the diplomat. She, half Syrian, knew
the Afghan mind better than did her Afghan husband.
Tactfully she calmed him, knowing perhaps with the
^wisdom which sent the London journalist into semi-
hysterics, that later he would have his chance to reform
the world and its evils*

41