EX-KING OF AFGHANISTAN

than was the case at Dacca. But naturally enough,
this being near the capital, the price was higher. Twenty
rupees it cost me, and we chugged through to the long
straight road that led to the old gates of the city.

The road was chock-a-block with farm carts returning
to Kabul for the night. They were loaded up with
grain and other goods, and the poor bullocks strained
and stumbled under the weight and the rain of blows
that fell on their heads. The dusk was filled with the
ghastly thud of stout staves on the bowed heads of the
beasts as the carts rumbled on great wooden wheels into
the city, carving a rut in the soft road as they went.
They swayed unsteadily, the course of the labouring
teams diverted by the methodical tail-twisting that
urged them on.

" Ai ! " called the drivers, sitting on the poles and
reviling their beasts with the lurid wit of the East. " Ai !
Ai ! " The thuds provided a fiendish chorus into Kabul.

It was nearly dark when we ran through the old gate
in the battlements, and old Bala Hissar, the ruined
fortress, was only a dim shape. The lights were up in
the city, and the bazaar was swarming with people. We
kept out of the inner city, however, and encircled the
town on a new, rutty road that was wide and provided
with pavement stones. Our first stop, after depositing
the jubilant and grateful ballast passengers near the
city, was the British Legation.

I stopped the car outside the gate and presented my-
self to the guardroom. The tall cavalry trooper with
the ink-black beard saluted, and let me in. From there
I was escorted to an office of the Legation* A young
secretary to the Legation, in civilian clothes, came out
of his room.

" Hello," he greeted me. ** You're not supposed to
be here, you know. The wires have been buzzing with

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