THE AFGHAN BORDERLAND 



875 



his chief, the other to play sentinel. 

 While this is being arranged with the 

 advice and consent of the whole garri- 

 son, the women go up on the roof to see 

 what they can of the attacking army, and 

 the small boys run to and fro and report 

 progress. 



When we bade the Afghans a friendly 

 adieu after an hour's talk and some 

 photography, we were put in charge of 

 an escort, which consisted of a single 

 ragged soldier, who accompanied us 

 around the corner to point out the way 

 back to Persia. Three months later, on 

 our return from Seyistan by another 

 route, we heard the sequel to our raid 

 on Kafir Kala. The representative of 

 the Persian foreign office at Birjand 

 asked if it were true that Russia and 

 Afghanistan were at war. He had 

 heard, so he said, that Russia had sent 

 a party of Cossacks to attack an Afghan 

 fort, and many men had been killed in a 

 bloody fight. 



At Turbat the Russian consul, whose 

 guests we were, had received a report 

 that a Russian officer and his companion 

 had been arrested and imprisoned by the 

 Afghans. He at once sent one of his 

 secret agents to Afghanistan to investi- 

 gate the matter. From this man's re- 

 port it appears that when news of our 

 visit to Kafir Kala reached the authori- 

 ties at Herat, the chief town of western 

 Afghanistan, they summoned the com- 

 mandant to give an account of himself. 

 His inability to arrest us was clearly due 

 to the fact that some higher official had 

 squandered the money intended for the 

 equipment of the fort. Some one, how- 

 ever, must be punished. The command- 

 ant was accordingly removed from office, 

 publicly whipped, and sent to the small- 

 est available post. A new man was sent 

 to Kafir Kala, and with him a hundred 

 well-armed cavalry, so it was said. 



Evidently the Afghans have no inten- 

 tion of allowing foreigners to enter their 

 country. The people of the west are by 

 all accounts the mildest of the inhabit- 

 ants of Afghanistan, but even they are by 

 no means to be treated lightly, as we saw 

 again and again. One day soon after 



our raid on Kafir Kala we stopped at a 

 group of low, black tents belonging to 

 Afghan nomads who were encamped in 

 territory which is in dispute between 

 Afghanistan and Persia. Being short of 

 supplies, we bought a sheep and some 

 bread, and at the same time procured a 

 new guide. After purchases had been 

 completed the caravan and the new guide 

 started off across the desert hills, while 

 the Russian official and I remained be- 

 hind with the interpreter to pay the bill. 

 The Afghans demanded an exorbitant 

 price, which Kurban refused to pay. 

 After an interminable dispute, we at- 

 tempted to cut fhe matter short by hand- 

 ing over the money. 



"Here," we said, "is twice the price of 

 the sheep. We are willing to pay so 

 much, but not ten or even five times its 

 market value," and with that we started 

 to ride away. Thereupon a black-browed 

 Afghan seized the bridle of the interpre- 

 ter's horse, which caused the Russian to 

 ride his horse at the man to frighten 

 him. The Afghans at once became ex- 

 cited and ran to the tents for their guns, 

 while we began to ride slowly away. 

 They came out ready to shoot and we 

 looked for grave trouble, but a woman 

 called out : "Don't shoot, don't shoot. 

 If you kill one of them, their men will 

 kill my husband, who has gone with them 

 as guide." 



We got away safely, but the guide 

 proved most unsatisfactory. Twice he 

 misled us, and instead of taking us to vil- 

 lages or nomad encampments brought us 

 to desolate springs in the wilderness after 

 we had stumbled through darkness for 

 three or four hours. At the second 

 spring we found ourselves short of 

 bread, although we had meat enough to 

 keep us from suffering. That night a 

 caravan of Afghan salt-gatherers came 

 along the same track that we had fol- 

 lowed and encamped about a third of a 

 mile away. In the morning our men 

 went promptly to buy bread of them, but 

 did not succeed in getting any. "Oh, 

 yes," said the Afghans, "we have flour 

 enough, but we do not care to sell it." 



Naturally our men came back in rather 



