The Queen Dowager, Bibi Halima, the mother of Sirdar Mahommed Omar Khan, a woman of engaging personality, at one time held a position not without close resemblance to those filled by the Empress Dowager of China and the Lady Om, queen to the Emperor of Korea. Her intrigues on behalf of her son were over-bold and she is now confined--her son, contrary to the energetic character of his mother, taking little interest in his situation. The Bibi Halima is a woman of considerable beauty, particularly intelligent and well informed. She is nearly forty-three years of age, and her sympathies are so distinctly British that her palace is regarded with as much suspicion as the British agency. The law of succession to the thrones in Mahommedan countries, apart from the exercise of opportunity which secures recognition upon the basis that might is right, entails the throne upon the son of the first woman whom the ruler may have married. The heir may be younger than sons born to other women, but, if such a marriage were the first alliance contracted by his father, the succession is seldom set aside. Abdur Rahman, however, departed from this custom as the Amirs of Afghanistan have power to appoint their successors. Habib Ullah is the offspring of a Wakhan concubine named Gulriz with whom the Amir Abdur Rahman consorted. Bibi Halima, also the wife of Abdur Rahman, lays claim to it through her direct descent from the Amir Dost Mahommed Khan. She is of the Blood Royal indubitably; and, if she were in possession of her liberty, she would soon compel her son, Sirdar Mahommed Omar Khan, to take the field. His chances of success in any rebellion would be as great as those enjoyed by his half-brother, Nasr Ullah Khan, similarly a son of Gulriz and full brother to Habib Ullah. The disparity in the ages of these three sons of Abdur Rahman bears upon the present situation--Habib Ullah, born 1872, and Nasr Ullah, born 1874, being many years the senior of Mahommed Omar, who was born at Mazar-i-Sharif on September 15, 1889. By a strange irony, which may yet be not without its effect upon the succession to the throne, Inayat Ullah, the son of Habib Ullah and the lawful heir to the throne, was born in 1888, his uncle, the son of Bibi Halima and Abdur Rahman, being only six months younger. [Illustration: (text in Arabic)] [Illustration: (_Translation._) [40]_The proclamation is addressed: “To the loyal-hearted nobles, to high and low, to all my subjects of the clans of Hazara.” After reminding the clansmen at some length that formerly they displayed some opposition and rebellion towards the State, the edict goes on to state the terms of the Amir’s clemency, which are as follow:_