Evening star., 1923-11-01

with ruin and contempt through his
coWardice befouled the memory OF
the woman OF birth and rank who
had :befriended him. by blowing out
that the idea of Lord Curzon postur-
ing as "Boulanger, jr.," appeals keenly
70 ones sense of ridicule. .
On. another occasion he happened
TO be IN Rome when the funeral of
King Victor Emanuel III was about
to take place in the Pantheon. He
was with Oscar Browning, who diea
at Rome the other day. Neither OF
them possessed any official creden-
tials emitting them 20 participation
in the ceremonies. So they trusted
to luck, donned, in the early morn
Ing. their evening dress clothes, in
token Of respect, and. finding a num-
Der of Judges and provincial city
mayors similarly attired, they insin-
uated themselves into the midst of the
groups and walked, with admirable conf
posure, in the solemn procession
through the streets behind the hearse
to the foot Of the catafalQue, in the
Pantheon.
In 1894 he embarked on a singu-
larly perilous trip to Kabul, with the
intention of calling upon the mas
terful ruler of Afghanistan. Ameor
Abdur Rahman Khan. He felt that
1t was desirable that his appearance
should suggest the esteem in which
he was held in his own country.
But 1t was his misfortune that ne
possessed at the time neither uni
form nor any of those orders of
which. he is now so richly adorned.
So, in default of anything better, be-
fore leaving London he called upon
Nathan, the theatrical costumer OF
a fancy uniform of the most gor-
geous kind and completed with the
most magnificent and biggest pair
OF gold epaulets ever seen outside
an opera bouffe. These epaulets did
the trick. They caught the eye of
the ameer, who admired them so
greatly that he then and there sum-
moned his court tailor to examine
them with a view to their reproduc-
tion for his own uniform.
/ But it was not only the uniform,
and the epauIettes which won the des-
pot of Afghanistan, who was a source
of 80 much trouble to the British au-
thorities in India. 1t was also the
letter which Curzon handed to him,
anu III WHlCh SApiC CSSSSB III Tic
most hish-fiown language, his ad-
miration for the oriental ruler. 1t
begins as follows:
'.Khorassen l have seen and visited!
I have been in Bokhara and Samar-
kandi I have ridden the Chaman and
have sojourned at Peshawari But
the dominions of your highness,
which are situated in the middle OF
all these territories. like unto a rich
stone set in the middle of ring. u
have never yet been permitted to
visit, and the person Of your hight
ness, which Is, in your dominion, like
the sparkle in the heart of the dfa-
mond. have never been fortunate
enough te'gaze upon until now"
No wonder that the ameer not only
treated him with the utmost distine-
tion. and hospitality, but accorded to
portions sof hbis dominions as had
never~been before conceded to any
foreign visitor. When Lord Curzon
prints copy of this marvellous let
ter, today, in cold blood. one is tempt
these "reminiscences a little bit car
understand how he managed TO extrf-
trouble in the near east In which she
gress> of Lausanne, with increased
prestige to himself and to his native
land, with the good will of the Turks
and with pre-eminence once more for
En- gland at Stamboul.
- - L. So 49,