HILL TRIBES, WILD AND TAME.*

WE have read Mr. Gore's book on Indian hill life with much pleasure. The work is no more than a record of what he saw on holiday tours in the mountains of the Northern and North-West Frontier. But he saw much, and describes that well, and illustrates the text by seventy- two full-page photographs of hill scenery and people. Many of these clear and beautiful photographs are pictures in themselves, and those which do not "make pictures" make maps, and form a striking and instructive series of typo- graphical illustrations of natural scenery on too vast a scale to lend itself to description. The "view down the Khyber Pass" from All Mujid, and that of the fort of Jamrud, at the Indian end of the Pass, seen across the stony plain over whose iron surface runs the faint track left by centuries of traffic and intermittent invasion, are most impressive ; and the groups of trans-frontier Pathan% armed to the teeth, squatting, rifle in hand, eager and disputing in debate, on which hang the issues of peace or war, are first-hand docu- ments of the life of the robber tribes. These scenes are from the half-pacified Kuram district, on the Afghan frontier. Mr. Gore's first chapters deal with a very different society. Kuhl, the "happy valley," lies back in the high Himalaya, north of Simla, at the sources of the Bas River, a tributary of the Sutlej. There, isolated among the high peaks, protected northward by the line of eternal snow, and southward by the Paz Britannica, a population of one hundred thousand souls lives in that atmosphere of political calm and unvexed tran- .quillity which the Indian Government regards as the highest material result of British rule. The temper of the people, originally Hindoo migrants from the plains, responds readily to the "beneficent" principle of government, which leaves them in absolute peace to the play of their natural instincts for sedulous cultivation of the mountain soil. The people have forgotten the use, and almost forgotten the appearance of a weapon ; their farms and flocks provide them with food, clothing, and tobacco, and the author traversed the valleys from village to village, or climbed the passes between the valleys, armed with no more formidable equipment than a camera and a walking-stick. Though no one has yet suc- ceeded in describing an Alp, it is still possible to give an adequate word-picture of the valleys and glaciers of Switzer- land. But the Himalayan panorama is something different. "The Swiss village at the foot of its snow-peak has in most cases all the beauty and charm that green meadows, and swarthy pine-woods, and even fruit-trees can give ; whereas our Himalayan valley of 10,000 ft. is bleak and barren, with little sign of trees or vegetation, and often only a stony waste." The dry atmosphere prevents the line of perpetual snow descending below a level of 16,000 ft., and the prospects, though incredibly vast, lack inoident and variety. Mr. Gore's photographs of this region show the strange dispro- portion between the good and the barren land of the great mountain, the villages, with their terraced fields seaming the hill faces, being barely discoverable without the aid of a magnifying glass. Separate views of the villages, often set by streams among fine groves of deodar and deciduous trees, show these terraces continued from the foot to the crest of hills 3,000 ft. high.

Judged from the illustrations many of these scenes are, to our thinking, very beautiful, notably that of the 4' Snows from Narkanda," where ridge after ridge of pine- covered mountains rise above valleys full of mist, with the snow line on the most distant summits, or the view of Malarine village, hung like the homes of coral insects under the face of a mountain rising 4,000 ft. above it. But Mr. Gore complains that the landscape is all on too vast a horizontal scale. The general absence of cliffs in the land- scape, the dry atmosphere which browns the grassy hillside, • Lights and Shades of Indian Hal Life. By F. Et. J. Gore. Illustrated. London: John Marley.

and the comparative scarceness of trees, all tend to produce a picture that, however grand in size, cannot compare with the broken lines and compressed variety that are crowded into the view in the Swiss highlands. The people of Kula are amiable and not in the least shy. They "grouped " themselves to be photographed with great good nature, and with no more embarrassment than Europeans feel under like circumstances, Mr. Gore's native servant arranging them with directions couched as follows :—

" Oh foolish ones, why stand ye thus in a row ? Cannot ye see, 0 Eons of asses that ye are, that the Sahib wishes to make your pictures ? 0 you! stand here. Hold this stick so, and move not. Good ! Another man is needed. Here, 0 mud-head ! Hold this basket like this, and let the grain fall gently to the ground. Enough, so. Let the women beat the millet. It is perfect. Now, all men, move not."

At Manika.rn, a game of cricket was being played by the boys of the village school, "one of the fielders spending most of his time on the shingle roofs, which always afforded a safe run to a well-placed hit." This liking for English games was found in even greater force in the sub-Himalayan State of Sirmilr, where the Rajah's two eons, one of whom is Lord Chief Justice, and the other Commander-in-Chief, play football daily with their fellow-subjects.

