ings in my favor, I reply:"
All right, I don't ask the Ameer's protection; I will go to Kandahar and
Quetta alone, on my own responsibility; then if I get murdered by the
Ghilzais, nobody but myself will be to blame." "The Wali has his orders
from the Padishah, the Ameer Abdur Eahman Khan, that no Ferenghi is to
come in the country." "Tell the Wali that Afghanistan is Allah's country
first and Abdur Eahman's country second. Inshallah, Allah gives everybody
the road." The old khan is evidently at a loss how to meet so logical an
argument, and the colonel, Kiftan Sahib, and Bottle Green are deeply
impressed at what they consider my unanswerable wisdom. They look at one
another and shake their heads and smile.

The chief concern of the khan is apparently to convince me that it is
only out of consideration for my own safety that I am forbidden to go
through, and, after a brief consultation with the others, he again
addresses his flowery eloquence to me. He comes and squats beside me,
and, with much soothing patting of my shoulder, he says: "The Wali is
only taking you to Herat to obtain Ridgeway Sahib's and Faramorz Khan's
permission for you to go through. Inshallah, after you have seen Herat,
if it is the will of Allah, and your kismet to go to Kandahar, the Ameer
will let you go." To this comforting assurance I deem it but justice to
the well-meaning old chieftain to signify my submission to the
inevitable. Before departing, he requests the humble present of a
pencil-sketch of the bicycle as a souvenir of my visit to Furrah. During
the day I get on quite intimate terms with my guard, and among other
things compete with them in the feat of holding a musket out at arm's
length, gripping the extreme end of the barrel. Tall, strapping fellows
some of them are, but they are not muscular in comparison; out of a round
dozen competitors I am the only one capable of fairly accomplishing this
feat.

Many of the soldiers carry young pheasants about with them in cages, and
seem to derive a good deal of pleasure in feeding them and attending to
their wants. The cages are merely pieces of white muslin, or
mosquito-netting, about the size of a pocket-handkerchief, enclosing a
four-inch disk of wood for the inmate to stand on. The crape is gathered
and loosely tied at the corners. It is carried as one would carry
anything suspended in a handkerchief, and is hung on the limb of a tree
in the same manner.

Late in the afternoon of the s