nces; but they may suffice to reveal a state of mental development
at which civilisation hardly knows whether to laugh or weep.

Their superstition exposes them to the rapacity and tyranny of
a numerous priesthood--"Mullahs," "Sahibzadas," "Akhundzadas,"
"Fakirs,"--and a host of wandering Talib-ul-ilms, who correspond with
the theological students in Turkey, and live free at the expense of the
people. More than this, they enjoy a sort of "droit du seigneur," and no
man's wife or daughter is safe from them. Of some of their manners and
morals it is impossible to write. As Macaulay has said of Wycherley's
plays, "they are protected against the critics as a skunk is protected
against the hunters." They are "safe, because they are too filthy to
handle, and too noisome even to approach."

Yet the life even of these barbarous people is not without moments
when the lover of the picturesque might sympathise with their hopes
and fears. In the cool of the evening, when the sun has sunk behind the
mountains of Afghanistan, and the valleys are filled with a delicious
twilight, the elders of the village lead the way to the chenar trees by
the water's side, and there, while the men are cleaning their rifles,
or smoking their hookas, and the women are making rude ornaments from
beads, and cloves, and nuts, the Mullah drones the evening prayer. Few
white men have seen, and returned to tell the tale. But we may imagine
the conversation passing from the prices of arms and cattle, the
prospects of the harvest, or the village gossip, to the great Power,
that lies to the southward, and comes nearer year by year. Perhaps some
former Sepoy, of Beluchis or Pathans, will recount his adventures in the
bazaars of Peshawar, or tell of the white officers he has followed and
fought for in the past. He will speak of their careless bravery and
their strange sports; of the far-reaching power of the Government, that
never forgets to send his pension regularly as the months pass by; and
he may even predict to the listening circle the day when their valleys
will be involved in the comprehensive grasp of that great machine, and
judges, collectors and commissioners shall ride to sessions at Ambeyla,
or value the land tax on the soil of Nawagai. Then the Mullah will raise
his voice and remind them of other days when the sons of the prophet
drove the infidel from the plains of India, and ruled at Delhi, as
wide an Empire as the Kafir holds to-day: when the tr