AMANULLAH

his attention would drift from his strange pastime to the
car, and its/m'ng&£ passenger. The only sound was the
occasional yelp of the pi-dog as the boy's aim proved
true.

More yellow dogs appeared. They were the sturdy,
savage type of the Afghan village, with bristling throats
and eyes with the glint of rabies ever in the pupils. After
the first interest in the car, they turned to more profitable
work, and began tearing and biting at the gruesome
entrails of a horse which lay just outside the mud caf6.
A fight developed, and the caf6 owner, cursing and
savage in his action, hurled a huge stone at the nearest,
crippling its hind leg. The dogs slunk away, dragging
with them the long streamers of innards from the
decomposing horse. The driver and the " ballast
passengers " laughed and joked, and I ate half the
chicken, washed down with the hot water.

The village had an atmosphere of terrible depression.
We had driven into the Dark Ages of mankind. Nothing
had changed there, save for the solitary sentinels of the
telegraph posts, since time began. Man still dug a
meagre living from the harsh and unmerciful soil. He
housed himself with the mud of his backyard. He clothed
himself in the skins of the animals he shot, and some-
times paid for a garment made by the village weaver on
his old-fashioned loom.

He lived in a state of filth and disease little removed
from the lower animals. He was born with cruelty in
his heart, and died with blind ignorance in his brain.
Perhaps a ray of humour came to stir his dormant soul
now and then, but apart from that, no thought of beauty,
no sentiment, no inspiring ambition, and no satisfaction
entered into his heart. Mind was always stationary,
though body moved about its business.

The misery of that village terrified me. It seemed the

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