The Afridis are a large tribe, inhabiting the lower and easternmost spurs of the Safed Koh Range, to the west and south of the Peshawar district, including the Bazar and Bara Valleys. On the east they are bounded by British territory; on their north they have the Mohmands; west, the Shinwaris; and south, the Orakzais and Bangash.

Their origin is very obscure; Bellew identifies them with one of the peoples referred to by Herodotus; their traditions, however, says James, would lead us to believe that, in common with other Pathan tribes, they are the descendants of Khalid-ibn-Walid, a Jew, who embraced Islamism, and whose descendants had possession of great tracts in the western portion of Afghanistan during the tenth century. At this time, upon the convulsions in the country owing to the advance of Mahmud of Ghazni, a chief named Afrid was obliged, owing to his enormities and feuds, to fly from his country and seek refuge with a kindred spirit, by name Wazir, in the wilds of Shir-i-Talla. Here he seems to have settled and to have remained with his family for a considerable time. Turner gives something of the same story, viz. that Afrid, an individual of unknown country and parentage, came to Ghor, and there had an intrigue with a woman of the Karerai tribe, the eventual result of which was the tribe of Afridis. Cavagnari says of their origin that they are supposed to have been descended from a woman named Maimana, who had two sons, Afrid and Adam. But it is probably sufficient to surmise that they are a tribe of Pactiyan stock, who have been established in their present country for many centuries—far longer than the majority of Pathan tribes—and that living as they do on the high road from Central Asia to India, it is likely that they have a large admixture of Turkish and Scythian blood.

The Afridi country being bleak and sterile, and the rainfall but small, agriculture is only scantily pursued, although they raise a coarse kind of rice in the Bara Valley, a considerable amount of which finds its way to the Peshawar market. Some of the tribe also gain a precarious living by cutting and selling timber for firewood, but many of the clans possess great stock in cattle, cows, sheep and goats, and go in for breeding mules and donkeys, which are much thought of locally. Their chief manufactures are coarse mats and cloth, while in Maidan, at Ilmgudar near Fort Bara, and in the Kohat Pass there are factories which annually turn out a certain number of rifles.

The Afridi in appearance is generally a fine, tall, athletic highlander, whose springy step at once denotes his mountain origin. They are lean but muscular men, with long, gaunt faces, high noses and cheekbones, and rather fair complexions. Brave and hardy, they make good soldiers, but are apt to be somewhat homesick in the hot weather, and they have gained a greater reputation for fidelity as soldiers than in any other way. The Afridi has uniformly shown himself ready to enlist in our army, and at the present moment there are probably 4000 of this tribe serving in the ranks of the Indian army or in the Khyber Rifles. But since the Pathan is notoriously restless and dislikes expatriation, the average length of service is shorter than in the case of our other Indian soldiers; the result being that a greater number of trained soldiers from Pathan squadrons and companies annually pass back to their homes, than is the case with a proportionately larger establishment of any other race. While, therefore, their loyalty, while actually in our service and even during frontier expeditions against their own kinsmen, has been all that could be wished, it is not perhaps saying much—considering their normal family relations—that they should cheerfully fight for us against them. But, on the other hand, it can hardly be expected that men who have become again merged in their tribe, and who, according to their own ideas, are no longer bound to us by any obligation, should maintain an attitude of complete aloofness from any tribal movement prompted by racial feeling, or by that fanaticism which, on the border, has been defined as “a sentiment of religious intolerance excited into reckless action.” During the Tirah Campaign the number of pensioners and reservists who fought against our troops is believed to have been very large. As long ago as 1884 it was stated of the Afridis that “almost every fighting man possesses a gun or pistol, besides other arms; many of the firearms are rifled, and some have percussion locks.” To-day the armament of these tribesmen is far more complete and up-to-date,^[102] and there can be no doubt that the fighting powers of the Afridis have increased during recent years to a very formidable extent. At the same time our powers of effectively dealing with them have increased in a still greater ratio. Our soldiers are more suitably trained for the particular warfare waged in these border hills; they are infinitely better armed; the services of transport and supply are more efficiently organised; the country of the independent tribesmen is more thoroughly known; the moral effect of uniformly successful expeditions—are all factors which more than counterbalance any accession of strength which the last twenty-five years have brought to the Afridis.