Mr. Gore's later chapters are in strong contrast to his earlier experiences, for in them he deals with the un- tamed hillmen, and the latest efforts of British civilisation in the Karam Valley, on the frontier of Afghanistan. This was the route taken by Lord Roberts when marching to the

victory of the Peiwar Kotal in 1878, a wide desolate tract of big stones, with a river creeping somewhere at the bottom of

them, and a population in and around it of select ruffians whom it would be impossible to match in any other part of

the Queen's dominions. This valley runs for eighty miles into the debateable land between our territories and those of the Ameer. The civilising force of the Government of India flows along these valleys, slow but irresistible, like lava from a volcano, and Mr. Gore has been fortunate enough to see the

process in its first advance, and record the exact incidents of the change with a camera and a pen which are equally graphic. As this is exactly what must happen in Chitral, and is also the experience which made the Indian Govern- ment undertake to deal with Chitral on lines which caused misgivings among those not acquainted with the success of recent attempts at dealing with the worst of the hillmen, these chapters are of great practical interest. The particular race who live in Kuram are the Tunis. Around them on the stony hills are other tribes,—a shade worse, because a trifle poorer, than the Tunis themselves. The latter, however, are bad enough. They claim to be descended from Saul, the son of Kish ; they look like mountain- bred Jews, with a dash of Pathan, and though their lan- guage is non-Semitic, they have certain customs and laws, among others those of stoning obnoxious persons to death, sending out a scapegoat, and marrying a brother's wife, which indicate something parallel in their civilisation to that of the Hebrews when engaged in the conquest of Canaan. Their social life ordinarily consists in robbing, and being robbed by, the neighbouring villages, or combining with these to resist outside robbers from the higher mountains, Wasiris or Orukzais. This state of things was also complicated by the fact that the Turis are Shiabs, and the tribes of the upper hills Sunnis ; while the Tnri Shiahe were divided into two factions under rival spiritual heads in different parts of the valley. The district had been left to "stew in its own juice," with sacking, burning, and looting going on all the year round, since General Roberts marched up the valley in 1878. Then, alter ten years of "Home-rule," the British Govern- ment stepped in, occupied the valley with detachments of the Panjab Frontier Force, and left the regeneration of

the district to the personal efforts of an Assistant-Com- missioner, aided by a native Commissioner, and backed by the troops if needed. The Assistant-Commissioner, Mr. W. Merk, C.S.L, lives at Thull, where "an unusual collec-

tion of stones indicates the country town of the Karam Tuna." The country is too poor to support the regular Indian system of administration, with its crowd of native subordinates, so personal government is substituted. "

is an Oriental system with a British head. The people are left as much as possible to themselves, while the con- trolling influence of the British officer, though permeating

the whole, is exercised only when necessary, and then, if possible, through their own Jirgas, or councils."

In the company of Mr. W. Merk, Mr. Gore saw this system working. We will quote one instance, but more detailed and vivid accounts will be found in the book, though too long for quotation :— "Two men were murdered a few nights before, and the relatives of the victims came to Merk and the Jirga, and accused a man of the crime. Every one present knew that the man had committed the murder, but the Shariah, or Mahommedan law, requires two witnesses. If there are no witnesses, a man is allowed to clear himself, by an oath upon the Koran. As in this case the prosecutors could produce no more evidence, the accused offered to clear himself by the oath. The Jirga, while bound to accept the oath, have still a weapon against notorious liars. A man whose oath is disbelieved can be called upon, after the old Anglo-Saxon method, to produce compurgators, or men who will swear to the credibility of the party taking the oath. So the Jirga, while professing to be convinced, ruled that he should bring seventy men to swear with him ! These he had to produce by the end of the week, and on the appointed day he appeared with his strange retinue, who one and all swore that he was innocent. We heard afterwards that he bad to pay each of these men five rupees to come, as their oaths were false, so that he was practically fined 350 rupees, the price of blood (fine for murder) being 360 rupees."

Substantial justice was done, and a blood-feud avoided. This "transition period" of British control will probably last until order has prevailed long enough for the beginnings of comfort to appear among the hillmen. Peace is the one essen- tial for prosperity among mountaineers, whether in Switzer- land or in Kula or Karam. All the tendencies of British influence are to enforce peace, and on the North-West Frontier the railways, roads, and other strategic works of the Indian Government give wages and employment to tribes who would otherwise have no alternative but robbery for their support. The army provides a career for others, and the future of the frontier tribes is no more hopeless now than was that of the Highlanders after 1745.