Our Allustrations THE CAVE-DWELLERS OF THE HAZARA JAT BY DR. J. A. GRAY, SURGEON TO THE AMIR OF AFGHANISTAN On the. road to Turkestan, in many of the valleys one sees hol- lowed out half-way up the face of the mountain, caves in which dwell the poorer agriculturists. It is men of this kind—those who combine the professions of agriculturist and robber—who would cause more trouble to an invader of Afghanistan than would any army of the Amirs. When Lord Roberts was fighting in the country the English were at first much puzzled by the rapidity with which thousands of armed men would appear, and, if occasion required, the equal rapidity with which they would vanish. All that one could find was here and there a peaceful peasant hard at work in the fields with his mattock —the rifle was left at home. Most of the Hazaras of the Bamian district live in caves ; the faces of nearly all the clifis around being dotted with their open- ings. “They are reaches by marrow, almost Tuipocible, sakeways cut in the face of the cliff. “Ihe caves form splendid strongholds for the people, who have long earned a reputation for turbulence and law- Tessness. The finest caves are those around the colossal rock-cut idols for which Bamian is famous. They are certainly of great antiquity, dating probably from a Buddhist empire before the Moham- medan conquest. A few seem to have been originally meant for temples. They are beautifully cut, with domed roofs in hard conglomerate rock, and are coated with a layer of lustrous bitumen. Many of the other caves are in soft sandstone and conglomerate. These are both dry, and easily cut, the harder conglomerate often forming a natural roof for rooms dug in the softer sandstone beneath. This, pethaps, accounts for the use of caves in the locality, for the Hazaras are not generally cave-dwellers. The furniture of one of these rock dwellings is simple enough. The most prominent feature is the great ornamented earthen jar, in which grain and provisions are stored ; a strip of carpet may occupy the place of honour in the centre of the floor, a few copper cooking utensils, a ‘‘chillum,” or hubble-bubble pipe, an Afghan * samovar ® for tea, and a rough “‘charpoy,” or bedstead, complete the esta- Dlishment. Mr. Sydney P. Hall’s drawing is from a sketch by Dr. J. A. Gray, assisted by photographs kindly lent by Mr. Arthur Collins, F.G.S., geologist and mining engineer to the Government of Afghanistan.THE GRAPHIC