The Shahzada left Kandahar the following week, the intervening time being taken up in preparations for the journey, although such preparation might easily have been completed in half the time; but it is not the habit of the people to rush things. Their custom is, instead, to put off all they can until to-morrow, or the day after, that for preference. The first day’s camp was only twelve miles or so out of Kandahar, for it is customary always to make the first day’s march a short one, in order to prepare the horses and pack animals for the ensuing journey, and it affords a means of testing the arrangements of the march generally. The route to Kabul lay through Khilat, Mukur, and Ghazni. The road as far as Khilat, which took four days’ journey, runs in a north-easterly direction, and mostly alongside the river, which flows down towards Kandahar from the mountains beyond. The track rises gradually over a rather flat country, but there are mountain ranges at a little distance on both sides. Beyond that to Mukur, another four days’ journey, the road skirts the foot of some mountain ranges, and forms a fair road for travelling without any difficult passes to get over. From Mukur to Ghazni it runs over a high table-land, with mountain ranges on either side, which, running in the same direction, give it the appearance of an immense roadway. It took four days to cross this and get to Ghazni, and it was by far the coldest part of the journey, for the wind was icy, and its keenness such that it pierced the thickest clothing I had. Although the sun was bright during the day it had no warmth, and the surrounding mountains were covered with snow, but it was not until the day before we reached Ghazni that snow fell, and made sleeping under canvas more unpleasant than it had been. It came on at night, and when I awoke in the morning I found it covering the boxes in my tent and my bed too, for the wind had blown the flap of the tent open and allowed the snow to drift in. It was chilly dressing before the sun was up, and as my clothes, which I had thrown over a chair, were also covered with snow, I had to get dry ones out of my boxes, the while being lightly clad in a night-suit and slippers. That day’s march to Ghazni was a trying one. Before this the days had been bright and the air dry, but the moisture given out by the snow made the wind still more biting, and we had to dismount occasionally to bring some feeling into hands and feet, and to rub noses and ears to prevent frostbite. Many of the Afghans wore hoods shaped like Balaklava caps which left only the eyes exposed, and I thought them a very sensible protection against such severe weather, and wished I had one.