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AMANULLAH

Palace. At evening, it drew the faithful still, but the
King would be playing tennis. . . .

And it was at about this time that a curious change
took place which could be noted by every foreign tourist
who had travelled up through India and taken a look
at one of the wonders of the Eastern world—the Khyber
Pass.

For many years the Khyber had been included in the
itineraries of the tourist bureaux of New York, Paris, and
London. Round-the-world travellers, at so much the
trip in floating hotels, were invited to break their journey
in Calcutta, travel up to the North of India, take one
swift look at Afghanistan without leaving their cars, and
rush back for the evening train for Bombay.

The little adventure was well arranged, and caused
brave flutterings of the heart among the hardy travellers
who had accomplished it. For they had seen armed men
striding down the hill roads. They had seen a " for-
bidden " country. They had glimpsed barbed-wire and
sentries lolling on their rifles, protecting the gateway of
their land. They were well pleased, and in all the draw-
ing-rooms of the cultured and the travelled, in the
Middle West of America, in the Midlands of England, and
in Surbiton as often as in Minnesota, there were to be
seen snapshots of high-school Sadies and suburban
Sybils, wonderfully topee-ed and sun-spectacled, stand-
ing against a formidable notice-board at the end of the
Khyber Pass, their background being carefully explained
as u the unknown/'

That notice-board read romantically and uncom-
promisingly. It said, in bold black letters on a white
background:

" IT IS ABSOLUTELY FORBIDDEN TO CEO38 THIS
INTO AFGHANISTAN*"

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