is a market house of the 16th century. A considerable agricultural trade is carried on, and cattle-shows and fairs are held. The river Ant provides a route southward to the Norfolk Broads. The coast village of Mundesley, 5 m. N.E. by a branch railway, is in favour as a watering-place, having fine sands beneath the cliffs. In the district between this and North Walsham are Paston, taking name from the family which is famous through the Paston Letters (q.v.), and the fragments of Bromholm Priory, a Cluniac foundation. These are of various dates from Norman onwards, but are incorporated with farm buildings. The rood of Bromholm was a reputed fragment of the Cross which attracted many pilgrims. To the south of North Walsham is North Walsham Heath, whither in June 1381 a body of insurgents in connexion with the Peasants’ Revolt were driven from before Norwich by Henry le Despenser, bishop of Norwich, and defeated; after which their leader, Geoffrey Lister, and others were sent to the scaffold.
NORTH-WEST FRONTIER PROVINCE, the most northerly province of British India, created on the 25th of October 1901. Roughly it may be defined as the tract of country N. of Baluchistan, lying between the Indus and Afghanistan. More exactly it consists of (1) the cis-Indus district of Hazara; (2) the comparatively narrow strip between the Indus and the hills constituting the settled districts of Peshawar, Kohat, Bannu and Dera Ismail Khan; and (3) the rugged mountainous region between these districts and the borders of Afghanistan, which is inhabited by independent tribes. This last region is divided into five agencies: Dir, Swat and Chitral, with headquarters at Malakand; Khyber, Kurram, Tochi and Wana. The province lies between 31° 4′ and 36° 57′ N., and 69° 16′ and 74° 7′ E. The approximate area is 38,665 sq. m., of which 13,193 sq. m. are British territory and the remainder is held by tribes under the political control of the Agent to the Governor-General. On the N. it abuts on the Hindu Kush. To the S. it is bounded by Baluchistan and Dera Ghazi Khan district of the Punjab, on the E. by Kashmir and the Punjab, and on the W. by Afghanistan.
1. Hazara District.—The district of Hazara extends north-eastwards into the outer Himalayan Range, tapering to a narrow point at the head of the Kagan valley. The mountain chains which enclose Kagan sweep southward into the broader portion of the district, throwing off well-wooded spurs which break up the country into numerous isolated glens. Approaching Rawalpindi district the hills open out, and rich plain lands take the place of the terraced hillsides and forests of the more northern uplands. The Babusar Pass at the head of the Kagan valley marks the most direct approach to Chilas and Gilgit from the plains of India. (See Hazara).
2. The Settled Districts.—The tract between the Indus and the hills consists of four open districts, Peshawar, Kohat, Bannu and Dera Ismail Khan, divided one from the other by low hills. The vale of Peshawar is for the most part highly irrigated and well wooded, presenting in the spring and autumn a picture of waving cornfields and smiling orchards framed by rugged hills. It has, however, an evil name for malarial fever. Adjoining Peshawar, and separated from it by the Jowaki hills, lies the district of Kohat, a generally hilly tract intersected by narrow valleys. The largest of these traverses the district from Kushalgarh on the Indus to Thal on the Kurram, narrowing in places, but usually opening out into wide cornlands and pastures dotted with the dwarf palm. This district affords striking contrasts of scenery, from the sheltered fields of Miranzai to the barren desolation of the salt mines. The southern spurs of the Kohat hills gradually subside into the Bannu plain. Where irrigated from the Kurram river, especially round Bannu itself, this tract is well cultivated and forms a great contrast to the harsh desolation of the Kohat hills. But beyond the sphere of irrigation, where the land is dependent on the rainfall, there is much rough stony ground broken by great fissures cut by flood-water from the border hills. To the east this gives way to the broad level plain of Marwat, which in favourable years presents a uniform expanse of rich cultivation extending from Lakki to the base of the Shekh Budin hills. These hills consist of a broken range of sandstone and conglomerate dividing the Bannu plain from the cultivated flats of Dera Ismail Khan.
