on to Athens, and then had to part company with my charming travelling companion, whose leave had expired. At Athens I was so fortunate as to be offered a passage to Malta in the Hercules, the flag-ship of Sir James Drummond, the Naval Commander-in-Chief of the Mediterranean. Sir Nathaniel Bowden Smith was then flag captain, and Sir Harry Rawson, who recently retired from an Australian Governorship, was commander, and poor Romilly, who lost his life in the first Boer War, was flaglieutenant. I was made an honorary member of the Wardroom Mess, and could not have had a better time of it. A nicer lot of officers it would have been impossible to find, and I had another outsider as a companion, Mr Inglis Jones, formerly an officer of the Blues and a large proprietor in Wales, who had a great fancy for the sea, and was always a welcome guest on any man-of-war. The middies were charming young fellows, and I made great friends with them, all the more from an incident which occurred just after I went on board. An old relation of mine, on hearing that I was going to the East, asked me to get for him some "Turkish Delight," or Rabat Lakum-it could be got equally good in London, yet nothing would satisfy him but to get some genuine stuff from Turkey, so I invested in two boxes and took them on board ship with my other luggage. However, I soon missed my boxes of Turkish Delight,

VOL. CLXXXVI.—NO. MCXXVI.

At Malta I spent a very pleasant month. Sir Charles Straubenzee, whom I had met previously, was the Governor, while two regiments, among whose officers I had many acquaintances, the 71st and 42nd, were quartered there. The 71st was commanded by the well-known and universally popular Colonel "Pug" Macdonell, while in the 42nd I found many old comrades of the Ashanti War. I had gone out in the same ship with the regiment to the Gold Coast. The Duke of Edinburgh was then in command of the Sultan, and much kindness I received from His Royal Highness and the Duchess of Edinburgh at the palace called San Antonio, which they rented, not far from the town. They were both most popular in the garrison and in the fleet, and no doubt in consequence of their influence the general feeling was very pro-Russian and anti-Turk. My belief in the imminence of war was scouted, as the Emperor Alexander, doubtless in the best possible faith, had written saying that he would not have war. It is well known that such was his wish, but, as often has happened even

N

with absolute rulers, there was a force behind him which he could not resist.

As the month of March and half of April passed away and there was no declaration of war, I was frequently asked derisively, "When is your war coming off?" I always replied, "As soon as the roads are practicable, as it is a late season after the severe winter, -perhaps about April 25th." When declaration was made on April 24, I was accused of having received private information, and shortly afterwards I was summoned home.

When I arrived in England it was intimated to me that various people wished to see me. I had interviews with the Duke of Cambridge, Mr Gathorne Hardy, Secretary for War, Lord Carnarvon, and Lord Beaconsfield's private secretary: the Prime Minister would not see me himself, possibly because I had got the reputation of having Russian sympathies. I also saw last, but not least, Mr Delane, for whom I had previously done some work in the columns of 'The Times.' Those who have read Madame Novikoff's Memoirs will realise how violent were the feelings of the AntiTurk party in England, led by Mr Gladstone. Their violence was communicated in a less accentuated degree to the other side, among whom were numbered the principal officials then in power. Those who questioned the resisting power of the Turks were almost regarded as unpatriotic, and unfortunately I came under that

category. The fact, also, that I had definitely foretold the certainty of war, while my superiors had with equal confidence predicted peace, did not incline the latter to stretch a point in my favour. As a result, when Sir Patrick MacDougall sent in a strong application to have me employed in the Intelligence Department he met with a peremptory refusal, the reason assigned being that I had resigned a staff appointment at Sandhurst, having only held it for a short time. As I had acted in a great measure by his advice, and had undertaken the journey to the East at his special request, Sir Patrick felt this rebuff keenly. Of course I could not "give away" my chief and supporter; all I could do was to brandish the letter which had been sent to my regiment thanking me for my "public spirit in undertaking such an arduous journey for the purpose of obtaining such valuable information." I remember my kind friend Colonel Alick Elliott, then at the War Office, afterward Sir Alexander Elliott, whose death I was sorry to see a few days since, taking a copy of this letter in to the Commander-in-Chief. He came back saying, "You will, all the same, have to do duty with a cavalry regiment at home, since, for financial reasons, they cannot send you to your regiment, as it is in India, but it will be all right later." I therefore for a year did duty with the 8th Hussars, where I had a pleasant time and plenty of leisure. About a year later I was for

