. Harper's young people . -sixth dayof August, L879. BOB,—Were inAfghanistan at last, and afunny place it is. By thistime youll liavc got mylast iiltiT, Iclliiij;1 how TomHilton mi-t me at ( >ivnl>m-u(the border town, of Russia,you know), and how \vcwent together aeross thedesert, past the Aral Lake,and up the Jaxartes to Tash-kent. Its not the Jax-artes now. though, for thenatives call it Syr-Daria,or Clean River. I supposebecause its the dirtiest riv-er I ever set eyes on. Little enough did I everthink, old fellow, when youand 1 used to grind overAlexanders crossing of theJaxarte
. Harper's young people . -sixth dayof August, L879. BOB,—Were inAfghanistan at last, and afunny place it is. By thistime youll liavc got mylast iiltiT, Iclliiij;1 how TomHilton mi-t me at ( >ivnl>m-u(the border town, of Russia,you know), and how \vcwent together aeross thedesert, past the Aral Lake,and up the Jaxartes to Tash-kent. Its not the Jax-artes now. though, for thenatives call it Syr-Daria,or Clean River. I supposebecause its the dirtiest riv-er I ever set eyes on. Little enough did I everthink, old fellow, when youand 1 used to grind overAlexanders crossing of theJaxartes and the Oxus, thatI should cross them my-self someday; but Ive seenqueerer things than thatsince I started. What doyou think of our comingto a bit of desert where allthe people were living inholes under the earth ? Tsee their heads popping upout of the ground like rah-bits to look at us was themost comical .sight you canimagine. We ought to he in Cabool the day after to-mor- Beeun in Nn. m. .YnrN<; IS IT PEACE? 818 HAMPERS YOUNG PEOPLE—WITH SUPPLEMENT. VOLUME IV. row, and then Ill have a chance of seeing- what an Afghancapital is like. Its great fun going about in these out-of-the-way places, and seeing- for ones self all the queer peoplethat one used to read about and see pictures of at remember how we thought Gibbon was stretchingit. ratln-r, when he said that the Tartars had no , its as true as can be; I was in among a whole cam])of them the other day, and there wasnt a single beardamong the lot! At first I felt just as if Id been making- friends witha herd of monkeys; for really, with their long arms andlow foreheads, and small narrow eyes, and heads as roundas skittle-balls, and flat noses and big mouths (to say no-thing of their greasy cloaks of camels-bair or sheep-skin ),they might have gone right into a menagerie just as theywere. But they received us very civilly, and gave mesome kumyss (fermented mares milk), which tasted some-th
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