desperadoes,
and conceal them on occasion, they are liable to be themselves the
victims. Thus it happens that in nearly every frontier expedition
there are some sections of the tribe which desire to be on good terms
with the British, and are known as "friendlies." It is difficult
for a military commander who has not previously known the people
to appreciate this, and when he finds his camp being sniped from a
supposed "friendly" village, he not unnaturally doubts the sincerity
of the people. As likely as not, however, the recalcitrant sections of
the tribe have been at pains to snipe from such points as to implicate
the friendly sections and force them into joining the standard of
war. On one occasion the exasperated General refused to believe the
representations of the Political Officer that the villages from the
neighbourhood of which the sniping came were friendly until he left
the camp and went over to live in the (supposed) enemies' village
himself! The well-disposed clans would welcome an administration of
the country by which these lawless spirits could be kept in check.

Then, there are certain semi-independent States, such as Chitral and
Dir, where there are rulers of sufficient paramount power to govern
their own country and to render it possible for the British to maintain
that amount of control of their external relations which is considered
desirable, by means of a Political Agent attached to the court of the
chief, while still leaving the latter free to manage his own internal
affairs in accordance with the customs of his tribe and the degree
of his own supremacy over the often conflicting units composing it.

Thirdly, there are what are known as "administered areas," such as the
Upper Kurram Valley, above mentioned. These are inhabited by tribes
over whom no one chief has been able to gain paramount authority for
himself, where, as is so often the case among Afghans, the tribe is
eaten up by a number of rival factions, none of which are willing
to acknowledge the rule of a man from a faction not their own. The
Government official, therefore, is unable to treat with one ruler,
but has to hear all the members of the contending factions. So great
is the democratic spirit that any petty landowner thinks he has as
much right to push his views of public policy as the representative
of an hereditary line of chiefs. This naturally greatly complicates
official relations, and the Political Officer, however much he