Khyber Pass

“ Mr Agha Khan had undertaken to send me early on a certain morning a "suitable" vehicle in which to drive to the Khyber Pass. It proved to be a heavy old phaeton with a pair of big lumpy horses and a driver named Junno Kuchwan. It was not possible to get any other conveyance without some hours' delay, and as the "fitten" as he called it was already behind time (it was 7.15 a.m.) , I started in it for Jamroud and the famous Pass. ”

“ It will thus be seen that both their good and their bad qualities render them particularly dangerous as foes. The character of their country is very much like their own. It is a land of rocky mountain passes, and a great part of it is savage and sterile. It is separated from India by narrow rocky defiles, the principal one of which, the Khyber pass, is twenty-eight miles long, and runs between lofty, almost perpendicular precipices; the pass itself is so covered with rocks and boulders that progress along it, even under the most favourable circumstances, must necessarily be very slow. ”

“ King saluted and stood watching while the general hurried to the waiting motor-car. When the car whirled away in a din of dust he returned leisurely to the train that had been shortened to three coaches. Then he gave the signal to start up the spur-track, that leads to Jamrud, where a fort cowers in the very throat of the dreadfulest gorge in Asia--the Khyber Pass.
It was not a long journey, nor a very slow one, for there was nothing to block the way except occasional men with flags, who guarded culverts and little bridges. ”

“ The last day’s journey is from Lundi Kotal through the Khyber Pass, and past Jumrood, the fort which guards the mouth of the Khyber on the Indian side, and on into Peshawar, where one enters once more into civilization.
From Jelalabad to the Khyber mountains the country is a comparatively flat one, and for the greater part of the journey the route follows the course of the Kabul river, which is here broad and shallow, though the current is swift, on account of the considerable fall in level between Jelalabad and Peshawar. ”

“ 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. ”

“ He laughed again and sprang on the black mare, and before King could speak or raise a hand to stop him he was off, hell-bent-for-leather along the precipice in the direction of the Khyber Pass and India. Two of the men who had come out of Khinjan mounted and spurred after him.
King collected his men and the women and children. It was easy, for they were numb from what they had witnessed and dazed by fear. In half an hour he had them mustered and marching.
“Let us go back and loot the mullah's camp and take the women!” urged a dozen men at least. ”

“ The Guides were daily expecting orders to advance into the Khyber Pass at the head of an army, and would thus at the very outset be fighting against some of the men's own relations and friends. Amongst these men was a young Afridi soldier, who was sore puzzled what to do. His own village lay right in the path of the army, and only a few miles distant; his relations and friends came daily to visit him, urging him to take his discharge and return to his own people before the war began. ”

“ The streams from Rajgal and Maidan unite and form the Bara River, flowing down the valley of the same name to the Kajurai Plain, shortly before entering which the Bara is joined by the Mastura River.
The Clans The Kuki Khel number some 5600 fighting men, and occupy the Rajgal valley and the eastern end of the Khyber Pass, as far as the Rohtas Hill, which overhangs the fort at Ali Musjid, and also the Bezai Spur—a long underfeature which flanks, but at a considerable distance, the latter part of the railway and road from Peshawar to Fort Jumrud. ”

“ The Kabul River breaks through this northern spur of the Safed Koh; and in breaking through it is forced to the northward in a curved channel or trough, deeply sunk in the mountains between terrific cliffs and precipices, where its narrow waterway affords no foothold to man or beast for many miles. To reach the Kabul River within Afghan territory it is necessary to pass over this water-divide; and the Khyber stream, flowing down from the pass at Landi Kotal to a point in the plains opposite Jamrud, 9 m. W. of Peshawar, affords the opportunity. ”

“ They reached the Khyber famished and were fed at Ali Masjid Fort, after King had given a certain password and had whispered to the officer commanding. But he did not change into European clothes yet, and none of his following suspected him of being an Englishman.
"A Rangar on a black mare has gone down the pass ahead of you in a hurry," they told him at Ali Masjid. "He had two men with him and food enough. ”