As to the measures to be taken effectually to coerce them, Oliver, writing twenty-two years ago, said that “strong as are the natural positions they hold among the spurs and defiles of the Safed Koh and the bare, rugged, inhospitable ranges of the Khyber; difficult of approach the passes which might have to be forced, and unanimous as the clans may be to defend them at the signal of a common danger, the people are so dependent on the plains, their position—secure though it may sound—is really their weakest point, and makes it easy to shut them up in their own hills. Peshawar, the great field for their plundering operations, is also the market for their produce and the source of supply for their many domestic wants. Exclusion from Peshawar is to many clans a severe form of punishment; and an effectual blockade that will cut them off from the outer world, would probably bring them to terms sooner than an expedition.” But Holdich again reminds us that “across those wild break-neck passes over the Safed Koh into Ningrahar... the hard-pressed Afridi can constantly find refuge for his family, and sanctuary for himself, amongst the Durani tribes who dwell on the northern slopes of the Safed Koh.” That there is always that back door, “the keys of which are in their own pockets,” and that “at the worst they could shift across the hills into Afghanistan, and there was the prospect... that something more than mere shelter would be accorded by the ruler of Kabul.”

Of the moral attributes of the Afridis few people have found much to say in praise. Mackeson wrote of them: “The Afridis are a most avaricious race, desperately fond of money. Their fidelity is measured by the length of the purse of the seducer, and they transfer their obedience and support from one party to another of their own clansmen, according to the comparative liberality of the donation.” Elphinstone, generally ready enough to record anything good of Afghans, said of the Afridis: “On the whole they are the greatest robbers among the Afghans, and, I imagine, have no faith or sense of honour; for I never heard of anybody hiring an escort of Khaiberis to secure his passage through their country—a step which always ensures a traveller’s safety in the lands of any other tribe.” MacGregor considers this estimate harsh, but that furnished by the same authority is hardly more flattering: “A ruthless, cowardly robber—a cold-blooded treacherous murderer; brought up from his earliest childhood amid scenes of appalling treachery and merciless revenge, nothing has changed him; as he has lived—a shameless, cruel savage—so he dies. And it would seem that, notwithstanding his long intercourse with us, and the fact that large numbers have been and are in our service, and must have learnt in some way what faith, justice and mercy mean, yet the Afridi is no better than in the days of his father.” Against these adverse testimonies, however, there is the opinion of Sir Robert Warburton, who spent eighteen years in their midst and who wrote of them: “The Afridi lad from his earliest childhood is taught by the circumstances of his existence and life to distrust all mankind, and very often his near relations, heirs to his small plot of land by inheritance, are his deadliest enemies. Distrust of all mankind, and readiness to strike the first blow for the safety of his own life, have therefore become the maxims of the Afridi. If you can overcome this mistrust, and be kind in words to him, he will repay you by great devotion, and he will put up with any punishment you like to give him except abuse. It took me years to get through this thick crust of mistrust, but what was the after-result? For upwards of fifteen years I went about unarmed amongst these people. My camp, wherever it happened to be pitched, was always guarded and protected by them. The deadliest enemies of the Khyber range, with a long record of blood-feuds, dropped those feuds for the time being when in my camp. Property was always safe.... Time after time have the Afridi elders and jirgahs supported me even against their own Maliks.”

Notwithstanding all that has been said against the Afridi he is, on the whole, one of the finest of the Pathan races on our border. His appearance is greatly in his favour, and he is really braver, more open, and not more treacherous than many other Pathans. This much is certain, that he has the power of prejudicing Englishmen in his favour, and there are few brought into contact with him who do not at least begin with an enthusiastic admiration for his manliness. Again, with a tight hand over him, many of his faults remain dormant, and he soon develops into a valuable soldier.

