Page:ER Scidmore--Winter India.djvu/306

284 avail with them. Colonel Warburton held them wonderfully in check for twenty years by a kindly, paternal rule, and their confidence in him justified the saying that his presence on the frontier was worth any ten garrisons. He retired when his age limit was reached, and on the heels of his departure came the revolt of the tribes and the closing of the Khyber. Colonel Warburton offered his services to return to India and try to pacify the tribes again, but they were declined, and the border war continued from July, 1897, to January, 1898, General Lockhart for months employing against these hill guerrillas a greater army than that which defeated Napoleon at Waterloo.

"The forward party" of Anglo-Indians argues that these border tribes are an inexhaustible recruiting-ground of the finest fighting material in the world, and that for the British not to avail themselves of it would be virtually giving Russia this almost ready-made army. Another faction argues that the tribesmen, once drilled and taught the tactics of war, will be more formidable enemies of the British than ever, more ready to revolt, to join Afghans or Russians. Lugubrious prophets declare that when the struggle comes the British must win the first battle in Afghanistan or lose all India—the Mohammedan Nizam of Hyderabad, with his great army, being arbiter of the destinies of India, in any serious disturbances that may arise with Mohammedans on the northwest frontier. One specialist even wrote out and tabulated his fears in a "confidential book" to his government, in