wn and opened our medicines. Some Hindus came for treatment,
and we got one of them to bring us some food; but the Muhammadans were
universally hostile, and stationed one of their number at the gate to
prevent any Muhammadan communicating with us. They then apparently
became annoyed with the Hindus, that they should be participating
in benefits from which they had excluded themselves, and stones
began to fall into the courtyard where we were seated; and as the
Hindus in these villages are not only in a small minority, but live
in dread of the fiercer Muhammadans, even they who had already come
to us disappeared, and we were left alone. It seemed useless to stop
in a village where we were not welcomed, so we saddled our animals
and departed.

Many years have passed since this experience. Patients from both
these villages frequently come to the Bannu Hospital, and now I and
my assistants get a welcome and hospitality whenever we visit them.

At other times the difficulties of itineration are not so much from
the people as from the hardships of travelling among the frontier
mountains, where the roads are nil, and the bridle-tracks such that
it is often impossible to get a loaded camel through.

I will therefore give a short account of a journey from Bannu across
the Wazir Hills to Thal, which we made in the summer of 1904.

As our route lay chiefly through independent territory, it was
difficult to procure camel-men for so trying a journey.

The men with the first camels we hired ran away when they found we
were going into the hills, as not only is the road very difficult for
laden animals, but they are afraid of being attacked by Wazir robbers,
the Wazirs having the worst reputation of all the tribes of Afghans
who live on the border. With some difficulty we got four more camels,
and as their owners were themselves Wazirs, we prevailed on them
to accompany us. We loaded up our tents, medicines, and bedding,
and about 9 a. m., when the sun was already very hot, we finally
started. Besides the two camel-men, there were a hospital assistant,
two servants, a Muhammadan inquirer, whom I was taking along for the
sake of instructing him, and one of the schoolboys, who had persuaded
me to let him accompany us, so that we were quite a large party. After
toiling for some hours along a mountain defile we came to Gumatti Post,
one of those frontier forts that line the North-West Border. This was
built close to an old Wazir fort,