KABUL’S DIFFICULTIES.

Unwritten tribal law condemns war on women, and Ajab and his followers, finding their position too hot, escaped to the Sangu Khel, whose protection he assured by inveigling them into his latest crime. The Amir’s provincial governor summoned the clan’s headmen to a conference regarding the criminal refugees, military service, and unpaid taxes, but they left it without permission. Afghan troops are consequently now in their villages, where the difficulty of arresting Mussulmans and handing them over to a Christian Government is probably producing a warfare of words rather than of bullets.

There is no sufficient reason to doubt the Amir’s neighbourly sincerity, but his difficulties as protector of the Moslem faith and his desire to maintain friendship with the tribes upon whom he counts for frontier defence cannot be overlooked. Ajab’s escape on the British side was prevented by snow and by tribesmen who are friendly to us, but he is endeavouring to arrange for shelter just on our side of the border among the Mohmands. Meanwhile, his threats of further kidnapping and the possibility of his escape are keeping everybody in our frontier posts and towns in a considerable state of tension regarding the regarding the safety of Englishwomen. Unless Ajab is brought to account his example will prove mischievous. Simultaneously, four of the six murderers of Major Finnis in the Zhob district, towards the southern end of the Afghan frontier are sheltering in Afghan homes, which formerly belonged to malcontent wazirs of the Wana district, on the British side of the frontier They long ago settled in Afghanistan and entered military service there. They were in that service at the time of the murder, and apparently still are.