Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1930-08-31

villain. OlQ Auua Anu AAyl WAS tueL g
4 too.
A great plate Of rice crowned with
| hunks of goat was the principal dish.
! There were beans with tomato sauce,
| lentilS and peas, pomegranates, dried
| figs and dates and sort of candy
made from sesame seed and sugar, re-
! sembling raw ASH, stos. As a special
| dessert we were to have can of Cali
| fornia pears They were some that
had come down from Egypt as a gift
! for Feisal.
| Old Auda had never seen such allur-
ing pears in all his turbulent life. and
the temptation to sample them at once
was Overwhelming. He could not wait.
Finding them delicious he diSregarded
all other food and, throwing Formally
to the winds, attacked the pears and
devoured them before the others of the
company were through with the first
course. This was a catastrophe be-
cause We all wanted some of those
pears. But Feisal carried it off per-
fectly. He never even let on that he
knew what had happened.
Irak' Faces Perils.
These, then, are some of the situa-
tons that the suaIe and polite Feisal
had to meet. He will need all of his
diplomatic cleyerness in charting a safe
course tor the kingdom of which he is
now declared indie pendent king. For
Irak lies in troublouS part of the
world. 1t is faced with perils of the
most diverse sort, from antique move
ments Of religious fanaticism of Islam
10 that difficult ltra-modernity-oiI
The Englshman who signed the treaty
guaranteeing the independence of IraS
Is quite different figure Sir Francis
HunphryS. one Of the empires ablest
diplomats in Asia, is the characteristic
type OF adventurous British dignitary in
the East. He is a big, hard-riding,
nara working, hard playing fellow
Schooleo in the ways of Britain in the
Orient equally at nome in unravelng
intrigue at an Indian mahara iah'S court
or at undertaking & dangerous mission
to some savage region of mountain or
desert. It is in the British tradit on
that he is both man of action and
scholar.
A few years ago T had the rare good
fortune 10 penetrate the so-called for
hidden country of Afghanistan. That
NEST Oriental of all Oriental lands is
additionally closed to outsiders, and a
visit to Kabul usually is well nigh as
hazardous and rare for Christian as
a pilgrimage to Mecca. The Amir. AM
anullah Khan, was iust beginning those
innovations which we're soon to cause
him the loss of his throne. I was in
vlteG to Kabul by sheer chance, a fam
tastic bit of luck. And While in Kabul
l met Sir Francis Humphreys. His Bril-
tannic Majesty's Envoy Extraordinary
and Minister Plenipotentiary at the
court of Amir Though he has had a
recent task of delicate diplomacy in ne
gotlatlng the terms If this treaty of in
dependence with Irak, this hardly ex-
ceeds his Kabul record.
Diplomats Unpopular.
In the course of ~ years of wandering
have encountered a host of diplo-
matte emissaries, but my meeting With
Sir Francis was about the strangest en-
counter of all. European diplomatic
representation is decidedly new in Ka-
bul. In the past the Afghans have not
given any hearty welcome to the repre-
Sentatives OF Western powers, A Suave
and stately diplomat was sure to risk
his neck by even venturing into the
country. The fact that there was a
growing diplomatic corps at Kabul when
1 arrived was an in 5ication of the new
tangled and soon-tc -be-Squelched West
ernization policy of Amanullah Khan.
l found the diplomatic set in Kabul
involved in peculiar social difficulties.
The boishevik, as usual, was the source
OF bother. He ami Sir Francis Hum
pl1rys were warily gSSching each other
To the north were me red armies of the
soviet; TO the south the British forces
IN India. The Turkish representatives
seemed cordial to the bolshevik, because
at that time the innovating Mustapha
Renal was friendly with Moscow. The
Chlnese, Persian and British ENJOYS
stood at the other side. as the repre-
SentativeS OF respec liability.
Sir Francis Hum ohrys dominated the
scene because he was the biggest man
physically, because of his charm and
poise, because Of the might and prestige
OF Britain and because OF the past his
tory OF British missions to Kabul. II is
savage and bloody record, with maSsa-
ores and assassina lions. There Is the
famous case of the British envoy. Sir
LOUIS Cavagnari. He was killed in
Kabul by an Afghan faction who merely
wanted to spite their own Amir.
OF all the diplomatic lights I have
ever known, Sir Francis Humphreys ap-
peared the most Isenial and the most
careful and tactful. He merely smiled
when asked him about certain most
unusual festive event at the British
legation while l was in Kabul Sir
Francis and his staff had given them
selves a banquet ID congratulate them
selves on having been in Kabul for six
weeks without being aSsassinated.
And so in Bagdad Emir Feisal and Sir
Francis Humphreys, two interesting per-
Sonalltles OF glamorous Asia, concluded
the treaty OF independence of Irak, that
ancient land of Mesopotan1ia which was
mighty and splendid at the dawn of