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While superintending the unloading of baggage from the goods train at the Chaman terminus, before crossing the frontier, I noticed the Kotwal, one of the prince's staff who accompanied him on his visit to England, sitting on some boxes and looking very glum. He knew sufficient Urdu to carry on a conversation, and so I asked what troubled him. He sighed, and said that he had just heard that his brother in Kabul had been made prisoner, and now his own enemies--may their fathers be cursed!--had taken advantage of his brother's downfall to poison the Amir's mind against him, and he was told that if he returned to Kabul it was probable the Amir would kill him. So he had thought it over, and concluded that it was better he should go back to Karachi and stay there with some friends until he could return with safety, and he asked me to help him in getting away by the next train.

To help in the running away of one of the chief officials of Kabul would have been a bad introduction for me to the Amir, and it seemed hard not to help a man to escape death, as he said, and he knew the Amir's ways; so, saying I would think it over and make inquiries about the trains, I left him, wondering how best to arrange the difficulty. I ascertained that there would be no train before nightfall, and at that time we were due at the Afghan camp across the frontier, so, as there was no necessity to take immediate steps in the matter, I went on with the work in hand.

At lunch time the English-speaking native, who had charge of the catering and other arrangements in connection with the prince's reception at Chaman, came to tell me that the Kotwal had also approached him about running away, and what should he do? I recognized that there was no help at hand, and so I impressed on him that whatever was done nothing must be known that we were concerned in the man's running away, pointing out the bad impression it would make on the Amir, and that the Government would no doubt institute inquiries and we should be blamed. So he went off, and came back with the Kotwal, and for a long time talked to him in Persian, of which I had little knowledge then, and, I believe, persuaded him that it was better that he should go away that day to the Afghan camp, and get back during the night, or the following day, and he would leave one of his men to see him to Karachi. However, when I rode away that evening the Kotwal rode with me, and we reached the Afghan camp together, and he was one of the prince's retinue when we set out next day on the road to Kandahar.

Afterwards, although the prince received orders in Kandahar that he should be brought back to Kabul in chains, the Kotwal made his peace with the Amir, and continued for some time in the enjoyment of his position, which included torturing and killing people in horrible ways, and the acquisition of wealth by bribery and extortion, so that when he died of cholera some eight years later he was possessed of several lakhs of rupees. The day he died, I overheard some soldiers gloating over the fact that that night his soul would be roasting in hell, and I fancy some few thousand others derived consolation from the same thought, and knowing what I did of him myself, the fate the soldiers assigned him seemed not an improbable one.

According to the Afghan theory, the soul of a man is judged the night of the day he is buried, hence the delight of the soldiers over what would take place that night after the judgment had been pronounced.

The camp at each stopping-place looked rather imposing, and gave the impression of an immense gathering, as, besides the prince with his retinue and soldiers, were the men in charge of the baggage animals, who of themselves formed a rather large company, for the camels alone numbered half a thousand, so that the tents, horses, and camels covered a large tract of ground. After nightfall all the fires at which the men were cooking their food showed up clearly, and each fire had its quota of men busily superintending the pots and cooking arrangements generally, while others were standing or squatting round, watching and waiting the moment when, all being ready, they might fall to.

The noises of the camp at night were numerous, though there was never any rowdiness, for an Afghan crowd is the most orderly and quiet of any country, but there were the voices of officers giving orders, the squeals of horses fighting with one that had got loose , the gurgling of the camels, the challenges of soldiers on guard in guttural Afghani, and the striking of gongs to announce the hour.

I remember one night, or rather early morning, when the guard over the gong had evidently been asleep and waked up suddenly, hearing sixteen strokes of the gong in rapid succession, although it was only half-past one. Whether this was the result of nightmare, or whether the man thought a little extra activity would better demonstrate his extreme wakefulness, I cannot say.

