make me feel quite at ease in the grand place which now hospitably received me. In the midst of a fine old garden there rose on terraced ground the Chitrali house which had served as the Political Agent's residence before the upheaval of 1895. How delightful it was to be ushered into a suite of rooms—from their size they might almost be called halls—which with all Western comfort combined unmistakable proofs of genuine local architecture. Beautifully carved pillars of deodar disposed in a rectangle supported the roof, where a cleverly constructed sky-light served as a modern but unobtrusive substitute for the light-and-air hole of the usual Chitrali type. The large room which was to form my quarters looked doubly inviting by its wealth of fine carpets. With delighted surprise I discovered among them several that had come from Khotan, my old haunts I was longing to revisit. Still more strangely familiar seemed to me the ornamental wood-carving on the pillars ; for many of its early Indian motifs looked as if copied from the carved columns and other architectural pieces in wood which my excavations had brought to light at ancient sites of the Khotan desert.
A pleasant dinner-party, to which my kind host had invited the two officers of the detachment garrisoning the fort, closed a day full of novel and fascinating impressions. It was well that a multitude of tasks obliged me to choose Chitral for a three-days' halt ; for I could thus in good conscience take the first real rest since I had set out from my gloomy Dir prison. With its amiable host, its spacious ease, and all the facilities resulting from the beneficent presence of a ' Mulki Sahib ' (political officer), the Chitral Agency struck me from the first as an unexpected anticipation, in a beautiful mountain setting, of Chini-bagh, my cherished Turkestan base. I could not have wished for more prompt or thorough arrangements to enable me to collect the information and materials I needed.
Already on the morning after my arrival picturesque crowds of Chitralis gathered on the lawns of the garden to supply me with anthropometrical data. They had been sent by the Mehtar to be measured, etc., and strange as my proceedings must have appeared to these honest folk
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