1 ¢ a )
2 defending the frentier. The robbers have to pass through this desert in their
3 advance and again in their retreat. There would appear then to be consi-
4 derable facilities during their incursions for a body of cavalry to get between
5 them and the hills and intercept their retreat, As Mr, Frere remarks in the
6 concluding sentence of para. 14 of his letter of the 28th of May to the Bombay
7 Government, the robbers may be counteracted and checked ‘at a distance
8 from British boundaries.”
9 5. In Major Jacob’s remarks on the’ stateraents in the Board’s Report,
10 there appear to the Chief Commissioner some points which deserve notice.
11 6. The Board did not state, as that Officer seems to think, that 400
12 Cavalry and 800 Infantry guarded the 300 miles of the Southern Derajat, but
13 that 800 men in all guarded the 300 miles of the Southern Derajat. This
14 would make a great difference in the calculation, and. would give less than 3
15 men per mile ; and as half that number are Infantry, the cost would be about
16 36 Rupees, and not 80 Rupees, per mile.
17 7. The Chief Commissioner cannot think that the proximity of the hills
18 is an advantage, It is not merely that the posts.are thus placed, but that the
19 villages with their cultivation and property are close to the hills, and therefore
20 are liable to be plundered before the Troops. can afford aid. The Force in the
21 Trans-Indus Territory has to guard the border and to hold the country, which
22 in many parts is well peopled. In the Southern Derajat, it is true that the
23 population is sparse, and the Hill Tribes generally when in the plains are not
24 very formidable, but such is not the case as you proceed Northward. "The
25 Kusranees, Sheoranees, Bozdars, Wuzeerees, and Afreedees can muster in large
26 bodies, and in the broken ground in the skirts of the hills would prove for-
27 midable against small bodies of Troops. ‘The Guides (800 strong) who alone
28 hold all Eusufzye and guard the Swat border are in the middle of perhaps the
29 finest Puthan race in the country. A-Tribe which can collect 30,000 armed
30 men in the plains, who conquered and held Peshawur from the Barukzaies for
31 a time, and who at the battle of Nowshera all but defeated M aharaja, Runjeet
32 Sing at the head of his disciplined Battalions.
33 8. The Chief Commissioner would be sorry to make the slightest reflection
34 on Major Jacob or his measures. He has always considered that Officer
35 to have performed excellent service, but it may be doubted if the system in
36 force on the Sind border would answer generally in the Punjab border. The
37 Chief Commissioner cannot believe that small detachments of Cavalry, how-
38 ever excellent, could hold open posts close under the hills with impunity. It
39 is not merely the Chief Commissioner’s opinion, but it is that of some of the
40 best Officers of Her Majesty’s and the Hon’ble Company’s Service, that the Guide