AFGHANISTAN: Amir's Adventures

The spruce, dynamic Amir Amanullah of pugnacious and independent Afghanistan continued, last week, his triumphal visit in the British Isles (TIME, March 26). Featured were several new adventures designed to bring the Orient sovereign into close and striking contact with Occidental ideas and might.

¶ Entering a huge, three-engined Imperial Airways plane, Amir Amanullah circled boldly over London, and was politely hailed by the British press as the first reigning sovereign to do so. Doubters recalled that Their Majesties the King and Queen of the Belgians have used the air route to and from the London airport of Croydon, though it is possible that they have never flown over that small and technical area of the Metropolis which is officially "The City."

¶ Still more daring was a subsea voyage performed by Amir Amanullah in the British submarine L-22, off Southampton. When invited to fire a dummy torpedo, His Majesty pulled the trigger with apparent trepidation, but soon rallied and fired a second torpedo.

When the submarine emerged the White Star Liner Majestic was in the offing. Briskly the Amir boarded her, and was joined by Queen Thuraya of Afghanistan in an hour's inspection of the so-called "largest ship in the world."

¶ During the staging of one more sham battle in his honor, Amir Amanullah watched with round, startled eyes while a 38-ton tank lumberingly butted and crushed down the brick walls of a model fort. Turning away his head, as though in revulsion, His Majesty declared "How unromantic and terrifying is Western warfare!"

¶ Officials of the British Foreign Office told last week that a cinema record of all the Amir's adventures is being made at the expense of the British Government which will present the completed film to His Majesty as a lasting reminder of the British Empire's might.