The hospital was in an enclosed garden within the cantonment, and was entered by low but heavy double gates. A series of rooms was built along the inner side of the walls of the garden in the usual Afghan style. There was no connection between the rooms except by a verandah, and there was no upper story. Each room was about eight feet by ten, and as none of them had windows, but were lighted simply by the door that opened on to the verandah, they were nearly dark. In the garden were a few trees, and in the centre a square sunk tank for water: this, however, was empty. There was a cook house or kitchen, with its coppers and ovens heated by charcoal, where the cook baked the bread and prepared the diets for the patients: Pilau (rice and meat), kabob (small squares of meat skewered on a stick and grilled over charcoal), shôrbar, or broth, and shôla, which is rice boiled and moistened with broth. There were two dispensaries, one containing native drugs and one a few European drugs. There were, of course, no female nurses: each sick soldier was looked after by a comrade. [Sidenote: Storekeepers and their Ways.] The Hakim on his daily round wrote on a slip of paper the date and the name, diet and medicine of the patient he prescribed for. This was handed to the attendant of each patient, whose duty it was to procure the medicine from the dispensary and the food from the cook-house. I never heard of an attendant eating the food intended for a patient. One hakim, the cook and dispenser lived in the hospital. The slips of paper were taken to the mirza, or clerk, who copied the daily diets on to one paper and the medicines on another. The papers were then put away in the stores. No daily totals were taken, so that if fraud were suspected on the part of a storekeeper, dispenser, or cook, and the Amîr ordered a rendering or auditing of accounts, the matter took a year, a year and a-half, or two years before it was completed. However, as I found later, the order in Afghanistan to “render an account” is usually synonymous with “fine, imprisonment, or death.” The next morning at the out-patient hospital when the Armenian interpreter appeared, I told him of the soldier seizing my bridle in Sherpur, and asked him to enquire what the man wanted. He seemed rather startled when I told him, and at once turned to the sergeant of the guard to enquire about it. It was nothing after all, simply the man, guessing I was the Feringhi doctor, wanted me to see a sick comrade. They apologized for him, saying he was not a Kabuli but an uncouth “hillman” who knew no better. However, an order from Prince Habibullah arrived in the afternoon that I was not to attend at Sherpur till he had communicated with His Highness the Amîr. [Illustration] CHAPTER V. AFGHAN DWELLINGS.