AMONG THE AFFGHANS. 261 



are bent on having a row with some one. On one 

 side were their old enemies the Khugianees, but on 

 the other were the almost defenceless Tajik and 

 Dehgani villages round Pesh Bolak, and these had 

 steadily supplied the Feringhees with stores and for- 

 age. Certainly the Sahibs might be annoyed if these 

 were injured ; and in 1842 similar acts had been 

 followed by the rapid and wholesale destruction of 

 offending villages. The elders remember those days, 

 and point to the hundreds of white tents dotting the 

 whole course of the road not twenty miles off. But 

 the young men do not remember all that. The mool- 

 lalis and fakirs promise God's blessing on all who 

 attack the Kafirs, and heavenly bliss to all who are 

 martyred for the good cause. The discussion is still 

 hot counsels divided as to who should bear the 

 brunt of the first attack when news arrives in the 

 extensive village of Maidanak, where a large party is 

 even now arranging the plan of operations, that a 

 compass-wallah is in the neighbourhood with a small 

 escort. 



Not only in the neighbourhood, but there, on a 

 low hill not three miles off, he is even now standing 

 and " opening the purdah" If one Sahib more than 

 another is feared and detested by those Pathans who 

 have never come in contact with them, it is the com- 

 pass-wallah or surveyor. 



Not only is he supposed to be the man who guides 

 the troops through intricate passes, who carries away 



