There is a strange magic about the lands of the North-West Frontier and Afghanistan, a magic which over many centuries has captured the hearts and minds of all who have been there, and the imaginations of many who have not. Visions are conjured up of lean hawk-nosed tribesmen, craggy defiles, struggling British soldiers, near cantonments, bitter battles, memsahibs at tea—and of the most famous mountain gateway in the world, the Khyber pass. It is a region of contrasts: barren hills which rise to snowy peaks; inimical passes which open into fertile plains; dry river-beds which become raging torrents. And these contrasts are reflected in the people—hostile and vengeful they may be, but theirs is a code of honour, and their hospitality is generous beyond measure. These ancient tribal traditions have lived on, as has the land’s long history of fiercely resisted invasion: by Greeks, Mongols, Moguls, Persians, British—and today, the Russians. Against a background of the history and geography of the Frontier area, the author paints a vivid picture of this extraordinary and war-loving place, drawing upon written records—soldiers’ letters. Memsahibs’ journals, travellers’ tales—and on first-hand material and interviews with tribesmen and visitors : soldiers, diplomats, missionaries, doctors and nurses, journalists among them. Every rock, every hill has its story, ‘Winston Churchill wrote of the North-West Frontier, and here is the full story of these lands, from Alexander the Great of the kidnapping of Molly Ellis; from skirmishes, wars and the present-day guerrilla warfare against the Soviets to the life of the Englishwoman there during and since the British Raj; from the tribes’ attitudes to foreigners to the mark they leave upon the visitor’s heart—every aspect of a fascinating land is here, in a book of endless interest.
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