Peace of God

When you're wounded and left on Afghanistan's plains, And the women come out to cut up what remains, Just roll to your rifle and blow out your brains An' go to your Gawd like a soldier. --KIPLING.

The proud young Amir of Afghanistan is the despot of a mountain realm rising like a sword between British India and Asiatic Russia. He divides one from the other, defies both. Last week the Amir Amanullah (literally "The Sovereign Lord 'Peace of God' ") set foot upon European soil at Naples, sped by specal train to Rome, began an extensive tour of the Occident.

Romans awaited the Amir in a city decked with the bright, Italian tricolor: red, white, green. Came the chuffing special from Naples, bearing the sombre banner of Afghanistan: black, but worked in silver with the arms of the Amir. Soon Amanullah, the "Peace of God," descended majestically from his salon car. . . .

A blue uniform, twinkling with medals, cased the little, compact royal body. The oval, shapely head bore proudly a black shako topped with aigrette plumes. The left hand rested, militantly graceful, on the jeweled hilt of a sword. The right arm snapped to a correct salute as Amir Amanullah beheld upon the platform small, slim King Vittorio Emanuele of Italy, and burly but suave Prime Minister Benito Mussolini.

Since the public eye must focus on the "Peace of God," and since the vox populi must cheer him, Signor Mussolini withdrew the competition of his own presence. Having greeted the Amir at the station, Il Duce slipped out a side door, sped away down back streets in his bullet-proof limousine. Meanwhile Amir and King stepped into an open carriage. Outriders cracked their whips. The pageant moved.

Craning from countless small balconies, Romans peered and cheered ecstatically. They cheered the Amir, peered at his consort and their daughters. So there were Afghan amazons, the kind of women who, when a soldier is wounded, "come out to cut up what remains." After a short peer, Romans delightedly readjusted their impressions. Her Majesty, Queen Badsha of Afghanistan, is a slender, lovely woman with ivory skin, bright dancing eyes, and a quick queenly smile. She wore, last week, a close, black Parisian fur coat, a chic cloche hat. She and her daughters had never before appeared unveiled in public. Brave, they not only laid aside their veils but rose to the occasion with knee-length skirts. "Viva! Viva!," cried gallants.

Clattering, the cavalcade wound up steep approaches to the Quirinal Palace. There Afghan Royalty supped for three days from the plate of the House of Savoy.

Thence the Amir was obliged to move to the Grand Hotel. Reason: He wished to call upon "The Prisoner of the Vatican," and no caller is received who comes directly from official premises of the Italian State, the hypothetical "jailer" of His Holiness. Amir Amanullah, although a Mohammedan, accepted amid pomp from the Beatissimus Pater, Pius XI, the "Order of the Golden Spur."

Amazed Italians wondered. How came this Amir of a fabled realm to be so nonchalant, so easily and intelligently apprehensive of both modernity and Eternal Rome? Is not Afghanistan the exotic and backward land of castor oil beans, asafoetida plants, and "fat-tailed sheep"?* Is it possible that a country without railways, a people whose chief exports are the wool and skins of "fat-tailed sheep" can have achieved sophistication?

Newsgatherers drew from Amir Amanullah, last week, an intimation that he plans to visit "the chief capitals of Europe" on his present tour, and may possibly extend it by a brief trip to the U. S. When an English correspondent asked, "Is Your Majesty a friend of Great Britain?" shrewd Amir Amanullah replied: "I will answer that question after I have spoken to Sir Austen Chamberlain" (British Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs). Attached to the royal Afghan suite, last week, were several businesslike, efficient secretaries who carried data upon the many, varied and picturesque opportunities which exist in Afghanistan for the profitable investment of occidental capital.

* Unique animals which store up fatty nourishment in their enormous tails as camels do in humps.