<^Ci^<<£^t^<^<^t^<^<^t^C<^ EX-KING OF AFGHANISTAN round the car. Rifles were fired into the early morning mist, and the car passed slowly down the decorated and beflagged route. The car stopped, and Amanullah stepped from it. Casting round in the crowd, he selected a malik, a soldier, and a peasant, and kissed them. " That is my farewell to my leaders, my soldiers, and my people," he said. The people went wild with enthusiasm as he drove on, and ran the three miles beside his car to Chaman. When he stepped from the car, thirty-one guns boomed their salute, and a British military band struck up the Afghan National Anthem. For the first time in history, an Afghan ruler had ventured from his own territory. The enthusiasm of the Afghan crowds was so great that they broke over the Frontier. Laughing and excited as children, they escaped the British Indian guards, and continued their way to the meeting, just over the border, between Amanullah and the officials of Quetta. The King was followed by the Queen, wearing black, and veiled. Her party was followed by the coolies and the Army transport carts carrying the hundred and fifty pieces of luggage which comprised their goods for the tour. Aeroplanes circled overhead and looped and dipped in salute. The little railway platform at Chaman, furthest outpost of the system in Baluchistan, was packed with the glitter and array of the Army and the civil services, in levee uniform. Red carpets led the way to two specially built carriages which had cost £15,000 to construct. The guns boomed out once more, a telegram from the Bang of England was handed to Amanullah, and for the first time in his life he stepped into a railway carriage, white and gold on the outside, with the Royal crest of Afghanistan on its flank, flying the Union Jack and the green flag of his Court. G 97