ests broke down their attitude of hostility,
as at once it would be noised all down the countryside that the
great Mullah had broken the bread of friendship with the Daktar
Sahib from Bannu, and among the Afghans the relationship between
host and guest is inviolable. Thus, it came about that on our host
making inquiries as to where we intended to spend the night, and
finding that we had no other plans, he insisted on our stopping as
his guests, and there and then sent his servants for the preparation
of our lodging and our evening repast. The ice thus broken, we were
able to proceed from general topics to the more abstruse theological
speculations, in which his reverence excelled, and, like a summer
shower, this friendly interchange of ideas washed away the dust of
many old prejudices and misunderstandings, and as the evening hours
drew on our talk continued under the starlit canopy of the glorious
Eastern night, and we were vowing mutual friendship, and he promising
on his own behalf and on that of his father himself to become our
guests on the next occasion of a visit to Bannu. When at last we lay
down to rest, we first thanked God, who had so prospered our journey,
and broken down the great barrier of prejudice, and opened a way for
us to carry on our work in the villages round.

Many of the people still looked askance at us, and spoke of us as
"infidels" and "blasphemers," and would, no doubt, have been led to
proceed further at a hint from the Mullahs; but our mission had been
accepted, and we knew it was only a matter of time that we should
be actually welcomed. Even now, grown bolder by the attitude of the
Mullah, some old patients appeared, and insisted on our accompanying
them to various houses in the village where there were patients in
need of medical help and advice. One cannot overestimate the religious
influences emanating from a place like Karbogha. Numbers of religious
students are attracted there by the fame of the Mullah even from
distant places on both sides of the border, and the offerings of the
faithful enable the Mullah to give a free-handed hospitality to one
and all, and in Afghanistan there is no quicker road to influence than
the ability to do this. It was a tradition in the villages round that
when the Mullah daily prepared his saucepans of rice and cakes of
unleavened bread in his kitchens, the amount was always found to be
sufficient for the pilgrims of that day, even though hundreds might