The great Boer War had just commenced at that time, and the Amir said he had spent several nights in anxious thought, for it seemed possible that the Russians might take advantage of this to advance through his country on India, but when he put himself in the place of the Russians and viewed the situation from their side, and he had spent many years in exile in Russia, and knew them and their ways and policy, he found much to fear from Afghanistan, for a war with them meant a general rising of Islam, which would spread to Russian Asia, and they had not enough troops for all that this meant, for the Mussulman countries she had conquered were insecurely held, and the people hated their conquerors, and as the Afghans would prefer death to being enslaved, and their women and children taken, it would be too great an undertaking to quell these risings, and fight Afghanistan and India at the same time. About the Boer War he said he was very much grieved to hear of the number of troops lost. He had had a large experience in fighting, and from the different pictures and plans he had seen, he thought the fighting arrangements were not good, for the Boers were entrenched and hidden, and the English advanced on them in the open, and as the bodies of men are not made of steel, it is impossible to stand against the hail of bullets which modern weapons storm out every minute. He said he could send fifty thousand troops to help the British, but Afghans are unused to ships, and would be demoralized if sent in them, but England must always remember that he was ready to fight for her on his side or in India. He once told me an anecdote of the time when he was in Russia, and the Russo-Turkish War was raging. He was asked to join the Russian army with his followers in this war, for they told him they had heard that he was a great general, and would like to test his powers. But he was in no mood to fight for the Russians, particularly as they were fighting against his co-religionists, so he replied that to fight on their side would give them no opportunity of testing his merits and bravery, for all the Russians were brave and good fighters, and he would be one among many. Therefore it was better they should let him fight on the enemy’s side, and then when he was fighting against them, his ability, or want of it, would be made apparent, and they could judge for themselves. They asked him no more, he said.