EX-KING OF AFGHANISTAN

buzz all night, but as I lay on the hard bed in the com-
pound, smoking, the night seemed cool, and I nearly fell
asleep with the cigarette still burning in my fingers. And
the first light of dawn came up to arouse me before the
early morning chorus of birds. It was fresh and windy,
and for the first time I saw the tawdriness and the half-
Western architecture of Amanullah's first attempt at
Westernisation — the rest-house. But it had given me a
good and a comfortable night, and except for the aching
of stiff limbs I had forgotten the agony of that motor
journey over the hills. The Afghan officers had already
gone.

We were not long in following them. The " ballast "
party were already sitting in the car, anxious to be off
to Kabul. The driver was examining the tired wreck
of his vehicle, and was bedecked in his " Western
clothes.33

" Why do you wear it ? " I asked him, looking at that
absurd hat perched on the top of his head.

*' It does not please me," he said with a smile, " but it
seems to please the officials. One has to be careful to
please the officials in Afghanistan these days. . . ."

Off we went, after paying a small bill for lodging, and
signing my name and occupation in the record book.
" Journalist on sight-seeing tour," I wrote, remembering
the injunctions of my friend in Simla.

Up and up we climbed away from the fair city of
JaUalabad, but before we left its confines we stopped a
moment outside the walls of the Winter Palace of Aman-
ullah. It was a strange mixture of pretentiousness and
simplicity. Its colours were vivid and staring in the
bright morning light. It had spacious gardens that
promised coolness and relief from the dry yellow plains
and rocks, and was well irrigated. I was not to know,
then, that in the fair city of Jallalabad, and round the

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