Soldiers who are acquainted with Afghan usages in warfare will appreciate the truth of the maxim which furnishes the text for the story of the Camel-rider, the Snake, and the Fox. A man riding on his camel happened to pass a place where a jungle fire was raging, and a snake, calling from the midst of the flames, begged his aid. The man, ignoring the snake's enmity to the human race and considering only his present danger, consented to save him: he lowered his saddle-bag to the ground, and the snake, having coiled himself up in it, was carried by his rescuer to a place of safety. Then the man opened his bag and bade the snake go, with an admonition to behave better towards mankind for the future. The snake made answer, "Until I have stung thee and this camel of thine I will not depart!" [Illustration: "UNTIL I HAVE STUNG THEE AND THIS CAMEL OF THINE I WILL NOT DEPART."] The man, hurt by this black ingratitude, drew the snake's attention to the service he had just rendered. The snake admitted his debt, but pointed out that his rescuer had acted injudiciously, in view of the hereditary enmity existing between snakes and men. The two proceeded to argue the point in commendably temperate spirit, the snake laying stress on the circumstance that mankind "always return evil for good"; and the man, denying it, eventually agreed that if the snake could find a witness to the truth of his assertion he would submit to be stung. [Illustration: "'IT IS STRANGE THAT THOU IN MY VERY PRESENCE TALKEST OF "I" AND "MINE,"' SAID THE TIGER."] The witness was found in the person of an elderly cow-buffalo. Examined by the snake, she succinctly reviewed her career, and gave it as her opinion that man's creed was to return evil for good, inasmuch as her owner, when she ceased to give milk, turned her out to graze till she should be fat enough to kill. Upon this testimony the snake claimed fulfilment of the bargain. The man, however, urged that two witnesses were necessary, and, the snake consenting, a tree was called upon for his opinion. The tree, in a few well-chosen sentences, recalled the fact that for years he had granted shade to all men who sought his protection in the heat of day; but, he complained, when they had rested they always looked him over and, if they happened to have tools, lopped off a branch to make a spade-handle or axe-haft. They went even further, reckoning up the use they could make of their protector from the scorching sun if they reduced him to planks. In short, the tree was distinctly of the cow-buffalo's way of thinking. The camel-man, sorely perplexed, was wondering how he could gain time when a fox came by and asked, in his sarcastic way, "What kindness hast thou shown this snake, that he desires to do thee harm?"