Page:Letters from India Vol 2.pdf/257

 but he says his wives at Loodiana would hear of it and resent it when he goes back; and of course his going out with George is one of the distinctions he is most proud of, and that he always dwells upon, when he talks of the treatment he met with when he was a prisoner to the King of Bokhara. However, the paragraph was shown to him by some native, and put him | in one of his greatest rages, and he cannot understand why the editor is not to have his head cut off. He found out that the authority was a sort of renegade Afghan, whom he had refused. to entertain, and he sent for him and got a written retraction from him, which he insists on having published. The editor of the paper is in a sad puzzle about it, but ends by starting a grand proposition—that, at all events, they are right to have made the statement, even if false, because it has brought out the truth. Such a good principle to go upon!

Sunday, 4th. George and I were sitting by the water-side yesterday evening, and the Dost saw us, and came with his nephew and an interpreter and established himself by us, just as any English-