l their faces when passing down the street bathe in
the river and streams in a state of nudity, regardless of passers-by.

Most of the women have a great aversion to telling their own name,
because it is considered a very indelicate thing for a married woman to
mention her own name. It would be very difficult to make the necessary
entries in the register were it not that there is usually some other
woman with her, and etiquette does not prevent her friend telling
what her name is. Otherwise she will usually mention the name of her
eldest son, who may be a baby in arms, or may be a grown man--never,
of course, of a daughter: she must only be mentioned in a whisper,
and with an apology, if at all--saying: "I am the mother of Paira Lai,"
or "I am the mother of Muhammad Ismail."

Notwithstanding the state of servitude in which the women are kept
and their crass ignorance and superstition, they have great power in
their home circles, and mould the characters of the rising generations
more even than the fathers.

This fact was brought home very forcibly to me one day in school. A
subject had to be fixed on for the next meeting of the school debating
society. Various subjects had been proposed and negatived. I suggested:
"Who has most influence in moulding our characters--our fathers or our
mothers?" "How could we have so one-sided a debate?" responded half a
dozen boys at once. "Who could be found to argue for the fathers? Of
course, our mothers have all the influence." How important, then,
for the future of the nation that something should be done to raise,
and elevate, and purify the mothers of the nation!

CHAPTER XVI

THE STORY OF A CONVERT

A trans-frontier merchant--Left an orphan--Takes service--First
contact with Christians--Interest aroused in an unexpected
way--Assaulted--Baptism--A dangerous journey--Taken for a spy--A
mother's love--Falls among thieves--Choosing a wife--An Afghan
becomes a foreign missionary--A responsible post--Saved by a
grateful patient.

In the highlands between Kabul and Jelalabad is a secluded valley, girt
with pine-clad hills, and down which a tributary of the Kabul River
flows, fertilizing the rice crops which rise terrace above terrace on
the slopes of the hills, and meandering in sparkling rivulets through
the villages which lie nestling among orchards of peaches and apples,
interspersed with fine walnut and plane trees. This is the Valley
of