“A Life for a Life.”

Franklin Times, Volume XXV, Issue 14, 4 February 1935, Page 8 (Supplement)

“A Life for a Life.”

The Khyber Pass is a magnet whch attracts many a tourist across the length of India to the bare and inhospitable North-West Frontier. Owing to the unruly character of its inhabitants it has been frequently closed to visitors for long periods at a time but now the restrictions are by no means irksome. The Pass is only open to visitors during the hours of daylight and the only formality is the signing of the visitors’ book at Jamrud. The motor road through the Pass is always in perfect condition and, the gradients being easy, the return journey from Peshawar can easily be accomplished during the hours of daylight. If only these bleak, forbidding mountains could speak, what tales they could speak, what tales they could unfold! From earliest days the Pass has been the highroad for invaders of India —Alexander the Great, Marmud of Ghazni, Timur the Tartar, and Baber, the founder of the Mogul Empire, all used this route. Even now, though seemingly peace reigns, it is far from being a haven of rest. The villages are. groups of miniature fortresses: for this is the land of blood feuds, where the law of. a life for a life still holds good and vendettas may and often do continue for .years on end till one family or clan is completely, annihilated. In certain aspects there have been great changes on this historic highway; wonderful roads now traverse it from end to end a»d a broad-guage railway extends almost up to the Afghan border, but the travellers have much the same appearance as they had c.enturies ago. The same caravans of picturesque-looking nomads are seen with their strings of camels, mules, bullocks, ponies, goals and shaggyloolting dogs. Now. however, thanks to the British raj, their journey, or at least this part of it, is made in comparative safety. At every few miles forts crown the heights and khassaaars—a force of local tribesmen armed and paid by the Government to safeguard travellers —are meat at frequent intervals.

Starting at Jamrud. the entrance to ihe Khyber,. there is an old Sikh fortress in which there is always a regiment of Indian infantry and there are garrisons of British or Indian troops at several strategic points right up Io Landikhana. within a stone’s throw of the Afghan border. The roads and railway are marvels of engineering skill and to see the Pass thoroughly a journey should ho made both by road

and rail. Visitors are only allowed to go as far as Michui Kandao, but from this place one gets a wonderful view of the Afghan border only a few miles away and the distant snow-clad hills with the last British outpost of Landikhana in the foreground

On the way are to be seen the crests of many regiments, both British and Indian, carved out of the hillside and what gallant deeds of bravery and selfsacrifice do these silent memorials recall.

Practically every yard of the Pass has been drenched with the blood of Britain’s gallant soldiers and wanting indeed in imagination must the traveller be who is not thrilled at the very names of the places he passes en route.