Apart from the developments of the frontier policy under Lord Roberts, the evacuation of the Ningrahar valley after the Afghan War of 1878-80 contributed very largely to the unsatisfactory situation in which we at this time were placed. Had this position, together with Jelalabad, been retained, we should have cut off the retreat of the Afridis, Orakzais, Mohmands, Swatis and others into Afghan territory. Under existing circumstances these tribes can make good their escape into Afghanistan, even receiving assistance from that country when hard pressed. At the period of the Durand Mission the Government of India laid claim to the entire region--Bulund Khel, Mohmandstan, Asmar and Yaghistan, the latter embracing Chitral, Bajaur, Swat, Buner, Dir, Chilas and Waziristan. The Amir put forward a demand for Chageh, the Asmar valley, which he previously had occupied, and objected to the British pretensions. In point of fact, the rights of the Government of India had been already established by conquest and by moral superiority, since this zone, the home of border ruffians, had always required the watchful initiative of a strong Government. The British position was, therefore, incontestable. Moreover, since we were prepared to increase the subsidy of the Amir as a salve for the extinction of his interest in the Chitral region, there was no need to recede from any point. In regard to matters diplomatic, occasion should have been taken to provide, by a special clause in the treaty, for some proportion of these additional lakhs being devoted by their recipient to the task of assisting our own military authorities to draw the fangs of the more turbulent frontier elements. This precaution was ignored nor was it deemed necessary to allot to the Mission the services of a survey officer. Ultimately, after long discussion, the negotiations concluded, when it was revealed that at needless sacrifice the Asmar valley, commanding the approach to the Pamir-Chitral region and south-eastern Afghanistan and of great importance to strategic considerations on the Indian frontier, had been surrendered to the Amir, the Birmal tract, separated from Waziristan, and an ethnic absurdity perpetrated where the Mohmands country had been divided by the watershed of the Kunar and Panj-kora rivers. Such a process of vivisection, intolerable to a tribe who, although involved in constant dissension among themselves, were a united people, was at once resented. In a letter, addressed to the Viceroy of India before the Durand Mission had set out for Kabul, Abdur Rahman had warned the Government of the consequence of interfering with the border tribes. He wrote: