CHAPTER VI MANNERS AND CUSTOMS—_continued_ Superstitions, fairies, and devils—A curious legend—Astrologers—Children singing prayers on roofs to avert calamity—Different foods in use—Smoking and tobacco—The Amir’s chief physician—Snuff—Method of keeping warm in winter—How time is kept—Weddings of different classes—Funerals 78 CHAPTER VII AMIR ABDUR RAHMAN Form of government—Abuse of authority—Amir’s food and drinking water and taster—Soldiers and horses always ready for flight—Amir’s habits—Amir’s amusements, attendants, etc.—Amir’s feelings towards England—Amir’s views on Afridi rising and Boer War—Amir’s stratagem 98 CHAPTER VIII AMIR ABDUR RAHMAN—_continued_ Amir’s sons and his treatment of them—Princes and their duties and durbars—Food supplied by Government to members of royal family—How officials are paid—Civil and Military titles—Court life and officials—Law courts—Amir’s lingering illness, death, and burial—Rumours of rising—Fears of populace—Burial of household treasures—Plots to get body—Coronation of Amir Habibullah—New Amir’s promises of Reform—Amusements 120 CHAPTER IX PRISONS AND PRISONERS Kotwal and Kotwali (magistrate and police court)—Policemen as thieves—Description of prisons—Description of how prisoners are treated and their irons—The old well in Bala Hisar—The spy system—Cutting a man’s throat—False reporting—Fanah (wedge) tortures 142 CHAPTER X TORTURES AND METHODS OF EXECUTION Amir’s iron rule—Hanging by hair and skinning alive—Beating to death with sticks—Cutting men in pieces—Throwing down mountain-side—Starving to death in cages—Boiling woman to soup and man drinking it before execution—Punishment by exposure and starvation—Scaffold scenes—Burying alive—Throwing into soap boilers—Cutting off hands—Blinding—Tying to bent trees and disrupting—Blowing from guns—Hanging, etc. 157 CHAPTER XI LIFE OF EUROPEANS IN KABUL Life in Kabul—Houses and gardens—Guards and danger from “Ghazis”— Allowances given wives—Servants and swindling 173 CHAPTER XII LIFE OF EUROPEANS IN KABUL—_continued_