Though eternally at feud among themselves, they seldom quarrel with neighbouring tribes; that is, the Afridis do not care to waste their energies in fighting with their neighbours, but reserve the luxury for home consumption—a feud to an Afridi is the salt of life, the one pleasure that makes existence tolerable. On occasion, in the face of common danger, they are capable of concerted action, as was shown in the Tirah Campaign of 1897, but even then one clan held entirely aloof. Though nominally under the control of their Maliks, the Afridis have very little respect for their authority and are thoroughly democratic. They are all of the Sunni persuasion of the Muhammadan faith.

The following are the eight clans into which the Afridi tribe is divided, and of these the first six are known collectively as the “Khyber Afridis”:

1.

Kuki Khel.

2.

Malikdin Khel.

3.

Kambar Khel.

4.

Kamrai or Kamar Khel.

5.

Zakha Khel.

6.

Sipah.

7.

Aka Khel.

8.

Adam Khel.

The Aka Khels have no connection with the Khyber and are located to the south of the Bara River. The Adam Khels inhabit the hills between the districts of Kohat and Peshawar, and cannot be regarded, except ethnologically, as a part of the Afridi tribe; for whether they are viewed with reference to their position, their interests or their habits, they are a distinct community.

The area of the country inhabited by the Afridis is about nine hundred square miles. The principal streams draining their hills are the northern branch of the Bara River, or Bara proper, the Bazar or Chora River, and the Khyber stream, all flowing into the Peshawar Valley. The valleys lying near the sources of the Bara River are included in the general name of Tirah, which comprises an area of 600 to 700 square miles. The greater part of Tirah is inhabited by different clans of the Orakzai tribe, but the valleys known as Rajgal and Maidan are occupied by the Afridis. The Rajgal Valley is drained by one main stream, into which fall some lesser streams from the surrounding hills. Its length is about ten miles, and the breadth of the open country about four to five miles. The elevation is over 5000. Maidan lies to the south of Rajgal, and is a circular valley about ten miles across, watered by several large watercourses. 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 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. This clan has a bitter feud with the Zakha Khel, and is Gar in politics.

The Malikdin Khel is the Khan Khel or head clan of the Afridis, and is closely connected with the Kambar Khel, their settlements in Maidan, Chora and Kajurai lying together. In Maidan they occupy the central and northern portion of the valley—Bagh, the recognised meeting place of the Afridi Jirgahs, “where the Khyber raid and Afridi rebellion of 1897–98 were planned, and where fanaticism, intrigue and sedition have always been hot-bedded and nourished,” being in their country. The Malikdin Khels number some 6000 fighting men, and are Samil in politics.

The Kambar Khel is numerically the most powerful of all the Afridi clans, being able on emergency to put 10,000 armed men in the field; they belong to the Gar political faction. This clan is very migratory, occupying in the hot weather the Kahu Darra and the valley of the Shalobar River, which joins the Bara River at Dwatoi, and moving in the winter to the Kajurai Plain and to other minor settlements. This clan is very strongly represented in the Indian Army and Border Militia.

The Kamrai or Kumar Khel form but a small clan, Samil in politics, having its settlements in the extreme west of the Bara Valley, and also moving down to the Kajurai Valley to the west of Peshawar in the winter months. Their fighting men number no more than about 800.

