Afghanistan, extols its fruits as the rarest and most
delicious in flavour, they being, moreover, so plentiful
that people were allowed to enter the gardens and
pluck and eat them. Each visitor was weighed as he
entered and again as he returned, and paid at a fixed
rate the difference in weight. This seems a more
equitable process than that adopted now in many parts
of Switzerland, where, during the grape season, people
are allowed to have their fill at one uniform rate,
generally half a franc. I f a similar arrangement were
universally adopted, fruit stalls would soon be compelled
to close their establishments for want of customers.
Taking an early drive one beautiful morning, I
reached a spot where there was a delicious clear pond
under the friendly shade of an enormous fig-tree—a
temptation to bathe which I could not resist, and
thus refreshed, I proceeded to a neighbouring village
to deliver an introduction to Prince Eaden Saleh, a
native artist of some repute, who had passed many
years in Europe. His friend and patron was the
reigning Prince of Coburg Gotha. Subsequently
Eaden Saleh was received at most of the European
courts. He still prided himself upon his success in
the highest society, and would have liked you to believe
that an English Miss actually poisoned herself out of