ing through what is known as an "administrative
area." Here was a fort, occupied by troops of the Indian Army, under
command of a British officer.

Thirty-four miles still remained in a direct line between us and
our destination in Bannu, and before accomplishing this special
arrangements had to be made with the tribes occupying it for our
escort; for this tongue of country running up between Thal and
Bannu was not British India, nor even an administrative area,
but independent, and owned by the marauding Wazir tribe, who owed
allegiance to neither Amir nor Viceroy. A couple of ruffianly-looking
Wazirs arrived to escort us down. Their rifles were slung over their
shoulders, and well-filled cartridge belts strapped round their waists;
a couple of Afghan daggers were ensconced in the folds of the dirty
red pagaris which they had bound round their bodies, and they carried
their curved Afghan swords in their hands. We had now left the fertile
valley of Upper Kurram behind us, and wandered through a succession of
rocky mountain defiles, over precipitous spurs, and along the stony
bed of the river for more than thirty miles. The lower mountain
ranges separating Afghanistan from India form by their intricacy
and precipitate nature a succession of veritable chevaux de frise,
which by their natural difficulties maintain the parda or privacy of
the wild tribes inhabiting them, who value the independence of their
mountain fastnesses more than life itself. Here and there is a patch of
arable land in a bend of the Kurram River, overlooked by the walled and
towered village of its possessors, who have won it by force of arms,
and only keep it by their armed vigils, even the men who are ploughing
behind their oxen having their rifles hung over their shoulders,
and keeping their eyes open for a possible enemy. In some places a
channel from the river has been carried with infinite labour on to a
flat piece of ground among the mountains, where a scanty harvest is
reaped. For the rest the hill seems to be almost devoid of animal or
vegetable life. A few partridges starting up with a shrill cry from a
tuft of dry grass in front of one are occasionally seen, and stunted
trees of ber and acacia supply a certain amount of firewood, which
some of the Wazirs gather and take down to the Friday Fair in Bannu.

The Afghans will tell you that when God created the world there were
a lot of stones and rocks and other lumber left over, which were
all