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 is a market house of the 16th century. A considerable agricultural trade is carried on, and cattle-shows and fairs are held. The river Ant provides a route southward to the Norfolk Broads. The coast village of Mundesley, 5 m. N.E. by a branch railway, is in favour as a watering-place, having fine sands beneath the cliffs. In the district between this and North Walsham are Paston, taking name from the family which is famous through the (q.v.), and the fragments of Bromholm Priory, a Cluniac foundation. These are of various dates from Norman onwards, but are incorporated with farm buildings. The rood of Bromholm was a reputed fragment of the Cross which attracted many pilgrims. To the south of North Walsham is North Walsham Heath, whither in June 1381 a body of insurgents in connexion with the Peasants’ Revolt were driven from before Norwich by Henry le Despenser, bishop of Norwich, and defeated; after which their leader, Geoffrey Lister, and others were sent to the scaffold.

 NORTH-WEST FRONTIER PROVINCE, the most northerly province of British India, created on the 25th of October 1901. Roughly it may be defined as the tract of country N. of Baluchistan, lying between the Indus and Afghanistan. More exactly it consists of (1) the cis-Indus district of Hazara; (2) the comparatively narrow strip between the Indus and the hills constituting the settled districts of Peshawar, Kohat, Bannu and Dera Ismail Khan; and (3) the rugged mountainous region between these districts and the borders of Afghanistan, which is inhabited by independent tribes. This last region is divided into five agencies: Dir, Swat and Chitral, with headquarters at Malakand; Khyber, Kurram, Tochi and Wana. The province lies between 31° 4′ and 36° 57′ N., and 69° 16′ and 74° 7′ E. The approximate area is 38,665 sq. m., of which 13,193 sq. m. are British territory and the remainder is held by tribes under the political control of the Agent to the Governor-General. On the N. it abuts on the Hindu Kush. To the S. it is bounded by Baluchistan and Dera Ghazi Khan district of the Punjab, on the E. by Kashmir and the Punjab, and on the W. by Afghanistan.

The Pathan Races.—The North-West Frontier Province as now constituted may be described as the country of the s (q.v.). The true Pathan is possibly of Indian extraction. But around this nucleus have collected many tribes of foreign origin. The whole have now become blended by the adoption of a common language, but remain tribally distinct; all alike have accepted Islam, and have invented traditions of common descent which express their present association. For centuries these tribes maintained their independence in the rugged hills which flank the present kingdom of Afghanistan. In the 15th century they began to settle in the plains. The 16th century saw the Pathan tribes established in their present homes. The spirit of independence which always characterized them soon brought them into collision with the Mogul empire. In the 17th century, after a long struggle, the settlers in the plains wrested from Aurangzeb terms which left them almost as independent as their brothers in the hills. The invasion in 1738 of Nadir Shah, who traversed the province from Peshawar to Dera Ismail Khan.