INTRODUCTION

There is a strange fascination in living among the Pathans. Many attempts have boen made to catch and convey that feeling . But the spell is clusive. One secret of the hold of the North-West frontier is to be sought in the tremendous scenic canvas against which the Pathan piays out his life. A canvas brought into vivid relief by sharp cruel changes of climate, Sometimes the assault on the spirit is that of stark ugliness and discomfort appalling heat, a dust storm across the Peshawar plain, the croded foot-hills of Khaibar or Wazitistan, more often it is an impression of beauty indescribable in its clarity and contrast with the barren emptiness that went before . the weft and warp of this tapestry is woven into the souls and badies of the men who move before it. Much is harsh, but all is drawn in strong tones that catch the breath, and at times bring tears , almost of pain.

The life of a frontiersman is hard, wrote Ronaldshay, and he treads it daily on the brink of eternity, Yet, despite its obvious drawhacks, the fact remains that these endless ranges of rugged rocks rising from lower levels do possess the power of inspiring in those whose lot is east among them an extraordinary enthusiasm.

I do not suggest that the average warden of the marches babitually subjects his feelings to this kind of analysis, but the circumstances of his life are such that he frequently experiences the species of spiritual exaltation induced by solitude amid the grandeur of nature, and such experience is one of the factors that go to make the magic of the Frontier.

But the land was made for the men in it, not men for the land .

For the stranger who had eyes to see and ears to hear, always as he drove through the Margalla pass just north of Rawalpindi and went on to cross the great bridge at Attock, there was lifting of the heart and a knowledge that , however hard the task and beset with danger, here was a people who looked him in the face and made him feel he had come home. Yet, after a hundred years and more of close contact, the Pathan remains to the wiorld , and even to himself, something of an enigma. Many have spoken and written of him and his country, but the surface has been scarcely scratched. There is need for a deeper ploughing.