regiments to enter upon a war with so much smaller a proportion of
British officers than is considered necessary for European regiments.
I have no doubt whatever of the fighting powers of our best Indian
troops; I have a thorough belief in, and admiration for, Gurkhas,
Sikhs, Dogras, Rajputs, Jats, and selected Mahomedans; I thoroughly
appreciate their soldierly qualities; brigaded with British troops, I
would be proud to lead them against any European enemy; but we cannot
expect them to do with less leading than our own soldiers require, and
it is, I maintain, trying them too highly to send them into action
with the present establishment of British officers.[6]

In the late autumn of 1891 our latest acquisition, the Zhob Valley,
was included in my frontier tour, which I had the pleasure of
making, for the greater part of the way, in the company of General
Brackenbury. He was prevented from getting as far as Quetta by an
accident which laid him up for some time, but not, as he told me,
before he had seen enough of the frontier to satisfy him that the
tribes were a factor in our system of defence which could not be
ignored, and that I had not exaggerated the importance of having them
on our side.

During this winter the brilliant little Hunza-Naga campaign took
place, which has been so graphically described in Mr. Knight's 'Where
Three Empires Meet.' It was brought about by Russia's intrigues with
the Rulers of the petty States on the northern boundary of Kashmir;
and our attention was first roused to the necessity for action by two
British officers, who were journeying to India by way of the Pamirs
and Gilgit, being forced by Russian soldiers to leave what the leader
of the party called 'newly-acquired Russian territory '[7]--territory
to which Russia had not the shadow of a claim.

In addition to this unjustifiable treatment of Captain Younghusband
and Lieutenant Davison, Colonel Yanoff crossed the Hindu Kush with his
Cossacks by the Korabhut Pass, and, after reconnoitring the country on
the borders of Kashmir, re-crossed the range by the Baroghil Pass.
As this was a distinct breach of the promises made by the Russian
Government, and an infringement of the boundary line as agreed to
between England and Russia in 1873, it was necessary to take steps to
prevent any recurrence of such interference, and a small force was
accordingly sent against the Chief of Hunza, who had openly declared
himself in favour of Russia. H