The next day we arrived at Kalai Kasi, within a few miles of Kabul, and Mr. Pyne and the two other English engineers rode out from Kabul to welcome His Highness. Afterwards they came to my tent. I was very pleased to see them. They were the first English I had seen since Captain Griesbach left Mazar, more than a year before. They were very jolly, but their vigorous energy was, to a poor debilitated mortal, rather overpowering. I remember Pyne enquired why I sat on the ground: I explained that I had no chair, it was broken. He also asked why I did not have my hair cut: I told him there was no barber, and that we had been on the march a month and a half. After dinner they rode back with a guard to Kabul. [Sidenote: Kindness of the Amîr.] Early the next morning His Highness held a Durbar, and at five o’clock I girded up my loins, mounted a horse, and rode to His Highness’s quarters. Outside the khirgar, or wigwam, where His Highness slept, there was erected a large red and white awning. Under this, in the shade, were several chairs and two or three portable tables covered with fruit and flowers. Several people, Officers and Courtiers, were sitting there, and I joined them. Soon, we heard that His Highness had risen, and I was sent for into the khirgar. His Highness was sitting on the couch, and on a little table by him were some biscuits and fruit, and a cup of tea. He enquired very kindly after my health, suggesting various remedies, and gave me advice as regards diet. He would not hear of my riding on horseback into Kabul, but said I must be carried in the palanquin. He said many kind things, and finally gave me “Rûkhsat,” or permission to depart, for I was feeble. I returned to the tent till we were ready to start. The lanes, cornfields, fruit trees, and general freshness and greenness of the suburbs of Kabul reminded me of England, and were most grateful to the eye after the dusty barrenness of Mazar. Presently we turned off from the Kabul road; and some way off I saw a hill with crowds of people on it. There were rows of spectators on each side of the road leading to it. Evidently the grand reception was not to be in the town. I had hoped to get away somewhere and rest. I became conscious that I was not shaven, and that my collar was an old one and frayed. I had one, among my much-tattered linen--the Afghan washermen dash your linen on a stone to wash it, and starch it with flour--I had one, carefully saved for this very event, but, alas! it was in a portmanteau! The Armenian said, “Sir, you not care it. Highness know you ill. Other men, who is!”