We were four days reaching Kandahar, for only on one day was the march at all a long one, the rest being what they term "King's marches," in contradistinction to "Caravan marches." King's marches being short ones on account of the number of men, etc., to move. The distance from one camp to another is usually expressed as so many hours' journey. The horses on a journey go at a uniform pace, something between a quick walk and a jog-trot to which they are trained, and at which pace they can, when in condition, cover fifty to sixty miles in a day, though it is not customary to push them to that extent except in cases of necessity. Taking into consideration the mountainous description of country usually met with, the absence of proper roads, and the size of the horses , this is a fair distance.

They have a unit of distance in Afghanistan called a "kro," which is said by some to be equivalent to one and a half English miles, but as there are no recognized number of "guz" to the "kro" it assumes varying dimensions, according to individual taste. I once received a firman from the Amir, through the prince, to make a perambulating instrument for measuring roads which was to show distances on the index in guz and kro, and I wrote the prince to let me know the number of guz in a kro that I might arrange the necessary clockwork. He replied that he had made inquiries, and the number given by different persons so varied that he had written the Amir to fix a standard; but the Amir fell ill just then, and the matter remained in abeyance, and the same indefiniteness still exists. The present Amir has distances measured in yards and miles.

Once when travelling from Kabul to Peshawar, and after being seven or eight hours in the saddle, I asked the sowars with me how far it was to the village by which we intended camping. One usually is rather interested in knowing how much farther one has to go after several hours' riding. He told me that it was between one to two kro ahead, but we did not get to camp until after three hours' further riding. So I henceforth made it a custom to inquire the distance in hours, and found it less disappointing.

On arriving within a few miles of Kandahar, the prince was met by the General commanding that district and the principal officers, who dismounted at a distance from him, and came up with heads uncovered. When they reached him they kissed his foot, and then, taking his hand between both of theirs, placed it on each eye in turn, and kissed it also; this being the Afghan custom when acknowledging their chief or swearing allegiance. Near the city the troops of the garrison were drawn up, together with the artillery, and the latter fired the royal salute as the prince rode up. The prince then inspected the troops, and addressed a few words to them, after which, followed by all the officers and officials, he repaired to the musjid for prayers, while I rode on to the city to find the quarters which had been allotted to me.

I was told, while in Kandahar, that the Amir made the previous governors, when accepting office, sign a paper providing that, should they rob or oppress either rich or poor, they consented to be hanged, and it was significant that the last three or four governors had been hanged. The man who was governor when the prince arrived suddenly fell ill, and died a few days afterwards, and there were not wanting those who suggested self-destruction in order to escape worse happening.

Kandahar is situated in the middle of a fertile plain, or rather the plain would be fertile if irrigated and cultivated as it could be; but when I was there, there was little cultivation or signs of it, although the rivers carry plenty of water. On account of the small amount of rainfall in Afghanistan irrigation is necessary in order to make the land yield crops; and in some cases, to provide water for land which cannot be irrigated direct from the river, the people have sunk a series of wells leading from water-bearing strata to the land requiring irrigation, connecting the wells by underground ducts; the water from the last well being raised to the surface by means of a Persian wheel. This is a laborious process, and as the connecting ducts are not arched or protected in any way, the supply is frequently stopped by the earth falling in, and crops are ruined before the supply can be set going again.

I was asked to propose an irrigation scheme by which the whole of the surrounding land could be put under cultivation, and gave my opinion; but, although the work was feasible, it involved too great an outlay for the exchequer, and the matter was dropped.

The city is not a large one, and is surrounded by a high wall, which, together with most of the buildings, is built of mud and stone, or mud and sun-dried brick. The whole place is in a most tumble-down condition, having been partially destroyed several times during the wars of the past twenty years and not rebuilt. It gave one the idea that the inhabitants were in the utmost poverty, and although some of the better houses and musjids are built of small burnt bricks and lime, yet in all is the same appearance of dilapidation which made one think that the people were humbled and lacked the heart to put their city to rights. Some of the streets in the bazars are raised above the surrounding land, so that one looks down into the tumble-down shops, where copper, tin, leather, and other trades are carried on in a small way.

One thing that struck me particularly when riding through the bazars was the small size of the donkeys, which are little bigger than a large mastiff. They are employed in carrying loads, and I saw many with such huge piles of grass on them that only the donkey's hoofs and a small portion of his head was visible. Ripe cases for the intervention of the Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals.

