76

INDIA

changed the destinies and dynasties of India, but it is
through this channel that many tides of humanity have
surged from age to age, which, rising in the recesses of
Tartary and Mongolia, have swept southwards to repeople
the land of the sun. Military invasions have passed into
India by other routes; and the southern borderland, as
well as the northern, has witnessed many irruptive human
tides, but none have possessed such influence in shaping
out the destinies of this great continent in the past, and
none are so likely to prove of paramount importance in
the future.
Next to the Khaibar, and separated from it by the
Safed Koh range and its subsidiary spurs and offshoots
(enclosed amongst which are the Afridis of Tirah, the
Orakzais, Turis, and many other Pathan Rohilla tribes),
is the Kuram Pass. Here again
we traverse the full width of
that independent frontier province
 which we call Roh, and
meet the Afghan on his own
border at the Peiwar Kotal.
Just as Peshawur forms the base
or starting point in India for the
Khaibar route to Kabul, so does
Kohat stand as the base for the
Kuram line of route to the same
goal.
Between Peshawur and Kohat
 there is a connecting highroad which is the first
link in a long line of communication passing down the
frontier beyond Kohat, parallel to the line of the Pathan
hills, and linking up all the frontier stations between Kohat
and the Sind border. It connects Bannu (or Edwardesabad),
 Dera Ismail Khan, and Dera Ghazi Khan with the
north. The frontier province traversed by this road bordering
 the Indus, and lying between that river and the hills, is
usually termed the Derajat. Between Peshawur and Kohat,
however, this most important military road does not run
parallel to the Indian frontier as defined by the old Sikh

Fig. 2¢8.—Peshawur to Kohat.