Their implements consist of a pair of peculiar goat-skin bellows, provided with wooden nozzles tipped with iron.  A catgut bowstring drills for boring holes, and screw-drills for cutting threads, hammers, and an anvil.  A rude but ingenious forge is constructed out of a few handfuls of stiff mud, and, building a charcoal fire, they spend the evening in sharpening and tempering drills for tomorrow’s operations.

Everybody seems more attentive and anxious to contribute to my pleasure, the result, evidently, of orders from Herat.  The officer, who but two days ago openly accused me of being a Russian, is to-day obsequious beyond measure, and his efforts to atone for Ma openly assured suspicions are really quite painful and embarrassing; even going the length of begging me to take him with me to London.  The supper provided to-day consists of more courses and is better cooked and better served; Mohammed Ahzim Khan himself squats before me, diligently engaged in picking hairs out of the butter, pointing out what he considers the choicest morsels, and otherwise betrays great anxiety to do the agreeable.

The whole of the fifth and sixth days are consumed in the task of repairing the damages to the bicycle, the result being highly satisfactory, considering everything.  Six new spokes that I have with me have been inserted, and sundry others stretched and the ends newly threaded.  The gunsmiths are quite expert workmen, considering the tools they have to work with, and when they happen to drill a hole a trifle crooked, they are full of apologies, and remind me that this is Afghanistan and not Frangistan.  They know and appreciate good material when they see it, and during the process of heating and stretching the spokes, loud and profuse are the praises bestowed upon the quality of the iron.  “Koob awhan,” they say, “Khylie koob awhan; Ferenghi awhan koob.”  As artisans, interested in mechanical affairs, the ball-bearings of the pedals, one of which I take apart to show them, excites their profound admiration as evidence of the marvellous skill of the Ferenghis.  Much careful work is required to spring the rim of the wheel back into a true circle, every spoke having to be loosened and the whole wheel newly adjusted.  Except for the handy little spoke-vice which I very fortunately brought with me, this work of adjustment would have been impossible.  As there is probably nothing obtainable in Herat that would have answered the purpose, no alternative would have been left but to have carried the bicycle out of the country on horseback.  After the coterie of gunsmiths have exhausted their ingenuity and my own resources have been expended, three spokes are missing entirely, two others are stretched and weakened, and of the six new ones some are forced into holes partially spoiled in the unskillful boring out of broken ends.  Yet, with all these defects, so thoroughly has it stood the severest tests of the roads, that I apprehend little or no trouble about breakages.