THE KHYBER PASS AND THE AFRIDI.

Waikato Argus, Volume IV, Issue 305, 23 June 1898, Page 4

THE KHYBER PASS AND THE AFRIDI.

The Khyber has always been to Englishmen a place of ill-repute, rivalling in its gloomy associations the Black Hole of Calcutta or the Well of Cawnpore ; aud never did any place appear to me to deserve an evil reputation more truly than the famous Pass as I first saw it one bleak stormy day at the end ot last year. . . . We were marching up the Khyber as part of a force destined to clear the Pass and re-open the traderoute to Afghanistan, and knowing that, at best, our occupation must last several months, we regarded the country through which we were travelling with very mixed feelings. Hitherto we had been marching through an enemy's country, had razed his towera and fortifications, and had felt the pride of knowing that we had been where no white man had ever set foot before. Now we were in what is practically British territory, marching along a road which the Government of India is pledged to keep open and in good repair, while all round us were our o.vn forts and strongholds in absolute ruin. As wc descended to the open space above the Khyber stream, where we were to encamp, just below the historic fort of Ali Musjirl, we began to realise the damage done us by the Afridis. The caravanserai, in peacetime crowded twice a week with the heavily laden caravans passing between India and Afghanistan, no longer existed. The barracks of the Kbyber Rifles were in ruins ; and of the fort iteelf little remained but the outer walls and towers, too solid to be destroyed without dynamite. In fact throughout the whole length of the British Khyber from Lundi Kotal to Fort Maude, almost under the noßes of our guns nt Jamrud, a determined attempt had been made to wipe out every trace of English authority. There was not an Englishman in tn* force which entered the Pass that day who did not understand what the effect on the whole Frontier would be if we were to fail to inflict condign puuiahmeut on the tribes for such an act of daring insolence.

The Afridi is by nature and training a skilful skirmisher and a splendid shot ; his very life -depends upon h'l3 being both. Rare indeed is it that the tribes are not at open hostility among themselves, while within the tribe, and even within the famiiy, blood-feiuls are so common that every Afridi has far more enemies than friends. A strict code regulates the prosecution of these feuds. During seed-time and harvest, or during the progress of a jehad (a sacred war) all quarrels are laid aside; anil at all times the persons of women and children are inviolate. But with these exceptions their feuds are prosecuted with a vindictiveness to which the history of the Scottish Highlanders in the wildest times can offer no parallel. An Orakzai, who owned a house just below a spot which my picquet occupied for some time on the Sompagher Pass, one day pointed out to me another house within twenty paces of his own. There, he said, lived his enemy, and then he went on to describe with the utmost pride how he had killed the father of the present owner after waiting nine whole months in his tower for a shot, his food and water being brought him by the women of his household, who also were responsible for the proper tending of the fields and cattle of the estate, until this somewhat protracted stalk had been brought to a successful issue. It is this state of affairs which makes the possession of a good rifle the dearest ambition of a frontier tribesman, a good Government Martini being always worth over three hundred ruDees, an immense sum of money to a people as poor as the Afndis. The difficulties experienced by the headmen of the tribes in collecting the rifles for the lines we have imposed may be easily imagined, when it is realised that the greater number of these rifles must come from men with blood-feuds on their hands to whom the sacrifice of their arms means sooner or later the sacrifice of their lives. A charming story is told of the Kamber Khels, illustrating how cheaply the tribesmen regard human life. A " moollah "of the tribe ouce in a moment of candour expressed his regret to his flock that no sacred man among them had yet been called upon to lay down iiis life for his religion, alleging that the presence in their midst of the tomb of so holy a man would be of the highest value, both from a spiritual aud a practical point of view, spiritually because the Prophet would regard then' all henceforth with greater favour, practically because devout pilgrims attracted to the shrine would enrich the whole tribe by their gifts. The Kambers took counsel together, laid hold of the mooliah and slew him ; and then, having erected a suitable shrine over his corpse, felt that they had done all that was in their power to remove a reproach which reflected upon the whole tribe.