Another time the stock of firewood for the boilers ran out, and a supply of freshly cut wood was brought in daily, for use until further large supplies could be arranged for, and stocked to dry. The wood being wet, it naturally burned slowly, and the steam could not be kept up, and although the daily consumption of wood remained the same, the engines worked worse than ever. They tried many things to alter this state of affairs, and looked in all directions but the right one to find the cause of the engines not working well, even opening out the cylinders to see if the pistons were right, and when all their investigations failed to locate the cause of the trouble, the firemen were thrashed again. The firemen were once convicted of falsifying the quantity of wood burnt daily, making out that a larger quantity was used than was correct, and selling the balance, and after that they were ever suspected of doing their work badly or trying to spoil things for revenge. This was principally the reason that, whenever one of the officials got a bright idea for reducing the quantity of wood burnt daily, the firemen were invariably accused of spoiling the experiment, and as often as not were punished on suspicion. The life of a man who works on that which is little understood by those over him is not all roses. Although I was nominally in charge of the boilers and engines, with all sorts of other work, I was not responsible for the quantities of materials used, that being in the hands of another official, and the inherent suspicious nature of the Afghan, together with his ignorance of work, makes him chary of accepting advice on such matters, so that, although I was consulted, my opinion, which exonerated the firemen, was looked upon as prejudiced, and my proposal to cut the wood into small pieces was regarded as a desire to waste Government property. Soon after my appointment as engineer to the Government, I had received another firman (Amir’s written order) which placed the engines and boilers in my charge in addition to the work for which I had been engaged, and I was told to thoroughly examine them, as the engines worked very badly, and to report if it was the fault of the engines, boilers, or the firemen. No firman is given without all people whom it concerns knowing it very soon after, and when I went to the boiler-house the next day, I found the men there very gloomy, and they probably thought that, as they who were on the work always and had done their best to keep steam up on the limit of firewood had failed, there was little chance of my doing better, and then, no doubt, I would put the blame on them, according to the method of their own people, who always blame the men under them when they are unable to right matters. My examination of the boilers showed that they were encrusted with a thick deposit of lime and mud, for no attempt had been made to clean them out since they were first started, so the men