For the defence of the border, and to prevent the incursion of armed robbers, the system generally followed—with some recent modifications—has been the maintenance of a line of fortified posts along the frontier, garrisoned by regulars and militia. In the year 1884 there were fifty-four such posts situated in the Hazara, Yusafzai, Kohat, Bannu, Dera Ismail Khan, Dera Ghazi Khan and Rajanpur districts, and of these sixteen were held by the Punjab Frontier Force, twenty-six by militia, and the remainder by combined parties of both militia and regulars. In those days the Punjab Frontier Force was generally responsible—a responsibility which endured until 1903—for the military defence of the frontier, with the exception of the Peshawar district. The force was approximately 15,000 strong, and consisted of four regiments of cavalry, the Guides (cavalry and infantry), four mountain batteries, one garrison battery, and eleven infantry battalions, the whole commanded by a Brigadier-General. At that time it was immediately under the orders of the Lieutenant-Governor of the Punjab, but it was a few years later placed under the Commander-in-Chief in India. With the gradual extension of the frontier, and the general forward movement made within recent years, it became apparent that the Punjab Frontier Force could no longer remain a local and also a border force, and that in any comprehensive scheme of frontier defence other regiments of the Indian army must take their share. In 1903, then, the Punjab Frontier Force was abolished. Under Lord Curzon’s rule in India a change was inaugurated in the system of frontier defence. Regular troops have been gradually withdrawn, as far as possible, from advanced trans-frontier positions, and have been concentrated in large centres within easy reach. Their places on the border have been taken by various corps of militia, military police, and levies raised locally; communications have been improved; strategic railways have crept further forward; another bridge has been thrown across the Indus; and the frontier is now defended by the Peshawar and Quetta divisions and the Kohat, Derajat and Bannu brigades, moveable columns being held always ready to move out at a moment’s notice from Peshawar, Kohat, Bannu and Dera Ismail Khan. The general sphere of action prescribed for each of these columns is as under: Peshawar Column, The Khyber and the Malakand. Kohat Column, The Kurram. Bannu Column, The Tochi. Dera Ismail Khan Column, Waziristan.