On the 5th the force arrived, unopposed, at Kaniguram, remaining there until the 8th, and receiving the expression of a desire for peace from the Mahsud maliks, but nothing satisfactory was arranged. On the 9th a move was then made to Makin, which was reached with but little opposition on the following day. Next to Kaniguram, Makin is the most important and best built town in the Mahsud country, the seat of their iron trade; it is situated at the point where the mountains of Shuidar and Pirghal close in upon each other, a spur from each forming its northern and southern face. As the Mahsuds still failed to come to terms, towers were destroyed and villages burnt; but the state of the supplies rendering it impossible for the force to remain longer in the country, the General directed the return march on Bannu to commence on the 12th. Moving by Razmak, Razani and Saroba, on the 20th Bannu was reached, and the force was broken up.
Although the operations had been successful, they had not resulted in the submission of the Mahsud Wazirs; the tribe was therefore put under blockade, thus inflicting increased financial loss on them, and at last in June 1862 they gave in, agreed to the principle of sectional responsibility for outrages committed, and gave hostages, but they had hardly concluded this treaty before they broke it.
The next sixteen years form a continuous record of raids on the Bannu and Dera Ismail Khan borders; attacks on posts, cattle-lifting, highway robbery, abduction, murder and wounding. The offenders were punished when they could be met with, and the divisions and sections to which they belonged were made to suffer for their misdeeds; blockades were imposed, additional posts were built for the overawing of the Mahsud Wazirs, service was offered to them in the frontier militia, and at last, in 1878, it was reported that the Tank border had never before been in so settled a condition, or life and property so secure. Within a year, however, the peace of this part of the frontier was rudely broken by a raid on a large scale and of a particularly audacious character.
Descent upon Tank
About Christmas 1878 rumours of an intended attack upon Tank reached the local authorities, and precautions were accordingly taken. All the posts on this border were doubled, and in some of the more important the strength of the garrison had been trebled, so that when, on New Year’s Day 1879, the attack, instigated by emissaries of the Amir Sher Ali, actually commenced, nearly half the available force in the district was concentrated in the Tank Valley. All the villages had also been warned.
On the 1st January, however, the Mahsuds descended from their hills to the number of between 2000 and 3000, brushed aside the opposition met with from the post at the mouth of the pass, and, descending upon Tank, burnt the bazaar and many houses, and finally regained the hills before they could be intercepted, carrying off a considerable amount of property with them.
The Mahsuds engaged in this affair belonged chiefly to the Alizai clan; but men from all the country round, within and without our border, joined the marauders, being unable to resist so unusually favourable an opportunity for fomenting disorder and obtaining plunder, and lawless and predatory bands destroyed and robbed several border villages.
The news of the outrage did not reach Dera Ismail Khan until the morning of the 2nd, when a force of cavalry and infantry at once moved out to Tank, came up with some clansmen about four miles from that place, took a number of prisoners, recovered a certain amount of plunder, and reached Tank the following night, having marched nearly fifty miles. During the next fortnight minor operations were carried out from Tank and from the border posts with the comparatively small force available, and the enemy were everywhere driven from the positions they took up and suffered considerable loss, order being eventually restored on this border. All the local tribesmen implicated in the recent attacks had now been punished, with the exception of the Mahsuds, and these were offered certain terms for acceptance, failing which a punitive expedition was to be sent into their country so soon as a favourable opportunity should occur. Meanwhile a strict blockade was enforced.
In March 1880 the Mahsuds, stirred up by the preachings of a fanatical mullah, commenced hostilities against the British Government, and collected up the Tank stream within ten miles of our border. A force was at once—on 5th April—moved out from Dera Ismail Khan (3 guns, 50 sabres, 300 bayonets) and marched to Tank. The Mahsuds could not make up their minds where their blow should fall, and many consequently returned to their homes, while the remainder, moving south, attacked the town of Gomal, but, being driven off, dispersed. As it was apparent that the Batannis of Jandola had given passage to this raiding party, the Dera Ismail Khan force advanced on Jandola from Kot Khirgi on the morning of the 12th, forced the Hinis Tangi and, having destroyed Jandola, returned unopposed to Tank.
Renewed Outrages