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AMANULLAH

the same facts with only their own reputations to back
them up. . . .

So the Afghan hillmen and villagers swarm round the
drum-beats, waiting for the voice of the Government
news-teller. They are waiting for something " official."

Thus did Nadir Khan's proclamations and promises
go out to his people. They were garbled, mangled,
altered to suit individual tastes and prejudices. They
were whispered in the wine-shops, and shouted in the
face of a winter wind from shepherd to mountain hunter.
They flickered across a white and glistening world. The
words, or something like them, penetrated into the dark
and squalid huts, crossed the passes, were heard in the
frail shelters holding man and beast from the bitterness
of that winter. But it was hit-or-miss. Nadir Khan
was working in the dark. He could never judge the
strength of his own personality in his own country.

But one fact took root. The mullahs were back. There
was no need further to question the policy of Nadir
Khan. Afghanistan had gone back to the old order. A
sigh of relief was offered from all the boundaries of
Afghanistan. This was better than enforced progress
and the mutilation of religious beliefs. From the
moment that Nadir Khan had impressed that point,
he had won the battle for his own country.

The peasant dropped back into content and peace.
AH was for the best. According to his lights, he re-
viewed with some satisfaction the events of the past
few years. Bacha Sachao, the despised despot, had
gone. Only after his terrible end was it revealed in
the villages that he was a Tajik, one of a tribe never
considered by the Afghans (" Children of Israel ") to be
of equal rank. That reason for his fall was only given
after his death, for he had always stoutly maintained
his right to be included in the higher ranks of the Afghan

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