Word: afghanistan
(lookup in dictionary)
(lookup stats)
Dates: during 1920-1929
Sort By: most recent first
(reverse)
...proud young Amir of Afghanistan is the despot of a mountain realm rising like a sword between British India and Asiatic Russia. He divides one from the other, defies both. Last week the Amir Amanullah (literally "The Sovereign Lord 'Peace of God' ") set foot upon European soil at Naples, sped by specal train to Rome, began an extensive tour of the Occident...
Romans awaited the Amir in a city decked with the bright, Italian tricolor: red, white, green. Came the chuffing special from Naples, bearing the sombre banner of Afghanistan: black, but worked in silver with the arms of the Amir. Soon Amanullah, the "Peace of God," descended majestically from his salon...
...cheered ecstatically. They cheered the Amir, peered at his consort and their daughters. So there were Afghan amazons, the kind of women who, when a soldier is wounded, "come out to cut up what remains." After a short peer, Romans delightedly readjusted their impressions. Her Majesty, Queen Badsha of Afghanistan, is a slender, lovely woman with ivory skin, bright dancing eyes, and a quick queenly smile. She wore, last week, a close, black Parisian fur coat, a chic cloche hat. She and her daughters had never before appeared unveiled in public. Brave, they not only laid aside their veils...
Amazed Italians wondered. How came this Amir of a fabled realm to be so nonchalant, so easily and intelligently apprehensive of both modernity and Eternal Rome? Is not Afghanistan the exotic and backward land of castor oil beans, asafoetida plants, and "fat-tailed sheep"?* Is it possible that a country without railways, a people whose chief exports are the wool and skins of "fat-tailed sheep" can have achieved sophistication...
...Amir Amanullah replied: "I will answer that question after I have spoken to Sir Austen Chamberlain" (British Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs). Attached to the royal Afghan suite, last week, were several businesslike, efficient secretaries who carried data upon the many, varied and picturesque opportunities which exist in Afghanistan for the profitable investment of occidental capital...