Bannu : or, Our Afghan frontier

Preface

In the spring of 1848, just twenty-eight years ago, the late Sir Herbert Edwardes, then a young lieutenant in the service of the East India Company, achieved in a few months the bloodless conquest of the Bannu valley — a valley studded with 400 village-forts, which all the might of a military nation like the Sikhs had failed to subdue, though for twenty years and more they had made repeated efforts to do so.

Lieutenant Edwardes had been supplied with the means wherewith to compel submission, or rather to attempt it, in the shape of several Sikh regiments ; but happily his personal influence and tact enabled him to accomplish his task without resorting to physical force. The troops, as well as the people they had been sent to conquer, saw with wonder and admiration how difficulties, formerly deemed insurmountable, disappeared in a few weeks before the earnest enthusiasm of one Englishman. The good work had hardly been completed, when the second Sikh war broke out, and Edwardes hastened away with what troops and levies he could collect to stem the tide of rebellion by boldly laying siege to Multan.

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At the close of the war, in which he had proved himself a heroic soldier and skilful officer, he went home on furlough to find himself the lion of the hour. There he devoted his leisure to the production of a book called ^' A Year on the Punjab Frontier ^^"^ in which he described, in vivid and glowing language, the events of 1848-49 in the Punjab, and his own share in them. This work is perhaps the best of its class ever yet published on an Indian subject, and, owing to its delightful sparkle and graphic scene-painting, bearing the impress of reality in every line, its pages afford charming reading to young and old alike, whether interested in India or not. The very school-boyish vanity and ingenuousness of the writer enhance the pleasure of the reader, who sees the author before him as he then was, a young officer, who had bravely and wisely used a great opportunity, and who had gone to England, fresh from the scene of his conquests, to find himself made a hero of by his countrymen.

In Part I. of the following pages extracts are introduced from Edwardes' book, which is now, I believe, out of print ; and the previous and subsequent history, social and political, of the Trans-Indus tracts of this District are sketched. A short account is then given of the revenue system as it was under the Sikhs, and as it is under the British; of the primitive collective form of property in land, which still survives in some parts of Marwat; and of the Settlement operations now in progress.

I have endeavoured to interweave with the narrative some account of how rulers and ruled spend their lives

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in this far-away corner of the British Empire, which may, perhaps, prove not uninteresting to Englishmen at home.

Part II. is devoted to an account of the customs and folklore, the proverbs, ballads and popular tales, the unwritten but fondly treasured literature of the Pashto-speaking inhabitants of the District, from which some insight into the thoughts and opinions which govern their actions may be gained.

Let me now tell how and why this piece of patchwork, which I am venturing to publish, ever came to be written.

In 1872 I began the Settlement of this District, and my duties as Settlement Officer ajfforded me great opportunities of studying the people, and caused them to be ready to serve me in any way I desired. I then commenced making a collection of their proverbs for my own pleasure, and, meeting with encouragement from Government, the idea of having it published occurred to me. With this intention I arranged the collection as it appears in Part II. during the hot weather of 1874. Having done so, I felt that an introduction, descriptive of the people whose thoughts and sayings I had strung together, was required. Accordingly when in camp during the cold season of 1874-75, I wrote in odd hours of leisure the six chapters which comprise Part I., and it was not until the last sheet was laid aside, that the unconscionable length of what had at first been meant to be a short introduction dawned upon me.

Finally, possessing a number of Pashto stories, I

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translated some of them, and wrote a chapter on Pathan social life. As the subject was a dry one, I adopted a narrative form, hoping by that means to render the account less uninteresting than if no thread of connexion had run through it.

As the book has been composed amidst the hurry and wony of engrossing and constant work, I hope all shortcomings will be pardoned, and that want of time may be accepted as my excuse for having failed to prune these overgrown pages.

For the accompanying map, my acknowledgments are due to Colonel H. C. Johnstone, C.B., Bengal Staff Corps, Deputy Superintendent of Survey, JS'orthwestern Frontier.

I have also to thank Henry Priestley, Esq., late Bengal Civil Service, for having corrected the proofs of the sheets printed in Pashto type.

The task of revising the work and seeing it through the press has been kindly undertaken by my cousin. Captain W. Stewart Thorburn, 41st Eegiment, to whom will belong all the credit should errors be few.

S. S. THOEBUKN,

Settlement Officer, BannIj.

Edwardesabad,

Chapter I. — Geographical. Bannu and its Environs . . 1 II. — Bannu Independent and under Native Eule . 12

III. — Bannu under British Rule 42

IV. — The Muhammad Khel Rebellion, and its Lesson 65

V. — Times op Peace and Plenty 86

VI. — Land Revenue System — Tenures and Settlements 107

PAET II.

Chapter I. — Social Life, Customs, Beliefs and Superstitions

OF THE Peasantry 141

Class I. — Humorous and Moral . . . .173

„ II. — Comic and Jocular . . . .192

„ IIL— Fables 217

Marwat Ballads 224

Riddles 228

„ III. — Pashto Proverbs translated into English . . 231

Begging 236

Boasting 238

Bravery 241

Class and Local 245

Co-operation 256

Cowardice 257

Custom 259

Death 260

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