The robber, the leader of a band of brigands whose exploits and activity had won for the Lata Bund Devan an unenviable notoriety, was captured by the police after many attempts, and repeated warnings. The Amir, who had become exasperated at the robberies of the band, determined to make a fitting example of their leader. Upon the summit of the Lata Bund Pass, 8000 feet above sea-level, he erected a flag-staff; from this he suspended an iron cage and in the cage he placed the robber--where he left him, as an example! It is said in Kabul that the fate of that highwayman determined the end of the robber band. Certainly, since that day no further crimes of violence have been committed in the pass. The other was a student who, brought before Abdur Rahman, declared in a state of unrepressed excitement that the Russians were advancing to invade Afghanistan. “The Russians are coming?” said the Amir with grim deliberation; “then you shall be taken to the summit of yonder tower and shall have no food till you see them arrive.” The theory of Justice in all Eastern countries aims at punishing some one person for every indictable misdemeanour. In China, in Japan, in Korea and in Africa, too, the autocrat measures the peace of the country-side by the moral effect of his standard of punishment. No crime escapes its levy against the liberty of the subject, although the criminal himself may abscond. A precisely similar state of affairs prevails in Afghanistan where, in the event of the offender escaping, the hostage satisfies the findings of the law. Liberty of movement, therefore, is denied to every one in Kabul beyond a six-mile radius measured from the Kabul police station. For permission to go beyond this point it is necessary to obtain at a cost of three rupees a _rahdari_ or road-pass and to leave Afghanistan without such a pass is punishable with death. In point of fact, facilities are never granted until hostages against the failure of the person to return have been given. In the case of any one venturing to leave Afghanistan and failing to come back, his property is at once confiscated, his family is imprisoned and his more immediate surety is executed. Such a fate befel the family of a soldier who was making a protracted stay in India. Arrested and threatened with execution their release was secured only by the man’s return and surrender, knowing when he did so that he would be blown from a gun on the place of execution. This was ultimately his fate. It is one so constantly meted out to prisoners that, whenever the boom of the gun is heard in Kabul, only those who are of the sternest disposition can suppress the sigh which involuntarily escapes as the mournful sound falls upon the ears. There are, of course, other ways of punishing the guilty than that of blowing them from cannon. Yet the boom of a gun in Kabul only denotes one of three things: the passing of the Amir, the mid-day hour, and the