230 TRAVEL, ADVENTURE, AND SPORT. 



could not have succeeded in any less suspicious or 

 more advanced state of society. Summoning the 

 chiefs individually into his tent, he detained each a 

 few minutes without exchanging a word beyond the 

 most commonplace civilities. Each was separately 

 dismissed, and conducted out of camp without being 

 permitted to exchange notes with his compatriots. 

 Each concluded the others had entered into separate 

 arrangements with the Commissioner, while he alone 

 was left in the dark. Before twenty-four hours, more 

 than 30,000 out of the 40,000 Pathans had started 

 off, every man to his own home ! 



Major James next turned his attention to the Moh- 

 munds. Summoning the chiefs of the Tarakzai and 

 Alimzai to meet him, he inquired into their wants ; 

 and finally entered into an agreement with them, by 

 which a long narrow strip of country lying between 

 the frontier forts and roads and the base of hills, 

 which had hitherto lain waste, was made over to 

 them, which they were to cultivate and possess free 

 of tax so long as they behaved themselves. From 

 that time till 1877 no tribe was more amenable to 

 reason. Only one contretemps occurred, the murder 

 of Major Macdonald, commandant of Fort Michni, 

 by a young Mohmund of good family, in a fit of 

 temper, or in revenge for some fancied insult. The 

 murderer fled to Lalpoorah, and Nowroz Khan, the 

 then chief, refused or was unable to surrender him. 

 Representations on the subject appear to have been 



