continually employed in contributing
to my comfort; Mohammed Ahzim Khan even deprecates the independence
displayed in lacing up my own shoes. "Osman," he says, "let Osman do it."

Osman's chief characteristic is a reckless disregard for the
conventionalities of social life and religion; he never seems to bother
himself about either washing his person or saying his prayers. Somewhere,
not far away, every evening the faithful are summoned to prayer by a
muezzin with the most musical and pathetic voice I have heard in all
Islam. The voice of this muezzin calling "Allah-il-A-l-l-a-h," as it
comes floating over the houses and gardens in the calm silence of the
summer evenings, is wonderfully impressive. From the pulpits of all
Christendom I have yet to hear an utterance so full of pathos and
supplication, or that carries with it the impressions of such deep
sincerity as the "Allah-il-A-l-l-a-h" of this Afghan muezzin in the Herat
Valley. It is a supplication to the throne of grace that rings in my ears
even as I write, months after, and it touches the hearts of every Afghan
within hearing and taps the fountain of their piety like magic. It calls
forth responsive prayers and pious sighings from everybody around my
bungalow--everybody except Osman. Osman can scarcely be called
imperturbable, for he has his daily and hourly moods, and is of varying
temper; but he carries himself always as though conscious of being an
outcast, whom nothing can either elevate or defile. When his fellow
Mussulmans are piously prostrating themselves and uttering religious
sighs sincere as fanaticism can make them, Osman is either curled up
beneath a pomegranate bush asleep, feeding the horse, or attending to the
pee-wit.

Observing this, I often wonder whether he is considered, or considers
himself, too small a potato in this world to hope for any attention from
the Prophet in the next. The paradise of the Mohammedans, its shady
groves, marble fountains, walled gardens, and cool retreats, its kara
ghuz kiz and wealth of material pleasures, no doubt seem to poor Osman,
with his one tattered garment and unhappy servility, far beyond the
aspirations of such as he. Like the gutter-snipe of London or New York
who gazes into the brilliant shop windows, he feels privileged to feast
his imagination, perchance, but that is all.

Big bouquets of roses are gathered for me every morning, and when the
store in our own little garden is exhausted they are procu