3. The Country of the Independent Tribes.—Turning to the mountainous region between the settled districts and Afghanistan, to the extreme north lies the agency of Dir, Swat and Chitral. Chitral itself consists of a narrow valley enclosed between rugged mountains. Below Chitral are found the thickly timbered forests of Dir and Bajour, and the fertile valleys of the Panjkora and Swat rivers. Between this agency and the Khyber Pass lie the Mohmand hills, a rough country with but little cultivation, under the political control of Peshawar. West and south-west of the Khyber again is the country of the Afridis and the Orakzais. The boundary of the province here follows the line of the Safed Koh, which overlooks the Afridi Tirah and the upper Kurram valley. Dotted with towered hamlets and stately chinar groves the valley of the Kurram runs south-east from the Peiwar Kotal (below the great peak of Sikaram), past Thal in the Miranzai valley, through the southern Kohat hills to Bannu. South of the Kurram is the Tochi valley, separating it from Waziristan, an isolated mountainous district bounded on the south by the Gomal and the gorges that lead to the Wana plain. The lower ridges of the frontier mountain system are usually bare and treeless, but here and there, as in the Kaitu valley, in northern Waziristan and round Kaniguram in the south, are forest clad and enclose narrow but fertile and well-irrigated dales. In places, too, as, for instance, round Shawal, the summer grazing ground of the Darwesh Khel Waziris, and on the slopes of Pir Ghol, there is good pasturage and a fair sprinkling of deodars. The valleys of the Tochi and Wana are both fertile, but are very different in character. The former is a long narrow valley, with a rich fringe of cultivation bordering the river; the latter is a wide open alluvial plain, cultivated only on one-side, and for the rest rough stony waste. South of the Gomal the Suliman Range culminates in the famous Takht-i-Suliman in the Largha Sherani country, a political dependency of Dera Ismail Khan district. The Kaisargarh peak of the Takht-i-Suliman is 11,300 ft. above sea-level.
Mountain Systems.—The mountains of the Hindu Kush running from east to west form the northern boundary of the province, and are met at the north-east corner of the Chitral agency by the continuation of an outer chain of the Himalayas after it crosses the Indus above the Kagan valley. From this chain minor ranges run in a south-westerly direction the whole length of Bajour and Swat, till they merge into the Mohmand hills and connect the mid-Himalayas with the Safed Koh. The range of the Safed Koh flanks the Kurram valley and encloses the Kabul basin, which finds its outlet to the Indus through the Mohmand hills. The Suliman system lies south of the Gomal unconnected with the northern hills. To the east the Safed Koh extends its spurs into the Kohat district. The Salt Range crosses the Indus in the Mianwali tahsil of the Punjab, and forms the boundary between Bannu and Dera Ismail Khan, merging eventually in the Waziri hills. The chief peaks in the province are Kaisargarh (11,300 ft.) and Pir Ghol (11,580 ft.) in Waziristan; Shekh Budin (4516 ft.), in the small range; Sikaram (15,621 ft.) in the Safed Koh; Istragh (18,900 ft.), Kachin (22,641 ft.) and Tirach Mir (25,426 ft.), in the Hindu Kush on the northern border of the Chitral agency; while the Kagan peaks in Hazara district run from 10,000 ft. to 16,700 ft.
Rivers.—With the exception of the Kunhar river, which flows down the Kagan valley to the Jhelum, the whole drainage of the province eventually finds its way into the Indus. The Indus enters the province between tribal territory and Hazara district. After leaving Hazara it flows in a southerly direction between the Punjab and the North-West Frontier Province, till it enters Mianwali district of the Punjab, from which it emerges to form again the eastern boundary of the province. From the east it is fed by three or four rivers of Hazara district (see Indus). At Attock the Kabul river brings down to the Indus the whole drainage of Kafiristan, Chitral, Panjkora, Swat and Peshawar district (see Kabul River). The Kurram river rises in the southern slopes of the Safed Koh, and after leaving the Kurram valley passes through the Kohat hills and enters Bannu district. Three miles below Lakki it is joined by the Tochi or Gambela, which carries the drainage of North Waziristan. The Kurram then empties itself into the Indus. From this point until it leaves the province the Indus receives no tributary of any importance. The Gomal river drains a large area of central Afghanistan and forms the most important povindah (or Kafila) route on the frontier.
The Pathan Races.—The North-West Frontier Province as now constituted may be described as the country of the Pathans (q.v.). The true Pathan is possibly of Indian extraction. But around this nucleus have collected many tribes of foreign origin. The whole have now become blended by the adoption of a common language, but remain tribally distinct; all alike have accepted Islam, and have invented traditions of common descent which express their present association. For centuries these tribes maintained their independence in the rugged hills which flank the present kingdom of Afghanistan. In the 15th century they began to settle in the plains. The 16th century saw the Pathan tribes established in their present homes. The spirit of independence which always characterized them soon brought them into collision with the Mogul empire. In the 17th century, after a long struggle, the settlers in the plains wrested from Aurangzeb terms which left them almost as independent as their brothers in the hills. The invasion in 1738 of Nadir Shah, who traversed the province from Peshawar to Dera Ismail Khan.
