At the time of the second Afghan war we had completely re-established the superiority of our armament; but since then arms factories have been set up in many places within and without our border, and by this means and by a well-organised, large-scale system of rifle-stealing—not only from regiments in our frontier garrisons, but from others far down country—the tribesmen, who could pay the prices asked, gradually became well equipped with modern rifles and the necessary ammunition. At the time of the Tirah Expedition of 1897–98 the old-fashioned, home-made jazail had practically been everywhere replaced by the breech-loader, many of which, if not actually made at Enfield, had probably been manufactured in the Kohat Pass with all the Government “marks” carefully reproduced. Such confidence had their improved armament inspired in the men of the border, that the feeling found expression in an offer made from more than one clansman at the close of the Tirah campaign: “if we would only leave our artillery behind, they would fight us all over again.” [Sidenote: Bushire and Muscat] But the improvement noticed in 1897 in the armament of the tribes, seemed to point to the existence of other and more open markets for the supply of modern rifles, than those known to exist to the west of our border; and the Government of India now set inquiries on foot relative to statements, of late years often repeated and as persistently disregarded, of the existence of a well-established and flourishing trade in arms carried on in the Persian Gulf. There can be no doubt that the arms traffic both at Bushire and at Muscat was originally begun and maintained by British subjects; but the demand for modern rifles in Southern Persia, in Afghanistan, and on the north-west frontier was now so great, that other nations quickly went into the business, and it has been computed that in 1906 four European nations between them imported £278,000 worth of rifles into Muscat alone. The traffic at Bushire does not appear to have exercised any perceptible influence on the arming of the north-west frontier tribes; but that which originated at Muscat in the early nineties soon grew and flourished exceedingly, “parcels” of rifles and ammunition being shipped in native craft from Muscat to the Mekran coast, where they were met by the caravans of the Afghan traders, and being taken thence along the Perso-Baluch frontier into Southern Afghanistan, were distributed among the tribes on our border. This trade was permitted to flourish for fully ten years before any adequate steps were taken to stop it.