he triumph of a strong organising
intelligence over factious groups, to which it imparted peace and order
under the shelter of a generally beneficent suzerainty. Before long a
strong garrison was posted at Quetta, and we gained the right to enlist
Baluchee troops of excellent fighting powers. The Quetta position is a
mountain bastion which strengthens the outer defences of India, just as
the Alps and Juras, when under Napoleon's control, menaced any invaders
of France.

This great advantage was weighted by one considerable drawback. The
victory of British influence in Baluchistan aroused the utmost
resentment of Shere Ali, who now saw his southern frontier outflanked by
Britain. Efforts were made in January-February 1877 to come to an
understanding; but, as Lord Lytton insisted on the admission of British
Residents to Afghanistan, a long succession of interviews at Peshawur,
between the Ameer's chief adviser and Sir Lewis Pelly, led to no other
result than an increase of suspicion on both sides. The Viceroy
thereupon warned the Ameer that all supplies and subsidies would be
stopped until he became amenable to advice and ceased to maltreat
subjects known to be favourable to the British alliance. As a retort the
Ameer sought to call the border tribes to a _Jehad_, or holy war,
against the British, but with little success. He had no hold over the
tribes between Chitral and the Khyber Pass; and the incident served only
to strengthen the Viceroy's aim of subjecting them to Britain. In the
case of the Jowakis we succeeded, though only after a campaign which
proved to be costly in men and money.

In fact, Lord Lytton was now convinced of the need of a radical change
of frontier policy. He summed up his contentions in the following
phrases in his despatches of the early summer of 1877:--"Shere Ali has
irrevocably slipped out of our hands; . . . I conceive that it is rather
the disintegration and weakening, than the consolidation and
establishment, of the Afghan power at which we must now begin to aim."
As for the mountain barrier, in which men of the Lawrence school had
been wont to trust, he termed it "a military mouse-trap," and he stated
that Napoleon I. had once for all shown the futility of relying on a
mountain range that had several passes[302]. These assertions show what
perhaps were the weak points of Lord Lytton in practical politics--an
eager and impetuous disposition, too prone to be dazzled by the very
brilliance