Sad Amanullah

Weeping bitter salt tears last week by the bitter salt waters of Port Said was plump Amanullah, exiled King of Afghanistan. He stood by the rail of the P. & O. liner Mooltan and moaned to a battery of sympathetic reporters:

"Kingship no longer has any charms for me. I wish I could be allowed to settle down as a mere farmer in the country I love.

"I am sure that the present regime in my country is doomed to failure sooner or later. In fact I am thinking of returning within a year after a stay in Italy, where I know I have the friendship of King Vittorio Emanuele and Premier Mussolini."

One newsgatherer had the temerity to ask grief-stricken Amanullah if it were true that Col. Thomas Edward (Revolt in the Desert) Lawrence, British secret agent, had a part in stirring up the revolution.

Amanullah shook his head and said:

"Any of the mullahs [Mohammedan religious teachers] were better able to incite the populace to revolution than Col. Lawrence."

During the interview, Amanullah's wife, Queen Thuraya, lay, heavy and silent, in her deck chair. She had just borne another child (a daughter named India) at Bombay and looked more like a poor emigrant than an exiled queen. Amanullah complained of poverty, said he had only $30, had had to abandon his clothes when he fled from Kandahar, Afghanistan.

Only one year ago, sad Amanullah had ten thousand times $30, dozens of suits of clothes. Touring Europe he rode with Kings, witnessed sham battles, inspected shops in each country he visited, blithely accepted magnificent gifts bestowed in the hope that he would make even more magnificent purchases.

In spite of his vaunted present "poverty" King Amanullah and his party of 24 were met by four large limousines at Marseilles where they left the Mooltan and proceeded to Italy by rail.