AMANULLAII

of his rule. Hardly a Paris hat or a German pair of shoes
shows itself in Kabul city. The bazaar of the leather
workers is humming with aetivity once more. The shoes
of Kabul point up to heaven again, and are vastly more
comfortable than the polished pointed toes effected for
the imitation of a false European standard. Vastly
more comfortable, too, are the worked brown and green
sandals, for wear on the rough hill tracks, with a big toe
protruding from where the two simple flaps are joined,
and an ingeniously decorated red strap round the heel.

The puggarees perch jauntily or voluminously on the
heads of the Afghan nation once again. The long flap
hangs down the back, for its old use as face covering,
dust covering, or pillow for a weary head. Waistcoats
are gaudy and as loose as once they were tight and sombre
under the Western order, and down to the bare ankles
flow the swaggering folds of white trousers, billowing
magnificently at the knee, pulled in at the shin-bone.

" Afghanistan for the Afghans ! " The old cry, cloak
for so many varied motives and reforms in these crowded
years, seems to ring more genuinely while Kabul retains
its character of the unchanging East. We see now,
indeed, a vast change in the throng that moves through
the gates of the city* No Russians shoulder their way
through the bazaar in the uniform of the Air Force, No
polyglot band of engineers or architects sits in the caf6s.
No secretariat of all the nations is housed in the great
blocks of hostels, once echoing to the languages of all
the world. Save for a few professors from Europe,
Afghans run their own country.

In the oldest country, the motor car cannot be avoided.
There are more motor cars in Afghanistan than ever
before- Amanullah's Rolls-Royces went the way of
many treasures during those hectic days when the bon-
fires burned so merrily, but there are six to take the place

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