“ For the Khyber has been evacuated chiefly because of its unhealthiness in the summer, and on account of its proximity to our frontier it could with ease be reoccupied. While the Kuram has also several disadvantages as follows: many parts of it which would have to be occupied are unhealthy; there is no prospect of a railway to it for some time; the Shuturgarden is closed for three months in the winter, so that an advance at that time is almost impossible, and the distance to Cabul from Pawil Pindi is longer by this route than it is by the Khyber. ”

“ Once more our troops would have to toil along the stony and boulder-strewn banks of the gloomy Khyber, up and down the awful chasms of the Lundi Khana Kotal, by the mountain clefts and deep defiles of Khoord Cabul, with every prospect of being harassed, perhaps decimated, by thousands of hardy hillmen—the Khyberees, Afreedees, Shinwarris, Mohmonds, Mongols, and Ghilzies. ”

“ In these vast solitudes, where nothing seems to indicate the route, where the wind covers up all traces of the track with sand, the khebir has a thousand ways of directing himself in the right course. In the night, when there are no stars in sight, by the simple inspection of a handful of grass, which he examines with his fingers, which he smells and tastes, he informs himself of his locale without ever being lost or wandering. ”

“ This is one of the three principal passages by which the mountains can be crossed with animals from Kerman towards the east (north of the latitude of Kerman 30° 17′ 30′′) . The other two passages are: one to Khabis over a pass (north-east of Kerman) in the Husseinabad Mountains; the second between the Derun Mountain and the Leker Kuh from Abid, also to Khabis. From the latter place it is also possible to cross the Desert to Birjiand, but the lack of water even at the best of times makes it a very dangerous track to follow both for men and animals. ”

“ General E. Dumas, in his treatise upon the "Great Desert," published in Paris, 1856, in speaking of these guides, says:
"The khebir is always a man of intelligence, of tried probity, bravery, and skill. He knows how to determine his position from the appearance of the stars; by the experience of other journeys he has learned all about the roads, wells, and pastures; the dangers of certain passes, and the means of avoiding them; all the chiefs whose territories it is necessary to pass through; the salubrity of the different localities; the remedies against diseases ”

“ Meanwhile my job is to help make the holy war seem unprofitable to the tribes, so that they'll let the Turk down hard when he calls on 'em. Every day that I can point to forts held strongly in the Khyber is a day in my favor. ”

“ In 1878 some of the clans took sides with us, and some with the Amir, necessitating a couple of expeditions into the Bazar Valley,” and during the two phases of the campaign not less than 15,000 fighting men were required to keep open our communications with India by the Khyber route, despite the arrangement which had been come to with the clans bordering on the Khyber, and which will now be described. ”

“ The fortress of Ali-Musjid lies some five miles within the entrance of the Khybur Pass, and about twenty-five from Peshawur. It consists of two small forts, connected by a wall of little strength, and stands upon the summit of an isolated oblong rock, commanded on the southern and western sides by two lofty hills. It has always been regarded as the key to the Khybur Pass; and now that it was [37] lying between the two positions of Sale and Wild, it was of immense importance that it should be held by British troops or their allies. ”

“ The arrficers the sirkar sent us are men of faith who have made no trouble with our women. What, then, should the Khyber jezailchis do? For a little while there will be fighting--or, if we be very brave and our arrficers skillful, and Allah would fain see sport, then for a longer while. Then we shall be overridden. Then the Khyber will be a roaring river of men pouring into India, as my father's father told me it has often been! India shall bleed in these days--but there will be fighting in the Khyber first!”
“And what of her? Of Yasmini?” King asked. ”

“ The British Government will retain in its own hands the control of the Khyber and Michni Passes, which lie between the Peshawar and Jelalabad districts, and of all relations with the independent tribes of the territory directly connected with these passes. ”

