The operations which, during 1855, were carried out against the Aka Khels can hardly, even collectively, be dignified by the name of an “expedition,” and consisted for the most part in a blockade of the clan, and in the carrying out of sudden raids into their winter settlements, the surprise of their border villages, and the seizure of their cattle from their grazing grounds. Since during the hot weather the Aka Khel migrate to their summer settlements in Tirah, any blockade to be effective must be long sustained, and the Commissioner of Peshawar, Lieutenant-Colonel H. B. Edwardes, obtained sanction to keep up the blockade until the clan surrendered at discretion. When, therefore, the Aka Khels returned in the winter to the low country, not a man of them could venture into Peshawar, their wood trade fell into other hands, and finally—after a determined but fruitless attempt to induce the other tribesmen to make common cause and take the field with them—the Aka Khel gave in about the middle of December, and agreed to the terms imposed upon them. They estimated their losses during the blockade at more than seventy-seven thousand rupees. “Thus,” said Lieutenant-Colonel Edwardes, “ended the struggle of the Aka Khel Afridis with a settled government. Instead of haughtily exacting blackmail from the British for the safety of the Kohat road, they paid a judicial fine for a highway robbery.” Since then the Aka Khels as an individual clan have given little or no trouble on our border. CHAPTER XIII. AFRIDIS: OPERATIONS CONTINUED.[112] KHYBER PASS AFRIDIS. From the year 1857 onwards the Khyber Pass Afridis have given the Punjab Government a good deal of trouble, and it has been necessary to carry out many raids and expeditions against one or other of the clans, and, at times, against all of them. Just before the outbreak of the Mutiny, when the Amir Dost Muhammad was encamped at Jamrud after his interview with Sir John Lawrence, a party of Kuki Khels fired upon some British officers near the mouth of the Khyber, and mortally wounded one of them. The blockade then established was maintained throughout that troublous year, and was so injurious to the interests of the clan that they paid up a fine and agreed to other terms proposed by us. The Zakha Khels were at the same time under blockade for innumerable highway robberies, but they also early made their submission. They broke out again in 1861, and raided British territory in the neighbourhood of Kajurai—a tract of country occupied during the winter by the remainder of the clans of the Khyber Pass Afridis, and it was found necessary to put the usual pressure on these to induce them for the future to refuse passage through their lands at Kajurai to Zakha Khel and other robbers.