224 TRAVEL, ADVENTURE, AND SPORT. 



ritory. This tribe was next only in importance to 

 the Afreedees on our north-west frontier ; and during 

 the first weeks of the advance of our troops, much 

 depended on the action the Mohmunds were likely 

 to take for they inhabit the northern slopes of the 

 Tartara range, which shuts in the Khyber on the 

 north. They occupy Dakka and its neighbourhood, 

 and their country lay along the right flank of our line 

 of march from Jamrud to Chardeh in the Jellalabad 

 valley, some miles beyond Bussawal that is, they. 

 flank the right of the main road for the first five 

 marches from Jamrud. Further, through their 

 country run no less than three alternative kafila 

 (caravan) routes from Jellalabad to Peshawar, any one 

 of which might have been utilised by an energetic 

 Affghan general to cramp our advance by throwing 

 a force into the Peshawar valley, ten or twenty miles 

 north of Jamrud, so soon as our main body was suffi- 

 ciently advanced in the Khyber more especially by 

 using the Gandao route, as we shall show further on. 

 Unlike the Afreedees or any other Pathan tribe, the 

 Mohmunds long acknowledged the supremacy of one 

 chief the Khan or Nawab of the village of Lal- 

 poorah, which is on the left bank of the Cabul river, 

 about thirty miles from Michni and just opposite the 

 fort of Dakka. This chief acknowledged the suze- 

 rainty of the Ameer of Cabul ; and had the invasion 

 occurred ten years sooner, it is almost certain that 

 we would have had the entire tribe opposed to us 