I was lodged in a small house, built in the form of a cross, and consisting of one room only, branching out on four sides, this form being, I believe, copied from Russia. It was situated in the garden adjoining the house occupied by the prince, and as the weather was getting cold at night it was a decided improvement on a tent, although the architect had forgotten to include a fireplace. From the roof of the house I got a good view over most of the city, and could also see the minarets of the musjid in which is a sanctuary where any man, whatsoever his crime, is safe when once inside. There used to be similar sanctuaries in some old English churches.

The late Amir once told me a story of a moullah in Kandahar who had dubbed him a "Kafir" when inciting the people to rise against him. They had to make him out a "Kafir," as otherwise it is against the religious law for the people to rise against the King, who is also their spiritual head. When the ensuing rebellion had been put down the Amir was told that this man had taken refuge in the sanctuary. Then the Amir, turning the tables on the man, said that the sanctuary was for Mussulmans only, not for such infidels as men who rose against their king; and, taking his sword, he went to the musjid and killed the man in the very place. It was little that stopped Abdur Rahman in the pursuit of vengeance.

After spending a few days in the city of Kandahar the prince went out to a garden a few miles up the river to spend a couple of days in fishing. On the evening of our arrival the prince told his suite that the following day all must appear in Afghan costume, and that any one who came in English dress would be thrown into the adjoining river. The river was a shallow one, so it meant a ducking only. One of the men there suggested that I should be included, but was ruled out on the grounds that I wore the costume of my country. In order to afford amusement and please the prince, one or two men did go the next day in English dress, and were ducked, much to the merriment of all there.

About midday, the weather having cleared, the prince and the rest of us started up the river, walking along the banks, while horses were led by syces for fording branches of the river, or the river itself when required. Two fishermen, casting their circular nets as they went, waded up the river, the party on the banks keeping well behind them so as not to disturb the fish before the nets were thrown. The bed of the river was covered with shingle and stones, with boulders jutting out here and there, and the water did not seem to exceed more than four feet in depth at any place, and, being the time of low water, it was perfectly clear. There was a good catch of fish, which in appearance very much resembled trout, some of them being four to five pounds in weight, but the flavour of the fish had little to recommend it.

The circular nets used by the fishermen are similar to those used by natives in India. They are ten to fourteen feet in diameter, and weighted round the circumference at short intervals with leaden pellets, while between the pellets are pockets into which a fish swimming under the net in an endeavour to escape gets his head, and his body too if not a large one, and is so prevented from escaping. To the centre of the net a long cord is attached.

The method of using the net is this: the end of the cord is fastened round the right wrist by a slip knot and the rest of the cord gathered up in coils which are held in the right hand. The net is then held up by the cord so that it may hang in regular folds, and one half of these folds are arranged consecutively over the left arm and the rest over the right, both arms being held out to carry them, and care being taken to avoid one fold entangling with another. The hands grip the folds nearest them, and then, after one or two preliminary swings, the net is thrown forward, and outward, in such manner as to spread out and cover as large an area as the net is capable of before striking the water. On striking the water the weighted periphery sinks at once and encloses any fish within its area.

The principle of landing the fish netted may be explained by supposing a circular cloth with its circumference weighted at short intervals spread out on a table. If the centre of the cloth is taken and slowly lifted, the circumference of the cloth will drag in over the table towards the centre until it becomes massed together just before it is lifted clear. In the case of the net the weights round the circumference press against each other sufficiently to prevent fish falling through while it is lifted clear of the water on to the bank.

It is no easy matter to use this net without a good deal of practice, the gathering of the folds over the arms preliminary to throwing being particularly awkward, and seeming at first to require three hands at least. The Afghan fishermen are very expert in throwing it, and can make it assume circular, oblong, or triangular shapes, according to the requirements of the river or stream in which they are fishing and the rocks and other obstacles it is necessary the net should avoid when cast. But that is a refinement in throwing which requires some years' experience.

In nets for catching large fish the weights are necessarily heavier than those intended for small ones, but a couple of hours' fishing with a light net will be found sufficient exercise for one day for those not accustomed to them. Those who find it necessary to fish for the sake of the catch and not for sport will find these nets useful.