The Zakha Khel owe their undoubted importance to their geographical position in Afridi-land, rather than to the number of armed men they can turn out—probably not less than 6000. Their holdings stretch diagonally across the Afridi country from the south-east corner of Maidan to the Khyber Pass; they are the wildest and most turbulent amongst their tribe, and their land being unproductive they depend a good deal upon raiding and blackmail for their livelihood, are “the wolves of the community,” and since—at any rate up to recent times—“they lent no soldiers to the ranks of the British army and had no pensions to lose,” the Zakha Khels have always been more ready to give trouble than the rest of their fellow-tribesmen. They hold, moreover, some five miles of the country lying on either side of the road in what Warburton calls “the real Khyber proper,” from the Shrine of Gurgurra (the sloe-tree)—where a small post is held by the Khyber Rifles—to Loargai in the Shinwari country. Of this shrine Warburton tells the following story of the manner in which the Zakha Khels managed to remove the reproach which had been levelled against them, i.e. that their country possessed none of the ziarats, or sacred shrines, to the memory of saints or martyrs. “The Zakha Khel Afridis,” writes Warburton, “bear a most unenviable name as being the greatest thieves, housebreakers, robbers and raiders amongst all the Khyber clans, their word or promise never being believed or trusted by their Afridi brethren without a substantial security being taken for its fulfilment. Naturally a race so little trusted were not fortunate enough to possess a holy man whose tomb would have served as a sanctuary to swear by, and thus save the necessity of the substantial security. One day, however, a Kaka Khel Mia came into their limits with the object of seeking safe conduct through their territory to the next tribe. They received him with all politeness, but finding in the course of conversation that he was of saintly character—a holy Kaka Khel Mia—they came to the conclusion that he was just the individual wanted to put their character for truthfulness on a better footing. They therefore killed him and buried him, making his tomb a shrine for all true believers to reverence, and a security for themselves to swear by.”

Oliver caps this story with another of the same character: “A Mullah was caught copying the Koran. ‘You tell us these books come from God, and here you are making them yourself. It is not good for a Mullah to tell lies’; so the indignant Afridis made another ziarat for him.”

It is only quite within recent years that the Zakha Khels have taken to military service, and even now the number enlisted in the regular Indian army is relatively small, the majority preferring service near their homes and joining the Khyber Rifles. In politics the Zakha Khels are Samil.

The Sipah is only a small clan, Samil in politics, and cherishing a standing feud with the Aka Khels. Their main settlements are in the upper portion of the Bara Valley, with the Zakha Khel bordering them on one side and the Kambar Khel on the other, while they also have settlements in the Kajurai plain, where is their notorious rifle factory at Ilmgudar.

Ranken defines the tribal limits in the Khyber Pass as follows: “The Kuki Khels from Jumrud to where the Mackeson road begins; the Sipah Afridis from the beginning of the Mackeson road to Shagai; the Kambar Khel from Sultan Tarra to the white mosque of Ali Musjid; the Malikdin Khel from the mosque to Gurgurra; the Zakha Khel from Gurgurra to the Kandar ravine near Garhi Lalabeg; and the Shinwaris westward of Torkhan.”

The above-mentioned six clans are known collectively, as already mentioned, as the “Khyber Pass Afridis.” British connection with them commenced as far back as 1839, when a Sikh force under Colonel Wade, and Shah Shuja’s contingent with British officers, forced the Khyber—of which the actual defile may be said to be in the hands of these half-dozen clans. “In our earlier Afghan campaigns they fully maintained their ancient fame,” writes Oliver, “as bold and faithless robbers, but from the time the Punjab was annexed, up to the second Afghan War, their behaviour was, for Afridis, fairly good. 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.

