Page:The People of India — a series of photographic illustrations, with descriptive letterpress, of the races and tribes of Hindustan Vol 5.djvu/157

GENERAL SKETCH OF THE FRONTIER AFGHAN TRIBES. The foregoing list contains all tribes and portions of frontier tribes, who are either entirely independent, nominal or actual subjects of the Government of Kabool, or British subjects located within the frontier; and their strength respectively in fighting men, is thus summarised in paragraphs 99 and 100 of Temple's report:—

To balance, as it were, these independent tribes, the following estimate is made of the force of warlike tribes residing within the British frontier:—

At a first glance, the numbers of the independent tribes appear to have a great preponderance over the others; but their disunited character, their internal feuds and disagreements, and the impossibility of the whole of any one tribe, much less all the tribes, being organized for any advance from their fastnesses into the plains, even under the fanatical excitement of a jehad, or holy crusade against "infidels," whether English or Hindoos, or both—together with the entire absence of artillery, or means of carrying on a campaign against disciplined English troops in the field—reduces the danger to be apprehended from the tribes en masse to a comparatively small extent, in relation to their great numbers. In the event of a frontier war, it might not be possible to ensure the fidelity of the whole of the British tribes; portions of them might, in all probability would, sympathize with the trans-frontier tribes on a common ground of a holy crusade; but it will be evident that they would not only be locally checked by the forces of India, but