“ The following morning we entered the Ecca Pass, the terror of waggon-drivers and "post-riders," and notorious as the scene of many fatal ambuscades. The road winds along a deep narrow valley between high hills covered with dense thorny bush, and has a high wall of rock on the one hand, on the other a precipitous ravine, with admirable cover for Kaffirs everywhere, and is, perhaps, one of the most villanous specimens of a high road in the known world, abounding throughout its entire length with rocks of all sizes, from that of a "company's arm-chest" downwards ”

“ Many of you can hardly march. Rest ye here and let the hakim treat your belly aches. Bull-with-a-beard bade me wait here for a letter that must go to Khinjan to-day. Good. I will take his letter. And in Khinjan I will spread news about pardons. It is likely there are fifty there who will dare follow me back, and then we shall march down the Khyber like a full company of the old days! ”

“ She shook her head. "The gods!" she said. "The gods can blindfold governments and whole peoples as easily as they can make us see!"
"It was the fact that they knew what provisions and what oil and what necessities of life went up the Khyber and came down it. ”

“ And as they neared Jamrud Fort the men who sought pardons began to grow sheepish. They began to remember that the hakim might after all be a trickster, and to realize how much too friendly--how almost intimate he had been with the sahibs at Ali Masjid. They began to cluster round him instead of letting him lead, and by the time they met the farthest outposts up the Khyber they were as nervous as raw recruits and ready to turn and bolt at a word--for no one can be more timid than your Hillman when he is not sure of himself, just as no one can be braver when he knows his ground. ”

“ The Khyber, fouled by memory, looks like the very birthplace of the ghosts when the moon is fitful and a mist begins to flow.
"Cheloh!" King called merrily enough; but his horse shied at nothing, because horses have an uncanny way of knowing how their riders really feel. They led mules and the spare horse, instead of dragging at their bridles, pressed forward to have their heads among the men, and every once and again there would sound the dull thump of a fist on a beast's nose—such being the attitude of men toward the lesser beasts. ”

“ A man with a blood-feud, and his foe hard after him, may sleep in safety at a faquir's grave. His foe will wait within range, but he will not draw trigger until the grave is left behind.
So a man may rest in temporary peace even on the road to Khinjan, although Khinjan and peace have nothing whatever in common.
It was at such a shrine, surrounded by tattered rags tied to sticks, that fluttered in the wind three or four thousand feet above Khyber level, that King drew Ismail into conversation, and deftly forced on him the role of questioner. ”

“ As long as she is on our side you will be pretty safe in trusting Rewa Gunga. And she has got to be on our side. Got to be! She's the only key we've got to Khinjan, and hell is brewing there this minute! She dare unlock the gates and ride the devil down the Khyber if she thought it worth her while! You're to go up the Khyber after her to convince her that there are better mounts than the devil and better fun than playing with hell-fire! The Rangar told me he had given you her passport--that right?”
As they turned at the end of the platform King bared his wrist and showed the gold bracelet. ”

“ He expressed a doubt, too, whether, with the “force that we can employ, the pass (Khybur) can be so occupied as to secure through it a safe passage of detachments and convoys. A descent through the Jugdulluck passes to Caubul is beyond our present power. It would require vast exertions and months of preparation, and in the end would be an enterprise of no light danger. ”

“ Their neighbours on the west are the Shilmanis, on the north the Tarakzai Mohmands, and on the south the Kuki Khel Afridis, with whom, as well as with other Afridis, they are at feud. They have other settlements at Sapri in the Mohmand Hills, in the Sisobi 225Glen, on the western slopes of the Pandperi Range, and along the banks of the Kunar River. Those of the clan who are settled about the Khyber go in the summer to Kambela, which lies below Mutlani Sar to the west. The Khyber Mullagoris are very united, have a good reputation for courage, and enlist freely in the Khyber Rifles. ”

“ I thought, as, accompanied by jamadars and chaprassis of the Kashmir state and some of my men, I turned the rocky corner into the side valley through which the road runs up past the monasteries Karu 64 and Chimre to the Chang-la Pass. The road now becomes worse; every day’s journey it deteriorates, sometimes changing into an almost imperceptible footpath, and at last it disappears altogether. The great road to Lhasa along the Indus and to Gartok was closed to us. ”