n of the Afghan border afford the spectacle of a
people, who fight without passion, and kill one another without loss of
temper. Such a disposition, combined with an absolute lack of reverence
for all forms of law and authority, and a complete assurance of
equality, is the cause of their frequent quarrels with the British
power. A trifle rouses their animosity. They make a sudden attack on
some frontier post. They are repulsed. From their point of view the
incident is closed. There has been a fair fight in which they have had
the worst fortune. What puzzles them is that "the Sirkar" should regard
so small an affair in a serious light. Thus the Mohmands cross the
frontier and the action of Shabkadr is fought. They are surprised and
aggrieved that the Government are not content with the victory, but must
needs invade their territories, and impose punishment. Or again, the
Mamunds, because a village has been burnt, assail the camp of the Second
Brigade by night. It is a drawn game. They are astounded that the troops
do not take it in good part.

They, when they fight among themselves, bear little malice, and the
combatants not infrequently make friends over the corpses of their
comrades or suspend operations for a festival or a horse race. At the
end of the contest cordial relations are at once re-established. And yet
so full of contradictions is their character, that all this is without
prejudice to what has been written of their family vendettas and
private blood feuds. Their system of ethics, which regards treachery and
violence as virtues rather than vices, has produced a code of honour so
strange and inconsistent, that it is incomprehensible to a logical mind.
I have been told that if a white man could grasp it fully, and were to
understand their mental impulses--if he knew, when it was their honour
to stand by him, and when it was their honour to betray him; when they
were bound to protect and when to kill him--he might, by judging his
times and opportunities, pass safely from one end of the mountains to
the other. But a civilised European is as little able to accomplish
this, as to appreciate the feelings of those strange creatures, which,
when a drop of water is examined under a microscope, are revealed
amiably gobbling each other up, and being themselves complacently
devoured.

I remark with pleasure, as an agreeable trait in the character of the
Pathans, the immunity, dictated by a rude spirit of chivalry, which