'Either the birds were shy, or I was preoccupied; I saw only here and there a solitary crow and stork till I came to a little ravine, in which stood a Khyber tent of black blanket, with a large stone at each corner to prevent it being blown away. Its door, a mere mat of reeds, was open, and there came forth a pretty young Afghan woman--a wife, as I could see by her hair being braided and her trousers of some dark stuff; and though evidently but the spouse of some wild hill-man, she wore strings of Venetian sequins, and chains of gold and silver. She was fair and handsome too, though her nose was very aquiline, and her cheekbones rather prominent. As she proceeded to feed a Cabul pony, from a gathered heap of juicy herbage, I was just thinking what a pretty sketch the little tableau beneath me would make, when it received one or two rather startling accessions. 'Out of a grove of wild mulberry-trees, all unseen by her, there came creeping slowly, stealthily, with cat-like action, and velvety paws, an enormous black wolf. I could, from the perch where I stood, distinctly see the hungry gleam of its eyes, its scarlet mouth half open, and the steam from its nostrils. 'At the same moment on the other side of the narrow ravine, there appeared a Khyberee, as his yellow turban and shaggy robe of camel's hair announced--a tall, strong and stately fellow, armed with his long juzail or native rifle, the lighted match of which was smoking. On his knee he took a steady aim at the wolf, but missed fire. 'A cry of rage and fury escaped him, but it mingled with the report of my unfailing double-barrelled Purdey, and struck by two balls just behind the ear, the wolf fell over on its back and pawed the air, in the agonies of death, while the Khyberee woman fled into her tent, and her husband, for such the stranger proved to be, came to me full of gratitude. '"Sahib, from my soul I thank you," said he in Afghani, of which I had picked up a smattering. "You have saved my tent from a dreadful calamity, enter it; from this moment you are the brother of Zemaun Khan." 'For though but a poor hill-man he deemed himself a Khan, and in evidence of his position in his clan, as being what a Scots Highlander would call a _dunniewassal_, he carried a falcon on his left wrist. He led me within his tent, where I was in turn gratefully thanked by his pretty young wife, for though the Afghans do not, like other Mohammedan races, universally shut up their women, they are as open to jealousy as other orientals, and at Cabul frequently resented the attention our fellows paid them--and this added to those errors for which the army of Elphinstone had to atone so terribly. A snowstorm came on, and thus I passed the night in the tent of Zemaun Khan, who would by no means let me depart. '"You are welcome," said he, as his wife placed before us food and a jar of native wine, though neither would partake of it, "for in the fashion you have come, a stranger is a holy name."