and it would be through them
that any enemy of the future would endeavour to bring its forces. It
is therefore a paramount necessity to the British Government that
these passes should be securely guarded, and therefore each one of
them forms part of one of the areas administered by British officers,
and guarded either by native troops or tribal levies.

It is through these passes, too, that the great merchant caravans pass
down from Afghanistan and Central Asia into British India. In former
times the merchants had to subsidize the tribes through which they
passed, who would otherwise have blocked the passes and stolen their
goods; and it is partly to make up to the tribes for the loss of this
income that the tribal subsidies were arranged. Near where each of
these passes debouches on to the trans-Indus plain is a city, which
forms an emporium for the merchandise brought down, and a military
station for the protection of the pass. While Peshawur serves this
purpose for the Khaiber, Kohat commands the Kurram, Bannu the Tochi,
and Dera Ismail Khan the Gumal.

When Lord Curzon assumed the Viceroyalty, the frontier districts
formed part of the Panjab, and the Lieutenant-Governor of that
province was in administrative control of them. Lord Curzon wished
to bring them more directly under his own control, so in 1901 a new
province, composed of five frontier districts of the Panjab, was
constituted, and called the North-West Frontier Province. The five
districts composing this province are Hazara, Peshawur, Kohat, Bannu,
and Dera Ismail Khan. These are all beyond the Indus, except Hazara,
which is to the east of that river.

A Chief Commissioner was appointed over the whole province, directly
responsible to the Viceroy, and he had his headquarters and the centre
of government at Peshawur.

Lord Curzon's next move was to advance the railway systems of the
Panjab along the frontier, bringing their termini to the mouths of
the Khaiber and Kurram Passes. As this enabled a rapid concentration
of troops at any point along the frontier, he was able to withdraw
the regiments of the Indian Army which garrisoned the more outlying
districts, and to replace them by tribal levies.

No doubt it is the desire of the Government not to make any further
annexations of this barren, mountainous, and uninviting border
region; but it is not always equally easy to avoid doing so, and it
is a universal experience of history that when there are a