EX-KING OF AFGHANISTAN

faint surprise as he pulled up his elegant trousers and
sat sedately on the park bench in the very shadow of
the Hindu Kush.

And from that dignified position we watched, slightly
bewildered, as the policemen went their rounds, rousing
up the men and women from the grass, prodding them
with their staves, and indicating to them with many
an appeal to Allah, that they should bend their mighty
forms to the harsh outlines of a park bench. For this
was the new Afghanistan.

They did so, hesitantly. To many of them, this was
the first time that they had encountered the strange,
uncomfortable bending of the body in two places in
order to sit. Some of them tried to draw their feet up
and perch on the seats — an attempt that received the
scorn once more of the all-knowing policemen. They
rapped them on the knees as a lesson in social etiquette.
They forced their feet down to the gravel. They
pressed their bodies back sternly against the iron staves.

" Insh' Allah," they said, and did their best to be
modern according to orders.

But it was hard work. For what were their heels,
naked save for the strap of their sandals, if not for
sitting on ? For what were their knees, but to support
their arm-pits, leaving their hands and arms free to
bargain with ? Only thus could a man get face to face,
to see his business adversary close to. Only thus could
the full effect of an Eastern gesture have its due reward.
Only thus could a man watch his friend's hands to see
that there were no suspicious movements towards his
sash where dwelt the knife.

But they sat upright, before the menacing staves of
new mentors. Somewhere in a garden, somewhere in
Hyde Park or Unter den Linden or St. Mark's Square,
Amanullah the Brave had seen men and women sitting

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