us he is sleeping so soundly;
therefore, no harm must be done to him in our village."

Not long ago there was a notorious outlaw on the frontier called
Rangin, who had been making a practice of kidnapping rich Hindus,
and then holding them to ransom. I was in the habit of visiting our
out-station at Kharrak about once a month, and usually went alone
and by night. Information was brought that Rangin, knowing of this,
intended one day to kidnap me, and hold me to a high ransom. The next
time I visited Kharrak, I purposely slept by the roadside all night
in a lonely part, that the people might see that I was not afraid of
Rangin's threats. Needless to say, no harm came of it; but the people
there in the countryside spread the idea that, as there was an angel
protecting the Daktar Sahib, it would be a useless act of folly to
try to do him an injury.

Although the honour which an Afghan thinks is due to his guest has
often stood me in good stead, yet sometimes the observance of the
correct etiquette has become irksome. A rich chief will be satisfied
with nothing less than the slaying of a sheep when he receives
a guest of distinction; a poorer man will be satisfied with the
slaying of a fowl, and the preparation therefrom of the native dish
called pulao. On one occasion I came to a village with my companions
rather late in the evening. The chief himself was away, but his son
received me with every mark of respect, and killed a fowl and cooked
us a savoury pulao, after which, wearied with the labours of the day,
we were soon fast asleep. Later on, it appeared, the chief himself
arrived, and learnt from his son of our arrival. "Have you killed for
him the dumba?" he at once asked; and, on learning from his son that
he had only prepared a fowl, he professed great annoyance, saying:
"This will be a lasting shame (sharm) for me, if it is known that,
when the Bannu Daktar Sahib came to my village, I cooked for him
nothing more than a fowl. Go at once to the flock, and take a dumba,
and slay and dress it, and, when all is ready, call me." Thus it
came about that about 1 a.m. we were waked up to be told that the
chief had come to salaam us, and that dinner was ready. It would not
only have been useless to protest that we were more in a mood for
sleep than for dinner, but it would also have been an insult to his
hospitality; so we got up with alacrity and the best grace possible,
and after a performance of the usual salutations on