EX-KING OF AFGHANISTAN

was past surprise, and determined to lift his eyebrows at
no more irregularities of this curious Western race 1

Day by day the long cars drew up outside Claridge's
to take Amanullah and his Queen to some new wonder
of London. They went to the Zoo, and they visited the
great railway works at Swindon. Lady Humphrys took
Souriya shopping, and the two of them chose mountains
of carpets and acres of curtains for the embellishment
of far-away palaces in Jallalabad and Paghman and
Kabul. There were stacks of furniture, silks and bro-
cades, the finest merchandise of Regent Street and Bond
Street, dispatched to the East as a result of these visits.
For who could know that soon after their arrival, those
very tables and chairs and silks and brocades would
serve to feed flames rising high in the Eastern sky,
crackling as they were put on the fires that lit the end
of a regime, while round the burning there ran and
rejoiced the fanatics of one of the wildest and most
savage races in the world ? . . .

Amanullah went down to a review of the Fleet. The
sum of £6000 was paid for ammunition on that single
day alone. He lunched in the wardroom of the Nelson.
Before his eyes the Fleet manoeuvred and plunged to
mock war. This, then, was the might of England !

He shrugged his shoulders. ** They are no good to
me," he said. "Neither on my behalf, nor against
me, they are no good. I have no concern with the
sea. . . ."

The £6000 seemed somewhat expensive if that was
the only impression to remain in the mind of Amanullah.

He dived below the sea in a submarine. He saw tanks
at Lulworth.

" They are very fine," he said. " But they could not
be used in my country."

Only when he saw the might of the Third Arm was

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