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MINUTES OF PROCEEDINGS OF 
under our sway, until at length our frontier line was pushed forward as far 
as the hanks of the Sutlej. Behind us we had left the descendant of the 
Moguls in titular sovereignty at Delhi, and before us stood Runjut Sing, 
the Lion of the Punjab. This was our position thirty years ago. 
It was in the year 1839, as you are aware, that in concert with our 
then allies the Siekhs, we advanced with an army across the Indus, and 
threading the Bolam Pass, finally reached Cabul; and it was in 1841 that 
that terrible disaster occurred in which we lost that army, and for the 
time were driven out of Afghanistan. It is not necessary that I should 
recount the history of those days; I merely recall them to your memory as 
the opening scene in the Central Asian drama. 
In 1849, after the great battles of Chillianwallah and Goojerat, the 
Punjab fell into our possession, we crossed the Indus, and our frontier was 
then advanced to its present boundary, namely to the foot of the Afghan 
Mountains. 
In speaking of the Punjab, it is often alluded to as the country of the 
Siekhs, as if the whole of it were inhabited by people of that race. This, 
however, is by no means the case. All about Lahore, Umritsur, and the 
lower parts of the Punjab, the great majority are of the Siekh faith, but 
towards the north it is not so, and the inhabitants are for the most part 
Punjabee Mussulmen; and once across the Indus, the men of the tribes in 
the plains, in language, religion, race, and character, are Afghans—that 
is, bigoted Mahomedans. 
I have said these few words on the religious aspect of the case, because it 
is one which necessarily affects our policy; and you will observe that however 
sharply defined is our north-west frontier in a geographical point of view, 
there is no such distinction between the inhabitants on either side of the 
border. 
After the conquest of the Punjab by Lord Gough in 1849, w r e of course 
Inherited and adopted the former frontier line of the Siekhs—a somewhat 
Uncertain and devious one, running for hundreds of miles along the foot of 
the Afghan Mountains (the Soliman range). It extends from Scinde to 
Cashmere, and speaking roughly may be 800 miles long. We have crossed 
the Indus, and thus hold a long, narrow strip of flat country between it and 
the base of the hills. 
Our line is guarded by a series of detached forts and stations, the chief 
of which from south to north are Dera Ghazee Khan, Dera Ishmael Khan, 
Bunnoo, Kohat, Peshawur, Hoti Mundan, and Abbotabad in Hazara* 
None of these are strongly fortified, and the distances between them are 
considerable—'Say forty or fifty miles or more. We have minor fortified 
posts all along, at the foot of the mountains, ten or twenty miles 
apart. The military arrangements are peculiar; with the exception of 
Peshawur, all the other posts are held by a total force of about 10,000 men 
of the three arms, the regiments and batteries being composed entirely of 
men raised on the spot—that is, of Siekhs, Punjabee Mussulmen, and a 
certain number from the independent hill tribes in our front, the whole 
commanded by English officers. This force is under the command of a 
general whose head-quarters are usually at Abbotabad, and who reports to 
the Lieutenant-Governor of the Punjab at Lahore; that is, he is independent 
of the Commander-in-Chief. 
