<^tc^C^«<^?<^«^te^t<^t^t^t^t^«<^<^ AMANULLAH " That is so. The Amir is back. And the merchants in the city say that he has brought some strange theories, some strange proposals, and some strange machines, inventions of the white devils, to make life for us a little more difficult." " Ah well. Perhaps these are tales of the bazaar. The merchants are liars always. We shall know, and Allah will protect us." So the hillman came to Kabul. Allah, if he heard the pleas for protection, did not withstand the police and the soldiery. " Are you a delegate ? Then come into the Palace ! " He was inside a huge barrack-room. He was taken and stripped. He was held while the barbers sheared his long locks. " But this is against the Koran! " he protested. " Wherein it is written that a true Believer must be bearded, like Mahomed ! " " Maybe," said the police, " but it is the order of the Amir." His clothes were flung into a corner. "Put your skinny shanks through these ! " said the ribald policeman. " And here," said another policeman, " put this on your fat head 1" " But this," protested the delegate, " this is sacrilege ! The Koran says also that the Believer must be turbaned! Besides, where shall a man rest his head when he is weary ? There are no folds in this vile head-dress for a man to wrap over his mouth on a dusty day. There is no cover for the face if he meet an enemy! There is not even a yard of it with which to strangle a foe without a cry 1" But the policeman clapped onto his head the homburg hat, and laughed at his religion in the new Afghanistan. 168