Supposing the pot to be tinned is a large one, the small boy, having thrown in the mud and sand, stands inside the pot, and jerking it round and round with his hands, cleans it with his bare feet. Describing the way that the “furnace” is made reminds me that I have seen men prepare an impromptu tobacco pipe the same way. The principle is exactly the same, only instead of blowing air through the pipe they suck the smoke from the tobacco which they have lit with a match. To lie on your face on the ground in order to get a smoke seems rather excessive, but if a man has tobacco, a match, and cannot get a pipe, this is one way out of the difficulty. I have also seen a soldier use his bayonet for a pipe. He filled the cylindrical part that fits on the muzzle of the rifle with tobacco, and having put a lighted match on the top, he fitted his two hands round the lower end and sucked the smoke between them. Most Afghans are inveterate smokers. The tobacco they smoke is not the American tobacco that we have. It grows in Kabul, Kandahar, Herat, and many parts of Afghanistan, but the best comes from Persia. The leaf is paler, apparently uncured and is not pressed, nor cut, but simply broken up. I have smoked it, but it is very hot in a short pipe. It smokes best in the chillim. The Amîr himself when he smokes, which is not often, generally has a Turkish cigarette. The eldest Prince, Habibullah, smokes cigars from India. Prince Usuf, the Amîr’s uncle, one of the younger sons of Amîr Dost Mahomed, smokes American birdseye tobacco. He is a courtly old gentleman, dresses exceedingly well, and is of the bluest of the blue blood, and it strikes one as very incongruous to see him puffing away at a short clay pipe; he never smokes anything else. There is the cotton and silk bazaar in the street leading from the gorge to the Bala Hissar. The shops here are mostly kept by Hindus. Every Hindu in Kabul, and there is quite a colony of them, has to pay a poll tax, and is not allowed to wear a blue turban. It must be either yellow or red--generally they wear red. Besides the rolls of silk from India and Bokhara, and the plain and printed cotton goods which come from India, there are many English undergarments to be seen: for English clothing of every kind is very fashionable among the upper classes in Kabul. There are cotton and merino vests, socks, and handkerchiefs hanging on strings across the little shops. The Hindu shopman in Kabul strikes one as oppressively civil, he “salaams” so low with the hand on the forehead. The Afghan trader does not. You can buy or not as you please. If he has a piece with a yard or two more than you want, often he will not cut it for you. You can take the lot or leave it, he is not particular. But Afghan and Hindu alike ask you a much higher price than they will afterwards take.