When, in 1878, the Government of India called upon the Commander-in-Chief to put forward proposals for the conduct of a campaign in Afghanistan, Sir Frederick Haines offered the suggestion, inter alia, that “a demonstration should be made early in the operations of an advance by the Khyber, by encamping out a certain proportion of the Peshawar troops, making arrangements with the Khyberis for their passage through the pass.”^[103] In consequence of the above, Major Cavagnari was instructed to come to a friendly understanding with the Khyber Pass Afridis, and to arrange for the passage of troops through the defiles at certain rates. Major Cavagnari based his estimate of the money payments to be made to the headmen of the clans, on the sums paid by Colonel Mackeson for the same purpose during the latter period of the first Afghan War; and he finally compounded with the six clans of Khyber Afridis for a payment of Rs. 5950 per mensem, which sum was willingly accepted. When, in September 1880, northern Afghanistan was finally evacuated by our troops, the Indian Government, recognising the undesirability of maintaining any regular force in the Khyber, expressed a wish to hand the pass over entirely to the independent charge of the neighbouring clans, provided some wholly satisfactory arrangement could be come to for keeping the road open, and for safeguarding the caravans passing to and fro between Afghanistan and India. Early in 1881 a complete jirgah of all the Khyber clans assembled in Peshawar, and an agreement was arrived at whereby the independence of the Afridis was recognised, and they engaged, in consideration of certain allowances, to maintain order throughout the Khyber; the Government of India reserved the right of re-occupation of the pass, and was to take all tolls; the Afridis providing a force of Jazailchis paid for by the Indian Government, and were to deal by a general jirgah with all offences committed on the road. The allowances were fixed at Rs. 85,860 per annum for the six clans immediately concerned with the policing of the pass, and for the Shinwaris of Loargai; and a further sum of approximately the same amount was guaranteed by the Government of India for the upkeep of the Jazailchis—since improved into the Khyber Rifles—a body about 550 strong. As a set-off against these money grants the tolls on caravans amounted to some 60,000 rupees per annum. The allowances then granted are to-day substantially the same; the pass is again in charge of the Khyber Afridis, and is again guarded, from Jumrud to Lundi Kotal, by the Khyber Rifles, who have, however, been completely reorganised, and are now a body 1700 strong, with six British officers.

Of that portion of the Khyber which is under our own control the following description is given by Warburton: “The main road from Peshawar to Kabul passes through Jumrud, going almost due east to west. After leaving Jumrud it passes through an easy country, having low hills on the left hand side, and about the third mile it enters the hills at an opening called Shadi Bagiar. A ridge from the lofty Ghund-ghar on the left runs down to the road, and faces a similar ridge coming down from a prolongation of the Rhotas Range. The highway runs for a short distance through the bed of a ravine, and then joins the road made by Colonel Mackeson in 1839–42, until it ascends to the Shagai Plateau on the left hand side, and here Ali Musjid is seen for the first time. Still going westward the road turns to the right, and by an easy zigzag descends to the stream and runs along its side, and below Ali Musjid goes up the waterway. The new road along the cliff was made by us in 1879–80, and here is the narrowest part of the Khyber, not more than fifteen feet broad with the Rhotas hill on the right hand fully 2000 feet overhead. Still progressing, at about 400 yards from Ali Musjid, on the left hand side, three or four large springs issuing from the rock give the whole water supply to this quarter. Between two and three miles comes the Malikdin Khel hamlet of Katta Kushtia; soon after Gurgurra is reached, and then we are in Zakha Khel limits in the real Khyber proper, until we come to the Shinwaris of Lundi Kotal, or more properly Loargai. The valley now widens out, and on either side lie the hamlets and some sixty forts of the Zakha Khel Afridis. Here, there is no stream, and the residents have to depend on rainwater collected in tanks. The Loargai Shinwari Plateau is some seven miles in length, and there is its widest part. Just here above Lundi Khana, the old road was a very nasty bit.... From Shadi Bagiar to Lundi Khana the pass cannot be more than twenty miles in a direct line. When the first detachment of our troops returned from Kabul,^[104] they marched from Ali Musjid along the bed of the stream, by Lala China, Jabagai, Gagri, Kaddam, ‘the real gate,’ and Jam, villages of the Kuki Khel Afridis, to Jumrud; but Colonel Mackeson, finding this way extremely difficult and unsuitable for guns and wheeled traffic, made an excellent road from Ali Musjid to Fort Jumrud through the hills, the same that we now use.”

