For hanging the ordinary gallows is used, _i.e._ there is no drop given to break the neck, the man being hauled up by means of a pulley and hanged till he dies of strangulation. Two gallows are used, one T-shaped, and very high, is for a man who is hanged and left hanging until the following day; the body being left on the gallows as a warning to others. The other is a frame similar to the frame of a table with the top planking removed, the legs being fixed in the ground, and each side of the square so formed, has three or four wooden pulleys depending from it, over which the ropes pass for hauling the body up. It sometimes happens that several have to be executed at one time and this gallows was made large enough to take sixteen persons together. Those who are condemned to be hanged are not blindfolded at the time of execution; their arms are tied to the body by a rope which passes over the arms above the elbows, and their legs are secured above the ankles. While a man is being hanged, his forearms work up and down, one after the other, struggling to break the cords and get at the rope round his neck, until he becomes unconscious, and it is a rather gruesome sight to watch his fruitless struggles to relieve the agony of strangulation. On one occasion a burly Afghan who was being hanged managed to break the rope binding his arms, and then clutching the rope, above his neck, pulled himself up and let go again, probably with the intention of ending the torture by breaking his neck; but the rope broke instead, and the man fell to the ground, and lay partly unconscious at the foot of the gallows for twenty minutes or so, while another rope was being brought from the bazar, and when that arrived, he was again strung up, and the execution completed. On another occasion when a man was being hanged the rope broke three times, and each time a new rope had to be brought from the bazar. When the third rope broke, those standing by said it was a sign from God that the man was innocent and should not be hanged, and the officer in charge of the execution despatched a messenger to the Amir with the particulars of the case, and asked if the man was to be reprieved; but the Amir’s message came back that the man must be hanged as ordered, so they had no alternative but to pull the man up for the fourth time and hang him until he was dead. The lesser punishments for offences committed, besides those already mentioned, vary according to the caprice or humour of the Amir. In some cases noses are cut off, beards are plucked out, men are made to stand for several days and nights without moving. Snuff is rubbed into the eyes, and in different other ways they are made to feel the Amir’s displeasure. Any butcher who was convicted of giving short weight was, by Amir Shere Ali’s orders, nailed by the ear to the door of his shop.