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AMANULLAH

There were already some visitors for the night, Afghan
officers who were journeying the other way. They were
walking in the pleasant compound, and made haste to
call the servants when I got out of the car. They were
haughty but amiable, and I found that their seeming
superiority to me was a strange form of self-conscious-
ness. For they were in the full regalia of their uniforms,
and the tight boots, resplendent jackets, and shakos
might well have caused some embarrassment.

The subject of dinner came up. My driver, who had
by now appointed himself the leader of this party, made
the arrangements. With something like triumph, he
announced that dinner would be ready in half an hour.
There would be the inevitable chicken (I saw the cook's
boy chasing furiously about the courtyard after another
victim) and fruit. Would that suit ? It would suit very
well.

The half hour was, of course, a figure of speech. At
the end of that time one of the serving boys came out
into the garden, and placed a table and a hurricane-lamp
in the centre of the lawn. It was immediately surrounded
by a thick flying mass of winged insects.

In another quarter of an hour he produced a few
spoons, forks, and a solitary knife. Then a chair. Lastly,
an empty salt-cellar. I took another illegal swig of neat
whisky from a flask (illegal because I had faithfully
promised the Customs in Dacca that I had brought no
spirits with me to " dry " Afghanistan) and waited for
what the night might bring.

At the end of an hour and a quarter the chicken pillau
arrived. The flies had a great time.

The night was very quiet. Only now and then there
would begin a fierce yapping and barking, and some-
times the long human cry of a jackal, scavenging on the
outskirts of the city. The mosquitoes made a continual

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