In character the people are idle, luxurious, and sensual, which characteristics become prominent as soon as a man possesses power or money (almost synonymous terms in Afghanistan). They are capricious and ungrateful, and turn easily in their likes and dislikes, and are readily led to turn against those to whom they owe gratitude. Usually, when they want anything, they want it at once, and should their desire be delayed for any time, they no longer want it. They are lying, treacherous, and vengeful, and one who has a grudge or enmity against another will not show it openly, but conceals his feelings and feigns friendship, while waiting the opportunity for vengeance, and in the execution of their vengeance they are capable of unheard-of cruelties. They are readily ruled by fear, but are apt to brood over small grievances until they convince themselves that they are most cruelly treated, and then their feelings may result in a fit of Berserk rage, under the influence of which they lose control of themselves and take vengeance violently, often stabbing and hacking at their victim long after life is extinct. They are cruel and insensible to the pain of others, often laughing at it, and, except in the case of a relative, will seldom go out of their way to relieve suffering. Towards their children they are too kind, and spoil them while they are young, denying them nothing which it is possible to give them, and dressing them in gaudy clothes while they themselves go ragged. They make no attempt to correct them for any wrong-doing, laughing at it rather as a sign of precociousness, and among the Kabulis it is a common thing for a little child to be able to curse fluently, and their curses are often directed at their parents. This neglect in training the young properly accounts for much that is objectionable in the character of the people. It is not until children are seven or eight years old that they begin to correct them, but a good deal of the character of a child is at that age already formed. The Afghans are for ever scheming one against another, family against family, official against official, farmer against farmer, workman against workman, and wife against wife—the latter being, naturally, one of the evils which arise from the custom of plurality of wives. The result of all this scheming is often a quarrel which ends in a fight, in which one or other of the parties may be killed; they do not always use knife or bullet for the purpose, they have other ways too of ridding themselves of an enemy. In the cities, when a man commits murder, he is taken charge of and judged by the authorities, but in the country it often results in a feud between the two families, which is carried on for generations, the murderer being waited for by the relatives of the man whom he killed, and killed in turn; the slayer in this case also being eventually slain by a member of the opposite party, and so the feud goes on for many years.