thrown down and the people in them killed. The late Amir, who was ill with gout at the time, was sitting in durbar, and as soon as the earthquake commenced, all those with him ran out at once and left him sitting there, unable to move. With his constitutional dread of earthquakes, his feelings, when he found himself deserted, may be imagined; but he was not left for long, for three or four of the slave-boys rushed back as soon as the violence began to subside, and carried him out into the garden. The shock, however, affected the Amir so much that, as a thanksgiving for his escape from harm, on the following day he ordered three to four hundred prisoners to be released. My Hindustani servants were asleep in their room when the disturbance started, and, roused from sleep by the violence of the shaking, and not knowing the cause, for this was their first experience of an earthquake, they rushed out into the open, lightly clad as they were, and, sinking on their knees in the snow, prayed aloud to be protected from the calamity that was upon them, and they were down with fever the next day, the result of exposure and nervous shock. In Kohistan, close to Kabul, earthquakes of such violence occur at times that the mangers for feeding horses are thrown down. These mangers, which are built of stone and mud, stand some three feet high only, and are fairly thick, so that the shaking of the earth may be imagined when such are overthrown. In 1899 the fortune-tellers prophesied that in the month which corresponded to November of that year many earthquakes would be experienced, and the last earthquake of all would happen on a certain day, which they specified, and would be of such violence that all Kabul would be demolished. Strangely enough, towards the end of that month earthquakes were of continued occurrence for about two weeks, and not a day passed without at least one shock being felt, and on some days there were many, both during the day and night. Although earthquakes are usual towards the end of the year, a prolonged continuation was very exceptional, and the fortune-tellers’ prediction affected the people to such extent that those who had tents pitched them on the ground outside the city walls, and lived in them, for they fully believed that as the prophecy was in part fulfilled, the rest of it would come about also, and that it was foolish to live in a house that was appointed to fall on a certain day, and in its fall would crush them. The Amir, however, who had consulted his own fortune-tellers, gave orders that any person found living in a tent outside the city on the day following his proclamation would be imprisoned, so all of them had perforce to return to their houses. But, in spite of the Amir’s assurance, the appointed day for the overthrowing of Kabul was passed in fear and trembling by the majority of the people, which was not allayed by the day commencing with one huge shock, which made the whole city tremble. However, no further shocks