We entered by the gate Dervaze Arak. The houses which we passed, the advanced works, the very gate, looked like a heap of rubbish. Near the latter, in the inside of the city, is the Ark (citadel) having, from its elevation, served as a mark for the Afghan artillery; it lies there blasted and half demolished. The doors and windows have been stripped of their woodwork, for during the siege the inhabitants suffered most from the scarcity of fuel. In the bare openings of the walls are perched here and there a few wretched-looking Afghans or Hindoos--worthy guards of such a ruin. Each step we advance, we see greater indications of devastation. Entire quarters of the {271} town remain solitary and abandoned. The bazaar--that is to say, the arched part of it, where the quadrangle of the bazaar is united by its dome, and which has witnessed and resisted so many sieges--alone remains, and affords, in spite of its new population, dating only from three months ago, a really interesting sample of Oriental life--a blending of the characteristics of India, Persia, and Central Asia, better defined than even in the bazaar of Bokhara. It is only from the Karavanserai Hadji Resul to that of No that a throng, rightly so called, exists; and although the distance is small, the eye is bewildered by the diversity of races--Afghans, Indians, Tartars, Turkomans, Persians, and Jews. The Afghan parades about, either in his national costume, consisting of a long shirt, drawers, and dirty linen clothes, or in his military undress; and here his favourite garment is the red English coat, from which, even in sleep, he will not part. He throws it on over his shirt, whilst he sets on his head the picturesque Indo-Afghan turban. Others again, and these are the _beau monde_, are wont to assume a half Persian costume. Weapons are borne by all. Rarely does any one, whether civil or military, enter the bazaar without his sword and shield. To be quite _à la mode_, one must carry about one quite an arsenal, consisting of two pistols, a sword, poniard, hand-jar, gun, and shield. With the wild martial-looking Afghan we can only compare the Turkomanlike Djemshidi. The wretchedly-dressed Herati, the naked Hezare, the Teymuri of the vicinity, are overlooked when the Afghan is present. He encounters around him nothing but abject humility; but never was ruler or conqueror so detested as is the Afghan by the Herati. {272}