The prince, after spending a couple of days in the garden, returned to the city, but not liking the house he had occupied there he went the next day to stop at the Munzil Bagh, a new palace the Amir had built a year or so before just outside the city walls. I was given a tent pitched in the adjoining garden, because the rooms of the place were large and few, and sufficient only for the accommodation of the Shahzada and his personal attendants.

While here, I fell ill with fever and dysentery, and having no English medicines with me I might have fared rather badly. The prince, however, on hearing that I was ill, sent his own hakeem, or doctor, to attend me, and this man did his best, and gave me every attention. I was not quite as grateful at the time as I ought to have been, for three times a day he brought me medicine in a two-pint glass filled to the brim with some bitter concoction and sat there while I drank it, and as part of his treatment was also to starve me until the disease passed, I felt in rather a hurry to get better. Towards the end of my illness, however, I persuaded him to send the medicine to me and not to put himself to the trouble of bringing it, and then I found a convenient crack in the dry earth under my bed which absorbed the bulk of the liquid better than I could, and I am inclined to think that taking medicine in the Afghan manner is more or less an acquired habit. When I was convalescent, this hakeem selected all food that was to be cooked for me, and did so in such generous quantities that, after my enforced fast, I was in danger of getting ill in other ways. I really ought to have been more grateful, for he was very conscientious, and liberal too, and took the greatest interest in my case.

When I was well again I rode about the country around a good deal and found plenty of partridge and quail shooting, and I heard that deer could be got further away; but as it involved the trouble of camping out for a night or two I did not think it worth while to try my luck, and camping out with a small escort was hardly advisable.

A sowar escort of seven men, with their duffedar , had been appointed to attend me wherever I went from the day I crossed the frontier, and, as the penalty, should a fanatic attack and kill me, was death to themselves, they kept very close to me and left nothing whatever to chance.

The prince spent about a month in Kandahar and was getting rather gloomy at the thought of being kept there for the winter, for it was getting on towards the end of November, when one evening I went to pay my compliments, or salaam him, as they call it, and met him coming into the durbar room as I got there. I saw that he was very pleased and excited, and he called out, "How do you do?" when he saw me, and shook hands, which was a thing he seldom did, and then told me that the Amir's firman had been received, and he was to go on at once to Kabul. I made a remark about it being rather cold weather for travelling, and he assured me pleasantly that on the march it would be twenty times colder than in Kandahar. As the water in my tent froze every night I saw nothing to congratulate myself upon; however, the prospect of being on the move again was exhilarating.

That evening the prince had some musicians brought in. They played upon instruments made of some sort of cane or bamboo, which rather resemble the flute, and although Afghan music is not usually soothing to the Western ear, I found the music these men played rather pleasant and lively. The instruments they used are peculiar to Kandahar, I was told, and the prince wanted one of the men to accompany him to Kabul; but the man was not attracted by the idea, and managed to evade the invitation.

The Shahzada left Kandahar the following week, the intervening time being taken up in preparations for the journey, although such preparation might easily have been completed in half the time; but it is not the habit of the people to rush things. Their custom is, instead, to put off all they can until to-morrow, or the day after, that for preference. The first day's camp was only twelve miles or so out of Kandahar, for it is customary always to make the first day's march a short one, in order to prepare the horses and pack animals for the ensuing journey, and it affords a means of testing the arrangements of the march generally.

The route to Kabul lay through Khilat, Mukur, and Ghazni. The road as far as Khilat, which took four days' journey, runs in a north-easterly direction, and mostly alongside the river, which flows down towards Kandahar from the mountains beyond. The track rises gradually over a rather flat country, but there are mountain ranges at a little distance on both sides. Beyond that to Mukur, another four days' journey, the road skirts the foot of some mountain ranges, and forms a fair road for travelling without any difficult passes to get over.

