His Highness did not seem very much interested in the presents, though Prince Habibullah occasionally took up an article and examined it.
When the offering of presents was completed, chairs were brought for the Princes and they sat down. Why I should have been allowed to sit while the Princes stood, I do not know, unless it were, as I sometimes thought, that the Amîr wished to guard the Princes from the danger of acquiring a too exalted notion of their own personal importance.
Prince Habibullah was always courteous, and struck me as having much more savoir vivre than Prince Nasrullah.
“White-beard;” His Age.
At five p.m. Messrs. Stewart and Myddleton were received by His Highness. Chairs were placed for them and tea was brought. After the usual polite salutations His Highness asked Stewart how old he was. The question, no doubt, was suggested to the Amîr’s mind by the fact that Stewart’s hair and beard were silvery white. Afghans, when their hair turns grey, almost invariably, unless they are Priests, dye it black or red. His Highness’s hair and beard were very grey when he was ill, but were blue-black afterwards, and I could not help connecting this remarkable fact with the many bottles of hair-dye I saw in the stores.
His Highness was surprised to hear that Stewart was only forty-eight. He laughed when he heard it, and said he thought he must be a hundred.
After we had drunk tea permission was given us to withdraw, and we rode home. During the reception the Armenian had translated. Waiting outside and expecting to be sent for, was the Hindustani, but though Prince Habibullah asked where he was, no one answered.
