an to the west and
India to the east. They had been touring with him as his escort for
some days. He had fed them well, and could chat familiarly with them
in their own lingo, so that they had learnt to talk with him without
reserve about even their tribal secrets.

"Now, tell me," said the officer, "if there were to be war--which
God forbid--between Russia and England, what part would you and your
people take? whom would you side with?"

"Do you wish us to tell you what would please you, or to tell you
the real truth?" was their naive reply.

"I adjure you only tell me what is the 'white word'" (meaning the
true statement).

"Then," said an old greybeard among them, voicing the feelings of all
present, "we would just sit here up on our mountain-tops watching you
both fight, until we saw one or other of you utterly defeated; then
we would come down and loot the vanquished till the last mule! God
is great! What a time that would be for us!"

No doubt he spake truly, but such is the discord of the Afghan tribes
that no doubt the spoil would scarcely be gathered in before they
would begin to fight among themselves over the division of it. These
tribal jealousies and petty wars are inherent among the Afghans,
and greatly diminish their formidableness as foes. If you ask them
about it they will acknowledge this defect in their character, and
tell you how that one of their ancestors displeased the Almighty,
who, to punish him, wove the strands of discord in the web of their
nature from that time onwards. Hence the saying, "The Afghans of the
frontier are never at peace except when they are at war!" For when some
enemy from without threatens their independence, then, for the time
being, are their feuds and jealousies thrown aside, and they fight
shoulder to shoulder, to resume them again when the common danger is
averted. Even when they are all desirous of joining in some jihad,
they remain suspicious of each other, and are apt to fail one another
at critical moments; or else one tribe will wait to see how it fares
with those already in it before unsheathing their own swords. Thus it
was in the frontier rising of 1897 that the difficulty of quelling
the rising would have been immensely greater had it not been that
the tribes rose seriatim instead of simultaneously, and the rising
in one part of the frontier had been put down before another broke out.

Two policies have at various times been advocated with equal warmth b