After our troops had returned to India the condition of affairs in Bajaur and Dir was generally satisfactory, and the arrangements for the maintenance of the road promised to work well. There was a certain amount of local unrest, as was only perhaps to be expected; but both in 1896 and 1897 the Chitral reliefs marched by the Malakand-Chitral road without experiencing any interference whatever on the part of the tribesmen. At various times both the Khan of Dir and the Khan of Nawagai attempted to extend their influence by force of arms, the one in Jandol, the other in the Babukarra Valley, but both showed themselves ready to yield to the pacificatory influence of the political agent for Dir and Swat. There were rumours also that Umra Khan contemplated revisiting this part of the frontier, but he ultimately decided to return to Kabul. The whole country had been so recently pacified that it was hardly to be hoped that it would remain quiescent during the disturbances of the year 1897. The Mullahs, always opposed to the establishment of any civilising influence tending to weaken or destroy their supremacy over their peoples, had been busy preaching against the British, and it was known that they were doing their utmost to form a hostile combination of the clans against us; while other outside influences, which need not here be particularly specified, were also known to be in action. The Khans of Dir and Nawagai behaved very well under difficult circumstances, and seem to have done their best to check and stifle sedition, but proved in the end unable altogether to restrain the fanaticism of their followers. When the “Mad Mullah” actually arrived in Swat from Buner in July, 1897, the Khan of Dir was away in Kohistan, but even had he been present it seems improbable that he would have had sufficient influence or power to stem the outbreak, culminating in the attacks upon the Malakand and Chakdara positions described in Chapter V. But on his return to Swat, and when the tide had turned in our favour, both he and the Khan of Nawagai did what in them lay to assist the British Government, by reopening communications and by holding the important river crossings on the Chitral road. [Sidenote: Operations of 1897]