ranged with the Commander-in-chief to hold his camp of
exercise there; the Lieutenant-Governor is to have a great
Agricultural Exhibition, which I am to open; and if we mean to
establish ourselves for a couple of months there in our legislative
capacity while all this is going on, I think that it will have an
excellent effect both on our own people and on our neighbours.

[Sidenote: Sitana fanatics.]

Late in the month of September, during the last days of Lord Elgin's stay
at Simla, occurred the only break in the otherwise peaceful tenor of his
government, in the shape of an outburst of certain Wahabee fanatics
inhabiting a frontier district in the Upper Valley of the Indus. The
outburst is not without historical interest, as connected with similar
disturbances which have assumed more serious proportions; but it is noticed
here chiefly as illustrating the view which Lord Elgin took of the policy
and duty of the British Government in such cases.

It was not without the greatest reluctance that he was induced to take up
the quarrel at all: for he had the strongest aversion for warlike
operations in the existing state of India, and particularly on the
frontiers of Afghanistan; and he had no small distrust of those military
tendencies and that thirst for opportunities of distinction which are apt
to characterise the ablest Governors of frontier provinces. But he had
prevented a Sitana expedition in the previous year; he was assured that the
recent inroads of the fanatics were the direct consequence of his last
year's supineness; and he was told that if he again held back, the
disturbances would be renewed another year with usury. Moreover, he was
assured that the projected expedition would secure the peace of the
frontier for a long period; and that the operation would be little more
than a military promenade, and would be over before his camp reached
Peshawur.

It was scarcely possible for a civil Governor to resist such a pressure of
professional opinion; and he consented to take measures of repression.

Writing to Sir Charles Wood on the subject, he said:--

The overt acts charged consist in the return of the fanatics to
Sitana, whence they were driven out by us some years ago; and the
frontier tribes in question are held to be guilty because they have
allowed them to return to this place, although bound by treaty with us
to refuse to admit them.... On a review of all the cir