13 MAY 1966, Page 21

Peter King's Afghanistan : Cockpit in High Asia (Bles, 25s.)

is a travel notebook by someone who was driven by Land-Rover or rode on horseback over large tracts of the country look- ing for medicinal herbs as representative of an American pharmaceutical company. It is a slightly brash, non-intellectual book with lots of lively anecdote and observation (the section on Afghan bread-making alone is quite an epic). It is also the story of a love affair with the Afghan people by someone who took the trouble to meet them on their own terms, and it makes ex- cellent, reading, even if it is hard to believe that they are quite so noble as the author suggests.