In one case, where false witnesses were produced before the Amir, and were detected, the emissaries of the man who engaged these witnesses at a certain price each to give false evidence were ordered to be hanged by the heels in the Arak bazar from sunrise to sunset for eight days; but the men had friends, and the power of money is great, so the police sepoys allowed them to rest with their chests on the ground and legs up in the air until some officer was seen approaching, when they were hauled clear of the ground until he had passed, and were then lowered again, but even with all this indulgence, the men fainted several times. The strange part of the sentence lay in the punishment of the man who wanted, and paid for, the false witnesses, for he was fined only. No man knows the mind of the Amir, they say in Kabul, and it would be interesting to know by what process of reasoning the chief offender was considered less guilty than those who did his bidding. Another punishment, which was also a huge joke in the court for many months, was that of a slave boy who had asked the Amir several times to give him a wife, until at last the Amir said, “Yes.” It was a usual thing for the Amir to give a slave girl from his harem for a favourite slave boy to marry. The marriage of this boy was celebrated in the usual way; a large khirgah or bamboo tent was fixed in the palace garden for the use of the newly married couple on the night of the ceremony, and all passed off with the firing of guns and feasting, as is usual. When at last the bridegroom hurried to the tent to see his bride for the first time face to face (the bride is never seen by the bridegroom until after the marriage ceremony is over), he found the tent in darkness, but passed in. Shortly afterwards he rushed out yelling, and fled to the Amir’s presence, saying that a great calamity had befallen him, and that it was a shaitan and not a woman he had married. It transpired that the Amir, to punish the boy’s importunity, had secretly ordered another of his slave boys to be dressed up and put in the place of a girl during the ceremony. CHAPTER XI LIFE OF EUROPEANS IN KABUL Life in Kabul—Houses and gardens—Guards and danger from “Ghazis”—Allowances given wives—Servants and swindling.