YAKUB THE WISE, who died at least a hundred years ago, scheduled four things for which Cabul is as famous now as it was in the days when he flourished. Cabuli grapes picked from the stem and packed in their round chip boxes are much in evidence in the upper parts of India; Cabuli horses, curved of ear and crooked of temper, are to be found in many places beyond the bounds of Afghanistan. Of the surpassing beauty of Cabuli women rumour has spoken much, but by the nature of things rumour cannot in their case be justified. They are, we must believe, fair of skin, lissom of figure; their eyes are like the stars for brilliance and the moon for tenderness. Their voices resemble the murmur of the wind playing amid the dancing blossom of peach-trees; their breath is perfumed like the jasmine; their little feet are white as the snow; their fingers recall the rosebuds that blow in Gulistan - The Land of Roses. Their love, ah! that is like a draught of snow-water to one who wanders in the desert. So it really seems that Cabuli women are exquisite creatures, though of course it is not for the eyes of a Kafir to dwell upon such perfection.

If the Cabuli woman is a

perfect type of her kind (and though Kafirs, let us politely grant her to be so), we know of our own knowledge and experience that the Cabuli thief is an equally perfect type of his kind. He is clever, he is daring, he is ready with his knife, he moves as swiftly as he strikes; and if in the pursuit of his calling he perchance slays a Kafir, why, that too is all to the good, for the same stroke that gives him the Kafir's property ensures also his own speedy admittance to Paradise and to the presence of the houris who await him there. And of this privilege you cannot deprive him, unless you hang him in a pigskin, or having killed him burn him with fire, either of which things makes him unacceptable to the Prophet.

And now we come to Hafiz Ullah, Cabuli, who sat upon a newly-bought Cabuli horse and ate Cabuli grapes, making his way to the house of his kinsman, Chirag Ud Din, and swaggering as he did so.

Hafiz Ullah was dressed in his best finery; upon his shaven head was a turban of Kohat, the body of it black, the ends of it a glorious flare of saffron with perpendicular stripes of green, red, and blue. His shirt was very clean and white, with silver studs at the throat, each

linked to the next with a slender silver chain; his waistcoat was of apple-green, his baggy trousers white, and upon his feet were shoes of scarlet leather, with leather tags at the toes that curved stiffly backwards towards his insteps, showing brown and sinewy in the interval 'twixt trouser and shoe.

Certainly Hafiz Ullah was something of a dandy; also he was light of heart, and as he rode he hummed a stave or two of some bazaar ditty that he had picked up in India. He was in a gay mood, for after serving for ten years in a regiment of native cavalry in India he had now left the service, and he rejoiced to find himself at home for good; he had wearied of guards and duties, of musketry upon the range, of grooming horses, of politeness to policemen, and of the thousand and one irksome little things that were forced on him as a temporarily civilised man. He had wished for freedom and for home, and now he had regained both. There was money in his pockets, the Kafirs had taught him how to sight a rifle, which of course the said money would enable him to buy; he had a horse, and there were several peach-trees and a well of cool water at his house. What else was wanted? Why, of course an heir; therefore he must go courting.

So it was that we find Hafiz Ullah riding to the house of Chirag Ud Din; for his kinsman had a daughter, who might belike suit him.

Now Lala Gul, Tulip Rose

as

we should say, was bewitching maiden of sixteen years; and it came to pass that she was drawing water at the well when Hafiz Ullah approached the house of her father, so that the rattle of the bucket as it splashed into the cool depths, and the draw of the rope upon the roller as she pulled it up, prevented her from hearing his approach. So lucky Hafiz Ullah had a chance of seeing her; he at once drew rein and sat quite still, and looked at her as she strained at the rope. He watched her eagerly as she poised the vessel on her head and went back into the house, and he waited awhile in case she should return to draw more water. Surely it must have been his fortunate day, for she came back, and again unseen he watched her, noting the curve of her cheek, the slender roundness of her neck, the strength of her firm little arms; and when she had raised the bucket to the lip of the well she let it rest, and raising herself waited a moment before she picked it up and withdrew.

Hafiz Ullah tried to whistle, as he had seen his British officers do when surprised. Hafiz Ullah had been smitten with love. So he rode hastily to his kinsman's door.

"Have I not told thee," said Chirag Ud Din, "that I have betrothed the girl? Why then dost thou persist? Have done, and seek thy wife elsewhere."

For the third time Hafiz Ullah repeated his arguments. "See then, Chirag Ud Din;