cattle: how can we understand?"

They know very little of their own religion beyond the prayers and
a variety of charms and superstitions.

Some time ago we had a strange case in the women's (Holtby) ward. She
was a feeble old Hindu woman who felt she had not long to live, and
who had such a horror of her body being burnt to ashes after death,
as is the custom with Hindus, that to escape from her relatives she
came into the hospital, saying, she wished to become a Muhammadan,
so that she might be buried. We began to explain to her the Gospel
of Christ, but she appeared too old to take in something so novel,
and finding we were not the Muhammadans she took us for, she sent
word to a Muhammadan anjuman to have her taken away. We assured
her that we would nurse and care for her, and not burn her body;
but no! perhaps we might only be some kind of Hindus in disguise! So
she went off with her Muhammadan friends, and in due time was buried.

Unlike this old lady, some of the cases that come into our women's
ward are tragic beyond words. Let me give one story as told us
by the poor sufferer herself, and she is only one of many who are
suffering, unknown and uncared for, in Afghanistan at the present
time. For, indeed--for the women especially--it is a country full of
the habitations of cruelty. Her name was Dur Jamala, or "Beautiful
Pearl." She and her husband were both suffering from cataract, and
lived near Kabul. They were trying to resign themselves to lives of
blindness and beggary when someone visited their village who told
them of a doctor in Bannu who cured all kinds of eye diseases. So,
getting together all they could, which only came to about eighteen
rupees, they started out on foot on their long and weary journey to
Bannu--one hundred and fifty miles of rough road, with two mountain
passes to cross on the way! They took with them their only child,
a girl of about ten, and travelled slowly, stage by stage, towards
Bannu. But before they had got far on their way, in a lonely part
of the road, some cruel brigands robbed them of all their savings,
beat her husband to death before her eyes, and tore away the weeping
child, whom they would sell for a good price into some harim.

Poor Dur Jamala was left alone and helpless, crushed with grief. From
that time it took her just ten months to get to Bannu, having been
helped first by one and then by another on the way. She reached Bannu
very worn and weary, and in rags, a