<«^«^t<2?«^t^<^t^<^<^C^^ AMANULLAH upright, with their hats on. That was the West. Very well then, they should do it in the new Westernised city of Kabul and in the new garden of Paghman. The slopes, so comfortable to the long spare frames of the hillmen, were soon bare. The park seats were filled. There seemed to be a Sunday-morning-in- Kensington-Gardens atmosphere. The German-Afghan children played round their prams. The nurses did what nurses do in all gardens in the world. The police paraded. (One of them sat down subconsciously on the grass until he remembered.) And the hills laughed. How the hills laughed ! The band played. There was a crescendo of sound. After a sharp tussle the beginners lost the fight through shortness of breath, and the lilt of a terribly familiar tune began to be discerned. Everything was ready for the party. All the excitement had evaporated as it does at all children's parties. And into the garden came six men. (When, a week later, this story appeared under my name on the breakfast tables of half England, and was copied by every newspaper in the world, I was called a liar in every polite phrase invented by the diplomatic services in six countries. It was impossible, and it was incredible. It could not happen, it would not happen, and it did not happen, they said.) Nevertheless, the six men walked into the garden. They came slowly, and, it seemed, painfully. They held hands. They clutched at each other's shoulders as if for support* But they came, and along the paths too, for the police saw to that. Here is what I saw. They were big-boned, loose-limbed men of the Afghan hills. There was no mistaking their pale blue eyes, striking to the foreigner, in that dark skin. But they 164