The New York herald., 1922-10-15

betfcal order, since to mention them
In any less neutral order of precedence
might be asking for trouble. For if you
happen to be staying at the Tai Mahal
in Bombay you will learn at once that
Bombay is the greatest city in the Indian
Empire and that Calcuttas day is ended.
And if you happen to be stopping at the
Great Eastern in Calcutta you will dis
cover that Greater Calcutta, including
Howrah on the Brooklyn side of the
Hoogly. is not only the greatest city in
India but always has been, and that Bonn
bay is a youngster which some day may
grow up into a right good little town. To
be quite neutral all that an outsider can
really say of them is that both are great
cities and both are uncertain in their own
minds whether they belong to the East or
the West
But there are no such uncertainties at
Jamrud While the great city of Calcutta
lies 1000 miles due east as the crow flies
from the great city of Bombay, Jamrud
which is no city at all, lies 1900 miles due
north from Bombay at the very top of the
map, although the Bombay -Baroda and
North Western lines cover some 100 miles
in reaching it via Delhi and then drop their
passengers at Peshawar, a dozen miles be-
low Jamrud From Peshawar to Jamrud
the Army operates the railroad and civil
ian traffic is not encouraged
Jamrud is railhead. What railhead
means may not be readily comprehended
by those whose lives are not pinned to
railhead. Jamrud station, for instance
consists of platform with hut at which
Army movement orders are stamped. and
low square station building near by,
with no windows but loopholes. with 10
stairways but a ladder outside which may
be drawn up, with simple door but
massive IRON n-bound gate which admits to
q walled courtyard within. And if it has
a telephone, it also has a wireless; if
uniforms are issued to its staff, rifles are
also issued to them: and if the thud of a
bullet the wall outside wakes them in
the night occasionally it indicates that
somebody's shutter is loose and a bar of
light is visible from without. There is no
uncertainty in Jamrud's mind whether it
belongs to the East or the West Its for
tress-station belongs to the West and all
the rest of it belongs to the East.
Jamrud confronts the Khyber Pass. a
narrow cut through that crowd of sun
flogsed hills which sit in sullen silence
with their knees hunched up, looking down
on the northwest frontier of India. The
northwest frontier province contains the
only uncOnquered territory remaining on
the Indian peninsula. II is a No Mans
Land across which all of Indias numerous
Invaders have descended TO India's fat
plains. until that day when the British
committed the miracle of entering India
from across the seas. To-day, however,
Czarist Russia is dead, Afghanistan is on
its good behavior. and only the Khyber
Pass retains an actual military value
Across the rest of the frontier province.
no problem remains except that of pro-
tecting the heavy caravan traffic and the
cis-fronter villages from raids-only that
and nothing more.
Aymies are very old and by this time
there is hardly any emergency which they
have not rehearsed at maneuvers. There
is hordly any country which they have
not mapped, hardly any frontier in which
they have not built up a body of tried
and proven doctrine But the northwest
frontier of India is still the Sphinx OF all
the frontiers. Possibly ten years ago it was
the most important frontier in the world.
Certainly to-day it is the most insoluble.
The frontier province is a long strip of
country between the Indus River and the