e containing a few kerans. While
engaged in fording this branch the khan ferrets out the purse and
extracts something from it, which he deftly slips into the folds of his
kammerbund. All this I silently observe from the corners of my eyes, but
say nothing.

Emerging from the stream, the wily khan points across the intervening
three hundred yards or thereabout to the main stream, and motions for me
to go ahead. The discovery of the purse and the purloined kerans has
aroused all the latent cupidity of his soul, and he wants me to ride
ahead, so that he can straggle along in the rear and investigate the
contents of the purse at his leisure. While winking at the amusing little
act of petty larceny already detected, I do not propose to give his
kleptomaniac tendencies full swing, and so I meet his proposal to sowar
and go ahead by peremptorily ordering him to take the lead.

Arriving at the bank of the Harood, I retire behind a clump of reeds, and
fold my money-belt, full of gold, up in the middle of my clothes, making
a compact bundle, with my gossamer rubber wrapped around the outside. The
river is about a hundred and fifty yards wide at the ford, with a
sand-bar about mid-stream, and is not above shoulder-deep along the ridge
that renders it fordable; the current, however, is frightfully strong.
Like the Indians of the West, the Afghan nomads are accustomed from
infancy to battling with the elements, and are comparatively fearless in
regard to rivers and deserts and storms, etc.

Such, at least, is the impression created by the conduct of the two young
men who have come to assist us across. The bicycle, my clothes, and all
the effects of the sowars are carried across on their heads, the rushing
waters threatening to sweep them off their feet at every step; but
nothing is allowed to get wet. When they are carrying across the last
bundle, the khan, solicitous for my safety, wants me to hang on to a
short rope tied around the waist of the strongest of the nomads.
Naturally disdaining any such arrangement as this, however, I declare my
intention of crossing without assistance, and wade in forthwith. Ere I
have progressed thirty yards, the current fairly sweeps me off my feet
and I have to swim for it. Fancying that I am overcome and in a fair way
of being drowned, the sowars set up a wild howl of apprehension, and
shout excitedly to the nomads to rescue me from a watery grave. The
Afghans are not so excited, however, over t