men, impels these mountaineers to deeds of treachery and violence. The
strong aboriginal propensity to kill, inherit in all human beings, has
in these valleys been preserved in unexampled strength and vigour. That
religion, which above all others was founded and propagated by the
sword--the tenets and principles of which are instinct with incentives
to slaughter and which in three continents has produced fighting breeds
of men--stimulates a wild and merciless fanaticism. The love of plunder,
always a characteristic of hill tribes, is fostered by the spectacle of
opulence and luxury which, to their eyes, the cities and plains of the
south display. A code of honour not less punctilious than that of old
Spain, is supported by vendettas as implacable as those of Corsica.

In such a state of society, all property is held directly by main force.
Every man is a soldier. Either he is the retainer of some khan--the man-
at-arms of some feudal baron as it were--or he is a unit in the armed
force of his village--the burgher of mediaeval history. In such
surroundings we may without difficulty trace the rise and fall of an
ambitious Pathan. At first he toils with zeal and thrift as an
agriculturist on that plot of ground which his family have held since
they expelled some former owner. He accumulates in secret a sum of
money. With this he buys a rifle from some daring thief, who has risked
his life to snatch it from a frontier guard-house. He becomes a man to
be feared. Then he builds a tower to his house and overawes those around
him in the village. Gradually they submit to his authority. He might now
rule the village; but he aspires still higher. He persuades or compels
his neighbors to join him in an attack on the castle of a local khan.
The attack succeeds. The khan flies or is killed; the castle captured.
The retainers make terms with the conqueror. The land tenure is feudal.
In return for their acres they follow their new chief to war. Were he to
treat them worse than the other khans treated their servants, they would