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AMANULLAH

their appropriate laws. Taxes are collected, regularly
and systematically. There is a standing Army, well paid
and well fed and equipped. There arc new roads criss-
crossing about the Southern Provinces. The drone of
passenger and military aeroplanes can be heard over-
head. Another dream of Amanullah is being realised,
for work has started in the mines, and coal and other
minerals are being brought to the surface, to be trans-
ported long miles to the frontiers.

Even the dream that was to take solid shape of stone
is being translated into fact* Darulaman, still bearing
the name in honour of its impractical creator, is rising
slowly out of the desert. Darulaman, destined to be
neglected and despised as the fantastic dream of an
over-ambitious man, is to be built.

It is not quite the city of giant buildings and impres-
sive squares and distances visualised in the mind of
Amanullah. It has, at any rate, some relation with
the needs of the moment, and the capabilities of the
national exchequer. But it is called Darulaman,
perhaps in ironic memory of the man in whose brain it
grew as a wild idea of the Western world. The workmen
are back at Darulaman, city of the future, and slowly
the walls are rising.

Even the railway boasts its little train running between
the old capital of blood-soaked history, and the new
town. The train works, chugging between the two
stations with its daily load of artisans. It has justified
the hopes of its German planners, though they never
stayed to see the wonder of the Afghan at the first" iron
horse " in the country. Nadir Shah, the Westernised
Afghan, has done that.

The telephone system has been retrieved from the
wreckage and the ruin of revolution. The telegraphs
have raised their chain of posts anew along the routes

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