There is the straight-pointed Afghan sword, the blade of which broadens to three inches at the handle. The back from point to handle is straight and thick. There is no handguard. The best of these are made in Khost, a frontier district south of the Kurram valley. The blades are often beautifully damascened, and the handles of ivory or horn are carved and inlaid with gold or silver or studded with jewels. They are very sharp, the steel is of good quality, and they are rather expensive. For one of good quality without a scabbard, and which was not elaborately ornamented, I gave sixty rupees. I had a scabbard made in Kabul. The scabbard is made of two long pieces of wood thinned and hollowed out to receive the sword; these are fastened together and covered with leather. Formerly they were covered with snake skin. Mine was covered with patent leather and mounted with silver. I weighed out rupees to the silversmith, and when the mounts were finished he weighed them out to me before they were attached to the scabbard. The scabbard is made longer than is usual in England, for it takes the handle all but about an inch, as well as the blade of the sword. In these shops are also rifles for sale--the native jezail with a curved stock ornamented with ivory, and with a very long barrel fastened on with many bands. The Afghan hillmen and the Hazaras make these, and they are good shots with them. They make their own powder also. There are old-fashioned English rifles, flint locks and hammer locks: some very heavy, with a two-pronged support hinged on to the barrel, presumably to rest on the ground and steady the rifle when taking aim; native pistols and old English pistols of various kinds; old shirts of chain mail and small shields with bosses on. These are not used now except for ornament. Lance or spear heads, old Indian and English helmets, firemen’s helmets; powder flasks made of metal or dried skin; and heavy tough very strong wooden bows, with a straight handpiece in the middle of the bow: these were used in the time of Dost Mahomed. I never saw any arrows, and the bows were sold merely as curiosities. Boys and lads, now-a-days, use a bow with two strings which are kept apart by a two-inch prop. They use it to kill birds, shooting small stones from a strip of leather attached to the two strings. The silver and goldsmiths make native ornaments similar to those one sees in India: broad, thin perforated bracelets; studs for the nostril, that the hillwomen wear--this custom, however, is not so common as among the Hindus; necklaces of coins and discs, amulet boxes, belt buckles, and so on. Nothing original or peculiar to Afghanistan seems to be made. [Sidenote: Turbans and Caps.]