From Mukur to Ghazni it runs over a high table-land, with mountain ranges on either side, which, running in the same direction, give it the appearance of an immense roadway. It took four days to cross this and get to Ghazni, and it was by far the coldest part of the journey, for the wind was icy, and its keenness such that it pierced the thickest clothing I had. Although the sun was bright during the day it had no warmth, and the surrounding mountains were covered with snow, but it was not until the day before we reached Ghazni that snow fell, and made sleeping under canvas more unpleasant than it had been. It came on at night, and when I awoke in the morning I found it covering the boxes in my tent and my bed too, for the wind had blown the flap of the tent open and allowed the snow to drift in. It was chilly dressing before the sun was up, and as my clothes, which I had thrown over a chair, were also covered with snow, I had to get dry ones out of my boxes, the while being lightly clad in a night-suit and slippers.

That day's march to Ghazni was a trying one. Before this the days had been bright and the air dry, but the moisture given out by the snow made the wind still more biting, and we had to dismount occasionally to bring some feeling into hands and feet, and to rub noses and ears to prevent frostbite. Many of the Afghans wore hoods shaped like Balaklava caps which left only the eyes exposed, and I thought them a very sensible protection against such severe weather, and wished I had one.

The snow made the ground very slippery, and many horses fell. The camels were worse off in that respect than the horses, for their broad flat feet, which slide in all directions on a wet road, are ill-adapted for travelling over snow, and, being also heavily laden, they sooner or later came down, some of them breaking their legs and having to be killed. As, however, camel flesh is an article of diet they were not a literal dead loss to their owners.

Outside Ghazni the Shahzada was met by the officers and officials there, who brought him presents of cloth, horses, and money, and when the city was reached the royal salute was fired by the artillery, which, with several horse regiments, was drawn up to receive him. He afterwards went into the city, where he held durbar for a couple of hours before coming on to the camp, which was pitched outside the walls.

Ghazni is situated in a small valley almost surrounded with low hills. It is a very small place, and is enclosed by a high wall, as all towns and villages in Afghanistan are. It has nothing about it to show that it was once the royal city and the home of emperors. There are no fine buildings, and its streets are very narrow and dirty, and the bazars far from good. It boasts a bala-hisar which commands the surrounding land, but which itself could be commanded from the neighbouring heights with the guns of the present day.

Up to Ghazni the march was forced in order to get over the worst part of the journey before the middle of December, when the heavy falls of snow usually commence, for the table-land which has to be crossed before reaching Ghazni is well known to those who travel that way, and many have been overtaken by snow and perished there. Consequently each day's march was a fairly long one, and one day was close on forty miles, which for a Shahzada is looked upon as a good distance. I had been unused to riding for some months before, and at first was rather saddle-sore, but soon got hardened.

On some of the longer marches the prince rode most of the distance on camels, and on those occasions I went on ahead to escape the dust and discomfort of the extra pace, for a riding camel's trot is very trying to keep up with on horseback. Being ahead, I was able to trot or canter over the best bits of road and walk the others, but the disadvantage of forcing the pace lay in having to wait three or four hours after reaching camp for the baggage animals to come in with tents and servants, and then another hour or so for food to be prepared. Usually, I got my lunch any time between four and nine o'clock in the evening, and I found that waiting about in a bitter wind for several hours without tent or food was very cold work, particularly when tired after a long ride. While riding, my feet were generally so numbed with cold that they had no feeling, and in camp in the evenings the coldness increased to such an extent that water thrown on the ground froze immediately, and my khansaman showed me that knives dipped in water came out with a thin film of ice on them, so that after nightfall when the wind was at its bitterest, as the temperature fell lower and lower, one was glad to get into bed as soon as possible to get warm.

One evening I had a hole dug in the floor of the tent and a fire made in it, but in less than two minutes I was outside, coughing, while my eyes were streaming, and I had to wait outside in the cold for some time until the wind had cleared the tent of smoke. After that I got a munkal, or iron dish that stands on four legs, and had a fire made in that outside the tent, and when the wood had burnt away until nothing but glowing cinders were left, I had it brought inside, and found that it made the place more comfortable. Before going to sleep, when nothing but hot ashes were left in the munkal, I used to put it under the bed, and found a material increase in warmth there, for I had no mattress, and slept on rezais , which were not altogether impervious to the icy wind which came in under the walls of the tent and played under the bed.

