The astrologers cast horoscopes, and tell fortunes with cards, and use other implements of the black art, for forecasting future events, and very rapidly make name and fortune, when once one of their prognostications is fulfilled, for then all their utterances are treated as truth itself, and should at any time any of their further prognostications prove contrary to actual happenings, the people do not blame the fortune-teller, but themselves instead, for the predictions being always more or less ambiguous, the people consider it their own misconstruction of his words which prevented them knowing what was about to happen. This sort of sophistry does not pertain to the credulous among Afghans alone. The superstitious and religious beliefs mingle, as they do in other countries, and should any one praise a child for any attribute of mind or body at once, “nam i Khuda” (God’s name) must be said to avert the evil which open praise will beget. The evil eye is also supposed to be possessed by some persons, and God’s name must be spoken to avert its calamitous effect. Curiously enough, those credited with the evil eye are not blamed for its possession, but are said to be unlucky. In like manner, those who are skilful in curing and healing the sick and maimed, are said to have a lucky hand. They have one custom which will commend itself to many, and that is, to collect the children on the roofs of the different houses, and there sing prayers in unison, for the averting of cholera, earthquakes, or other calamity, because the children, being more innocent than their elders, their prayers are supposed to be more readily listened to. The roofs of the houses are all close together, and it is pleasant to see the groups of children standing in lines on the different roofs, and listen to them singing the prayers with their clear young voices, and when the calamity to be averted is cholera, one rather hopes their prayers may be listened to, for cholera makes a several months’ stay when it visits Kabul, and is a trying time for all concerned. The food of the majority of the people in Kabul is of a simple description, consisting, as it does, of dry bread, which is made into cakes, oval in shape, and about twelve inches long, by half an inch thick. Those who can afford it, take curds and cheese with the bread, and sometimes meat and vegetables made into a stew. The Chinese green tea is almost always taken with food and it is a very poor man who will not expend three pice (a halfpenny) on a pot of tea, even if cheese must be omitted from the bill of fare to afford it. In the summer-time fruit is plentiful and cheap; vegetables too, and lettuce is grown in large quantities. Two pice (little more than a farthing) will procure enough fruit to make a good meal for a man, and in the season most of the people met with on the streets are to be seen eating fruit, lettuce, or rhubarb, which latter grows wild in the mountains.