The trans-frontier portion of the Khyber route to Kabul is described by Oliver as follows: “Over the Lundi Khana Pass, called the Kotal,^[105] the road rises by a steep ascent between steep cliffs less than 150 feet apart, and down again till the Valley of the Kabul River is reached at Dakka.... At Jalalabad—ninety miles from Peshawar—the cross ranges of hills are, for a change, replaced by a well-watered fertile stretch of country, a score of miles long by a dozen wide, dotted with towers, villages and trees; and where the Kabul River—that has all along had to struggle through mere cracks—becomes a broad clear stream 100 yards wide. Thence the route lies through a thoroughly unattractive country again, over long stony ridges, across rocky river beds, varied with an occasional fine valley like Fathabad, or an oasis like Nimlah, to Gandamak, which, by way of comparison with what is beyond again, is a land flowing with milk and honey; for on by Jagdalak and the Lataband Pass, or Tezin and the Khurd Kabul, is a wild waste of bare hills, surrounded by still more lofty and forbidding mountains. The teeth become more closely set together; the road narrower; the stony ridges change to bleak heights from 7000 to 8000 feet high, the river beds, deep valleys, or narrow defiles, like the fatal Jagdalak, almost devoid of verdure, and into whose gloomy ravines the winter sun can hardly penetrate—these are the outworks that have to be negotiated before the gardens and orchards, the bazaars and forts of Kabul, can be approached.”

The Aka Khel clan occupies the hills to the south-west of Peshawar between the Bara River and the country of the Adam Khels, also the Bara and the Waran Valleys. It was in the Waran Valley and in the house of that firebrand among the border clergy, Saiyid Akbar, that there was found, during the course of the Tirah expedition, the whole of the inflammatory correspondence which had passed between the Afridi maliks and mullahs prior to and during the Pathan revolt of 1897. This clan is Samil in politics and can put 4000 armed men in the field.

The Adam Khel clan is located in the hills between Peshawar and Kohat, being bounded on the north and east by the Khattaks, on the south by the Bangash, and on the west by the Aka Khels (their deadly enemies), and by the Orakzais. They are one of the most powerful and numerous of the Afridi clans, have a great reputation for bravery, and can bring into the field 6500 fighting men, who, moreover, are unusually well armed, with rifles stolen from our cantonments and with those they manufacture themselves at their factories in the Kohat Pass. They are to a small extent cultivators, but their chief occupation is carrying salt from the mines; while the allowance they receive from the Indian Government for keeping open the Kohat-Peshawar road is an assistance to their revenues, an allowance which has been paid them since the days of the Sikh governors of Peshawar. The Adam Khels do not belong to either of the two great political factions. From the situation of the Adam Khel country, and owing to the fact that their very existence is dependent upon their trade with British territory, this particular clan is very susceptible to a blockade and can consequently be easily brought to terms. Nearly all the trouble we have had with the Adam Khels in the past has been due to disputes about the salt tax, or about the maintenance of a practicable road through the Kohat Pass. This short cut from Peshawar to Kohat has a certain strategic value; by this road the two frontier garrisons are no more than thirty-seven miles apart, and only ten of these are in independent territory, while round by railway, via Khushalgarh on the Indus, the distance is 200 miles. Two divisions of the Adam Khels are the actual keepers of the pass, and though we pay, and have paid for years, a considerable subsidy, until comparatively lately we were not allowed to make a road, or even to remove the boulders that obstructed the path. From about 1865 onwards the question of the construction of a road practicable for wheeled traffic was continually raised, and was as often dropped in face of tribal opposition. It was one of the main objects of the expedition of 1877, but was given up by Lord Lytton to avoid “breaking the spirit of the clan,” who evinced their gratitude the year following—that of the Afghan War—by threatening to close the road to us. This threat came, however, to nothing, and the pass formed, throughout the campaign, an unmolested and important means of communication between Peshawar and Kohat. Water is very scarce in the pass, the supply being dependent mainly upon tanks.

During the risings of 1897–98 the Adam Khels remained perfectly quiet, and troops constantly used the pass, through which at last, in 1901, a metalled cart road was made.