For the next three years this part of our border remained tolerably quiet, but thereafter there was a constant succession of petty raids and disturbances—not individually, perhaps, of much account, but forming, in the aggregate, sufficient reason for undertaking at no distant date punitive measures against the Orakzais as a whole. In 1873 the Sipaia division of the Muhammad Khel gave trouble on the Kohat border. In 1878 the Massuzai and Lashkarzai evinced hostility towards us, both in Upper Miranzai and in the Kurram; during the Afghan War emissaries from the Amir, aided by the preachings of the mullahs, disquieted all the Sunni Orakzai clans; and although there was no concerted action undertaken by these tribesmen, the Ali Khels, and the Alisherzai and Mamuzai divisions of the Lashkarzai, committed many outrages and raids between Hangu and Thal, attacking posts, carrying off cattle, cutting up unarmed parties and coolies, and increasing generally the difficulties of our communications between India and Afghanistan. Despite, too, the fact that only two clans of Orakzais were actively engaged in these raids, the men appeared to have been accorded free passage through the country of the Ismailzai and Malla Khel, both in proceeding to the scenes of their outrages, and when returning home with the plunder obtained. Fines had been imposed by Government, whose hands were at the time too full for embarking upon the military expedition necessary for their collection, and already by the end of 1880 the indebtedness of the Orakzais in fines amounted to upwards of Rs. 15,000.