We passed several villages on the way, some perched halfway up a mountain and some in the valley below, but all surrounded by high walls for protection. Gardens and cultivated land lay outside the villages, and as we rode past, some of the big Afghan dogs, which rather resemble a St. Bernard, would come tearing out, barking, and looking savage enough and big enough to eat one. They are fierce brutes, and often try to pull a passing traveller out of the saddle; but they need be big and savage, for they are used principally as sheepdogs, and on occasion have to attack and kill wolves.

The people in the country are mostly robbers, and in the days before Amir Abdur Rahman took the country in hand, travellers fared badly, unless they kept together in bands of thirty or more, for even poor men travelling alone have been known to be killed for the sake of the clothes they wore.

There are many stories told of the treatment offered travellers by villagers in outlying districts, and one case was that of a poor man who was going along carrying a sack on his shoulders, and was seen by one of these robbers, who, thinking that the sack must contain something valuable, waited behind a rock until the man got within range, and then fired and killed him; but on the robber going over to his victim, and opening the bag, he found in it nothing but dried dung , whereupon, bewailing the waste of his cartridge, he kicked the body and strode off. I was told of another case where thirteen men who were travelling during the winter were stopped and robbed of all they possessed, the villagers even stripping them of the clothes they had on, and leaving them to perish in the cold.

The Amir's method of putting this sort of robbery and murder down was simple and effective. If a man was robbed or killed, all villages within a radius of about ten miles of the place where the crime was perpetrated were fined from twenty to fifty thousand rupees, and if the people failed to pay up promptly, two or three regiments of soldiers were sent and quartered on them until payment was effected. When an Afghan soldier is quartered on any one, he takes the best of everything in the house, the best bed, best room, and best food, and if there are no fowl or sheep the man of the house must procure them at once, even if he has to sell all he has to get them. If he does not do this, then the butt end of a rifle is applied to the small of his back, or even worse befalls. The villager has no redress, because it is a Government soldier doing his duty. In this way the Government fines are paid in as quickly as possible, for each day's delay means a great loss to each house in the village.

The effect of the Amir's policy was to make each villager chary of allowing his neighbour to molest a traveller, as all suffered alike for the crime of one, and at the time I passed over the road, a single traveller might go all the way from Kandahar to Kabul without being unduly troubled. That is, provided he was not a foreigner, and Persians and Hindustanis come under that category, for such have no friends to make complaints to the Government and cause bothersome inquiries, and are, therefore, looked upon as fair sport.

The road from Khilat is fairly level until it nears Ghazni, when it falls down towards it, and then beyond Ghazni it rises again over the Darwaza Ghazni pass, and beyond that falls again towards Kabul.

Between Ghazni and Kabul, the country, being at a much lower altitude than that already passed over, the weather was much milder; but there was snow on the hills around, and the temperature at night was below freezing-point. We were five days travelling over this part of the road, and the country passed through was rather hilly; but it was well cultivated in the valleys, and there were many small villages about.

The road from Chaman to Kandahar, and thence to Kabul, could readily be made fit for wheeled traffic, and would offer no difficulties to the construction of a railway, and the fact that the two heavy siege guns, presented to the Amir by the Indian Government, were taken that way and drawn by traction engines shows sufficiently the ease with which a good road might be made.

When we arrived at Kila Durani we were only ten or twelve miles from Kabul as the crow flies, but had to go on round by the pass some twenty miles farther on. Close by this village we passed over one of the English battlefields with mounds of stones piled up over those who had fallen. Seated on one of these mounds of stones I noticed a very old man rocking his body backwards and forwards and muttering to himself, and when I had gone on a little distance I heard one of the soldiers behind shout, and turning round saw this old man following me with a huge stone, which he could hardly carry. The sowars with me laughingly told him that the Amir Sahib would imprison him if he tried to kill me; but the old man said that the English had killed his son and he would kill an Englishman in return. It was more pathetic than laughable to see this poor old man gone mad through losing his son some years before, and carrying a stone he was unable to throw to take vengeance. It, however, typifies the character of the people.

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