e audience. The
Mullah vociferated, and the audience scowled more and more, and then
the Mullah, turning to me, said: "Look here, you had better get out of
this, as these people here are up to mischief, and it may go hard with
you." I felt much like Micah when the Danites said to him: "Let not
thy voice be heard among us, lest angry fellows run upon thee." But
I told the Mullah that I held him responsible for the acts of his
followers, and I did not intend to forsake the place to which long
custom had given us a right. Just as the storm seemed about to break,
and I momentarily expected to be pitched across the street, a stalwart
smith, a well-known Muhammadan, himself respected by the people,
pushed through the crowd, and, taking the Mullah by the arm, said:
"Now, Mullah Sahib, you know the Padre Sahib never interferes with you
in your place, and that this is not your proper preaching-place. Why
do you want to make a row and injure him?" So saying, he took the
rather unwilling Mullah off to his usual place, and the more unruly
portion of the crowd, after hurling a few imprecations at me, followed
him, too. Our friend the smith was an old hospital patient, so this,
too, may be set down, under the overruling providence of God, to the
mollifying influence of a medical mission.

One of the most influential Mullahs on the British side of the Afghan
border is the Mullah Karbogha, so called from the village which forms
his Canterbury. In some respects his influence was directed towards the
moral improvement of the people, while in others his religious schools
became hotbeds of fanaticism. Thus he set his face steadily against
the evil practice, which is so prevalent among the frontier Afghans,
of selling their daughters in marriage to the highest bidder. Not long
ago a Mullah of considerable power, who had himself sold his daughter
in marriage, had to make the most abject profession of repentance
lest the Mullah Karbogha should excommunicate him, and he should have
to fly the country. He regards the smoking of tobacco as one of the
works of the devil, and when the Mullah makes his visitation to some
village there is a general scramble to hide away all the pipes; for
not only would any that he found be publicly broken, but the owner
would incur his displeasure. As the Afghans do not confine themselves
to the soothing weed, but mix it up with a number of intoxicating and
injurious substances, such as Indian hemp or charras, this