Amir Abdur Rahman was an exceptionally able man, and one who willingly gave the whole of his time and attention to the work required of him, working from the time he rose from his bed until he lay down again; but even so he was unable to see to all things himself, and the absence of responsible officials duly authorized to investigate and settle those matters which were not of sufficient moment to be taken before him for judgment, wasted much of the time which ought to have been devoted to important questions on which the welfare of the country depended. However, it is not surprising that the Amir was chary of putting too much authority in the hands of his officials, for those who had authority to judge minor cases invariably abused the authority given them, and the people who suffered through such abuse of authority, feared the enmity of the official too much to appeal to the Amir, and generally they were given cause to do so. As a case in point, I may mention that of a camel-owner who was brought before the city magistrate concerning the non-payment of some Government duty. In this case the man was forced to pay the duty, besides having two of his camels confiscated, for the magistrate did a transport business with camels himself. The camel-owner was naturally incensed at the injustice of the whole proceeding, and wrote the particulars to the Amir, bribing an official to give in his application. Bribery must be resorted to in those cases where an official is the intermediary. All this was timely reported to the magistrate, who at once betook himself to durbar, and laid the case in his own way before the Amir, making out that the man was an old offender, and, to prevent him running away before his highness had judged his punishment, he had kept two of his camels as security. The letter the man had written was brought in just then and handed to the Amir; but the Amir’s mind was prejudiced, and he saw in the man’s statement—and an Afghan always overstates the case—an endeavour to injure the character of the magistrate in revenge for the latter doing his duty. The man was therefore put in prison, and the whole of his property was confiscated, so that he lost all he had instead of getting back the two camels first taken.