FROM THE BLACK MOUNTAIN TO WAZIRISTAN: Being an account of the border countries and the more turbulent of the tribes controlled by the North-West Frontier province, and of our military relations with them in the past.

A classic account of what the author calls the ‘wild men’ of the Indian North-West Frontier, and of the ‘equally wild country’ in which Britain did battle with them in the years before the Great War. The author, who served in the region with the Tirah Expeditionary Force, wrote the book to fill a gap in modern military accounts of campaigns in the area, which, after the fall of the Sikh empire, was the most troubling thorn in the flesh of the British Raj. The author begins by describing the fierce Pathan tribes; their military qualities and passionate blood feuds. He next deals with the ‘Black Mountain Tribes’ – the Swatis, Akazais, and Hassaanzais. Later chapters deal with the people of the Peshawar valley; the ‘Hindustani fanatics’ and the operations mounted aginast them after the Indian Mutiny; the Malakand Field Force – the subject of Winston Churchill’s first book -; the Utman Khels; Chitralis; Mohmands; the Afridis of the Khyber pass; the Orakzais and the peoples of Waziristan. Altogether, this is a comprehensive account of some of the most difficult and protracted fighting waged by the British Army in the Victorian and Edwardian eras. Forget ‘Carry On Up the Khyber’ : life and death on the Frontier was certainly no joke. The book is accompanied by a series of maps and a table of the many expeditions mounted against the north-west tribes.