One of the compounders at the hospital was a Hafiz and a moolah; a Hafiz is one who from memory can repeat the whole Koran. He was a tall handsome young man with courtly manners. He lived at my house, and at daybreak I was often dreamily roused by his fine tenor voice as he was chanting his prayers. Once his early prayer was of considerable worldly service to me and the neighbourhood, for he found that the bathroom of my house was on fire; the beams were already alight. He summoned assistance, the fire was soon put out and the matter ended. If the house had been burnt the affair would have reached the ears of the authorities, and the neighbours would have had a fine imposed upon them unless they could produce the incendiary! This young man had asked permission to live at my house because he could do so cheaply. He was saving money to pay off a debt incurred in Peshawur, his native town. I thought, What an honest worthy young man! but I found the money had been borrowed to pay off a fine imposed upon him for a murder he committed in Peshawur. He escaped hanging because there was an element of doubt in the case, and possibly for the reason that his elder brother had been some years in the British service. He admitted to me that he had stabbed the man, but he did not regret it. The man was a “bad man” and had injured him. “Surely the Koran does not tell you to commit murder,” I said. “No,” said he, “the Koran is God’s book, but we are all sinners.” One of the hospital assistants, a Hindostani, working under me, was also a Hafiz and a priest. He was a very gentlemanly man of about forty-six, and well educated. He had been in the Bengal cavalry. I liked him very much, but, unlike most Mahomedans, he was a dipsomaniac. For a fortnight or so he would be miserably drunk. He drank the native spirit made from raisins, methylated spirit, or any kind of intoxicant he could get hold of. He explained his condition to me by saying that “Shâitan” came to him occasionally and said, “You have drunk no shrâb for so long, now is a very good time to drink,” and so he listened to Shâitan and drank. He afterwards gave up alcohol and took to chloral eating and opium smoking. I was very sorry for the man. I think he was not such a scoundrel as some of them. When I first entered the service I picked up a man in Kabul who could speak a little English, and had him to look after my clothes and wait upon me--my valet. He was a short thick-set man, with a shaven head, on which he always perched a little red fez. He was wonderfully gentle with sick children, who were brought to me to prescribe for. He was very lazy, but was cowed at once if I were angry. I found he was a hired assassin who had escaped from Peshawur into Afghanistan. When I discharged him he made a large sum of money by gambling in the bazaar, and then returned to Peshawur. The last I heard of him was that he had been apprehended and was in jail.