No other mountain-pass in the world has had and retains such strategic importance and holds so many historic associations as this Khyber gateway to the Indian plain. In the thirty-three miles of its length it cuts through cliffs of shale and limestone rock, and from an elevation of sixteen hundred and seventy feet above the sea at Jamrud it rises to thirty-three hundred and seventy-three feet at Lundi Kotal, beyond Lundi Khana, and is never closed by snow in winter. One does not see snow-fields nor glaciers, nor the wild, stupendous scenery that such a pass in such a mountain-range should have. The winter is the season of greatest caravan trade and travel, since the original, woolly, two-humped Bactrian camel, native of the Pamirs, does not endure hot weather well, and, as in North China, can only travel at night in midsummer, while he performs his longest journeys in winter.
This mountainous borderland between India and Afghanistan is occupied by the independent tribes, who yield allegiance to neither emperor nor amir, who never have been nor will be brought thoroughly under subjection. Numbering over two hundred and fifty thousand, all Mohammedans, easily inflamed through religious fanaticism, and ready to respond to any jehad, or holy war, these independent border tribes are to be counted with on every occasion. The twenty thousand Afridis living in the immediate Peshawar frontier are the most turbulent, fanatical, irresponsible tribe of all, ever ripe for revolt, always scheming and conspiring, ready to attack the power that supports them with sub-
