but they both salute mechanically as I pass in.  Fifty yards of open waste ground enables me to mount and ride into the entrance of the principal street.  I have precious little time to look about me, and no opportunity to discover what the result of my temerity would be after the people had recovered from their amazement, for hardly have I gotten fairly into the street when I am met by my old guide, conducting a guard of twelve soldiers who have been sent to bring me in.

CHAPTER X.

Arrested at Furrah.

Perhaps no stranger occurrence in the field of personal adventure in Central Asia has happened for many a year than my entrance into Furrah on a bicycle.  Only those who know Afghanistan and the Afghans can fully realize the ticklish character of this little piece of adventure.

My soldier-escort are fine-looking fellows, wearing the well-known red jackets of the British Army, evidently the uniform of some sepoy regiment.  Forming around me, they conduct me through the gate of an inner enclosure near by, and usher me into a small compound where Mahmoud Yusuph Khan, the commander-in-chief of the garrison, is engaged in holding a morning reception of his subordinate chiefs and officers.  The spectacle that greets my astonished eyes is a revelation indeed; the whole compound is filled with soldiers wearing the regimentals of the Anglo-Indian army.  As I enter the compound and trundle the bicycle between long files of soldiers toward Mahmoud Yusuph Khan and his officers, five hundred pairs of eyes are fixed on me with intense curiosity.  These are Cabooli soldiers sent here to garrison Furrah, where they will be handy to march to the relief of Herat, in case of demonstrations against that city by the Russians.  The tension over the Penjdeh incident has not yet (April, 1886) wholly relaxed, and I feel instinctively that I am suspected of being a Russian spy.

In the centre of the compound is a large bungalow, surrounded by a slightly raised porch.  Seated on a mat at one end of this is Mahmoud Yusuph Khan, and ranged in two long rows down the porch are his chiefs and officers.  They are all seated cross-legged on a strip of carpet, and attendants are serving them with tea in little porcelain cups.  They are the most martial-looking assembly of humans I ever set eyes on.  They are fairly bristling with quite serviceable looking weapons, besides many of the highly ornamented, but less dangerous, “gewgaws of war” dear to the heart of the brave but conservative warriors of Islam.  Prominent among the peculiarities observed are strips of chain mail attached to portions of their clothing as guards against sword-cuts, noticeably on the sleeves.  Some are wearing steel helmets, some huge turbans, and others the regular Afghan military hat, this latter a rakish-looking head-piece something like the hat of a Chinese Tartar general.