436 CHITRAL AND THE N.W. FRONTIER CAMPAIGN.

of the gorge,the stormers reached the crest, not without loss, and charged the nearest sungar. Startled at seeing their enemies had broken through their defences at a point where they thought noliving man couldascend, the hillmen abandoned their works and fled up the valley, pursued by the invaders. Hunza and Nagar surrendered without further resistance, and the tribes submitted. They have since fought gallantly on our sidein later frontier campaigns.

Manners-Smith received the coveted Victoria Cross for his exploit. When next the Hunzas fought it was under the leadership of British question of the North-Western Frontier policy. On this matter there are two schools of thought. One, theolder of the two,isrepresentedby those who have been sometimescalled the party of " masterly inactivity." Their view is that our best plan is to hold the low country on both sides of the Indus, regard the great river as our mainline ofdefence, anel content ourselves with watching the lower gates of the mountains and making the tribespay so dearly for a plundering raid that it will be to their interest to live at peace withus. The other, the" forward" school, which has been in the ascendant for a good officers against a neighbouring tribe who had attempteda raid into Kashmir.

many years, holds that we must control the passes andkeep the tribes in order by establishing forts garrisoned by British or native troops at points commanding their territory, and running military roads through the valleys. It is not intended that in every case the tribesshould actually become British subjects. All that is aimed at is that, while a certain independenceis left to them under their own chiefs or kings, they should acknowledge British suzerainty,the network of forts and roads making it difficult for them to take any line of action hostile to our interests. Unfortunately the hillmendo not appreciate such distinctions, and regard the building of a fort and the making of a road as the first step towardsreducing them to actual subjection, with a code of laws they do not understand and a system of taxation they detest.

Men like Sir George Robertson, of Chitral tame, and Colonel H. D.Hutcliinson, who has Thus, on the north-east and the south-west, the frontier was being brought more and more under British control. But there lay between the Punjaub and Afghanistan and the Pamirs a wide tract which was a dangerous region, owing allegiance to no higher power but the tribal chiefs, who, when they were not warring among themselves,indulged in raids, now into British, now into Afghan, territory. In 1803 the Indian Government induced the Amir ofAfghanistan to agree to a new marking off of the British and the Afghan spheres of influence in this mountain region. The step had far-reaching consequences. The new delimitation wascarried out by a Commission, at the head of which was Sir Mortimer Durand, one of the most experienced of our frontier officials.

There is no need to discuss here the thorny