Soap is both native and imported. The native is in saucer-shaped lumps. It is not used for washing the hands and face--an Afghan rarely uses soap for this purpose; but for washing clothes or harness. It is rather alkaline and caustic. A soap “plant,” with its tanks, has been erected in the workshops, and doubtless when the working of it is better understood the soap will be of usable quality. At present it does not sell. Other soap in the form of tablets is imported from India, Russia, and Austria. By what route it comes from Austria I do not know, unless, like so many cheap German goods, it comes through India. Russian soap is the cheapest and worst, it crumbles up in your hands the second time you use it. Next is the Austrian, which is not at all bad; the best and most expensive is the English. The native salt--powdered rock salt, pinkish in colour--is not very good. You have to use so much before you can taste it. I don’t think any salt is imported. Spices of most kinds can be bought--pepper, nutmeg, cloves, and so on; but these are bought at drug shops. Fruit shops are in great numbers, for fruit and vegetables form important items in the diet of the poorer people: in the summer fresh fruit and vegetables, and in the winter dried fruits, particularly the mulberry, are largely used. The fruit shops are, as a rule, arranged very tastefully. Grapes of different kinds are in great quantities and exceedingly cheap--a donkey load for a rupee. Melons and water melons, apples, quinces, pomegranates, pears, and various kinds of plums, nectarines, peaches, and apricots. Dried fruits, almonds, roasted peas, pistachio nuts, dried mulberries, apricots, and raisins, are sold by the grocers. Fresh fruit, as soon as it is ripe, and even before, is eaten in large quantities, far more than is good for the health of the people. The Englishmen in Kabul had to be exceedingly careful in eating fruit. Unless taken in very small quantities it produced, or predisposed to, troublesome bowel affections. The natives, though, as a rule, not so susceptible as the English, were affected in the same way, sometimes dangerously, occasionally fatally. [Sidenote: Tailors. “The Railway Guard” Costume.]