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432 who had been keeping the whole border-side in alarm by their plundering incursions, which the adjoining tribes were encouraged by their example to join. At the Umbeyla Pass the British commander, finding himself confronted by a combination of all the neighbouring clans, was obliged to take up a defensive position, where he was fiercely assailed, and the force was for a short time in considerable jeopardy. The predicament was serious, for a reverse might have been followed by a general rising of the tribes to break in over the frontier into British territory. Some hard fighting ensued, until reinforcements came up, when, after the enemy had suffered severe loss, their leaders submitted to terms, the stronghold of the fanatics was demolished, and their gathering effectively dispersed.

This expedition, known as the Umbeyla campaign, was one of the most hazardous and difficult of the forays and petty wars provoked by the tribes on the northwestern frontier; and the brief notice of it that has been here given may serve to illustrate the state of unrest and insecurity that has ensued whenever the British Government has resolved to set bounds to its territorial expansion, to stop short, draw a line, and abstain from all interference with the affairs of the country beyond it. Just as, in many parts of Asia, cultivation ceases abruptly at the farthest point reached by artificial irrigation in a desert tract, so primitive barbarism may exist just outside the edge of settled civilization; and the situation on the northwest frontier of India exhibits this sharp contrast of social and polit-