“I have already, in my letter to your Highness of the 30th August, acknowledged your Highness’s letter of the 18th Rabi-ul-Awal, 1315 H., corresponding to the 18th August 1897, to the Commissioner of Peshawar, in which your Highness has denied any complicity with the disturbances on the frontier of India. I have now to acknowledge the receipt of your Highness’s further friendly letter on the same subject, dated the 19th Rabi-ul-Awal, 1315 H., corresponding to the 19th August 1897, which was sent by way of Quetta in Baluchistan.
“With this letter, your Highness has sent me a copy of the proclamation issued by the Mullah of Adda to the people of Ningrahar. I thank your Highness for taking so much trouble to send me this information. I had already seen this proclamation, and I was informed that the person from whom my copy was obtained had himself received the Mullah’s proclamation from your Highness’s Sartip of Dakka.
“I cordially agree with what your Highness writes that ‘the false utterances and fabricated reports of self-interested persons’ should be investigated in a friendly manner, and with a view to forestalling any such report which might be made to your Highness, I write this letter to inform you that my troops are about to enter the Mohmand country in order to search out the Mullah of Adda and his lashkar, and to disperse and destroy them. In the letter written by your Highness on the 18th Rabi-ul-Awal to the commissioner of Peshawar, your Highness has stated that Mullah Najm-ud-din ‘has now taken up his abode in a country which is independent of Kabul and in the neighbourhood of Peshawar.’
“Your Highness has also written, ‘what more can I add in this matter to the foregoing arguments, having regard to the proximity to you of these Mullahs who are close to your country and have now, according to the boundary demarcation, fallen within the limits of the British Government.’
“It is, no doubt, true that the Mullah has committed hostile acts within the territory which it has been agreed falls within the limits of the British Government, and if my troops meet him there his punishment will be speedily accomplished. But I am informed that the Mullah has established his abode in the village of Jarobi, and though, as your Highness is aware, the country is wild and unsurveyed, and no permanent boundary pillars have been erected, it is understood that this village probably lies within the territory which, according to the arrangement proposed in my letter of the 12th November 1896, would fall within the limits of Afghanistan. Your Highness will agree with me that this man, who has given so much trouble to your Highness’s Government as well as to the British Government, must not escape the punishment for his misdeeds, and if the Mullah retires before my troops to Jarobi, or to any place similarly situated, my troops will be authorised to follow him up and destroy him and his habitation. I do not wish your Highness to regard any such action on the part of my troops as indicating an intention to vary or depart from what we have agreed upon as the dividing-line in the Mohmand country. I have no intention that my troops should stay in that country, and they will certainly not go further into it than is necessary in order to carry out the object with which they are being despatched. On the other hand, if the Mullah should take flight across the mountains into the Kunar Valley, my troops have orders not to follow him beyond the watershed, but I shall look to your Highness to give orders to your officers to deal with him as he deserves, and to restrain him from exciting the foolish tribesmen to further acts of hostility.
“I have always endeavoured in my correspondence with your Highness to write frankly and openly so that misunderstandings may be avoided. Your Highness will, I hope, recognise that this is my object on this occasion.”
From the Amir of Afghanistan to the address of His Excellency the Viceroy, dated September 12, 1897.
(After compliments.)
“I beg to inform your Excellency that I have received your friendly letter of the 6th instant. The Mullah will not come to this country of mine, because he has acted wrongly, and, should he still come, I will expel him from my country, so that he may go towards Arabia, because he is a very wicked person. Your Excellency’s troops, however, should not advance too far (lit. should not make a great advance), lest some confusion arise within the limits of Kunar or among the troops which are in Kunar. The Mullah is a great knave. He should not be allowed to (lit. let it not be that he might) excite the people and troops of Ningrahar. Precaution is necessary, so that the Army of the Sublime Government may not raise commotion and tumult in the neighbourhood, and the Mullah excite the people and be the source of disturbances.
“As regards the remaining portion of the undemarcated boundary of that district, your Excellency states that Jarobi is possibly within Afghan limits. As up to this time no decision has been come to in regard to those places, it will, undoubtedly, be as your Excellency has written.”