The Afghan rulers also in their conduct of the internal affairs of the country make a point of keeping it secluded and out of touch with the other countries around them, and British officers who have crossed the border either knowingly or otherwise, have been made prisoners and kept so until the Amir’s orders were received. The intercourse of the people with other nations would no doubt tend to civilize them, and by broadening their views do away with much of their present fanatical prejudice against all other people, which is due principally to the secluded life they are forced to lead, practically cut off from the rest of the world. It is this thought which directs the policy of seclusion of their rulers, for they make a practice of working upon the ignorance and religious superstition of the people to influence them in any required direction. CHAPTER XVIII ROAD FROM KABUL TO PESHAWAR Difficulty of getting permission to enter Afghanistan and to leave it—Description of country passed through—Camping-places on way down and distances—Description of Jelalabad city—Usbeg horseback game of Buz-bazee—Kabul river at Jelalabad and beyond—The musak—Summer heat—The last day’s journey. After several years spent in Kabul, one experiences a sense of elation when the time comes for leaving it. The thought of being back soon in civilization, among one’s friends and the people of one’s own country, produces so keen a desire to be with them again at once that the time occupied in making ready to start, and that spent on the journey, seems interminable. When in Kabul there is a remoteness in the thought of home and England so great that the memory seems to deal with the land and people of another planet, and if one were a Buddhist it might easily be conceived that the memory dealt with a former incarnation, for one is so cut off from the outer world, and all things are so different, that it appears like a separate existence.