It is true that the main nullahs show thin trickles, but these are always impregnated with saltpetre, and it is fatal to drink them. This, of course, is the reason why the level alluvial patches along the nullah beds are not cultivated. It is indeed a work of Tantalus to walk mile after mile on a redhot summer day along these saline streams, to hear them rippling over their stones and feast the eye on their coolness, and know that one may not slake one's thirst at them or refill the sadly depleted waterbottles.

I always welcomed the occasion which took me into these austere hills, despite the hardships which the journeys always involved. Their loneliness, their utter detachment from

the

civilised world to which I belonged, the joy of striking out new paths, the sense of adventure, all made a strong appeal. Quite apart from such rare visions of beauty as the Zarwanni Pass, they offered much to please the eye. The colour effects of rock and sun in the early mornings and the evenings were often of a quite superb quality, and in themselves were recompense enough for any trouble taken to see them. And individual scenes stand out clearly from the many memories which crowd into the mind.

One evening we were going down towards the plains, hoping to reach Luni Post during the night. We had halted by the edge of a deep basin, ringed

round by low hills-a place where a lake would have been found in the Northern English or Scottish Highlands. In the middle of the ridge to the west there was a sharp cleft, and as we rested the sun sank until it reached the gap. Then, like a shining ethereal liquid the golden sunlight poured through into the basin until it seemed as though it would spill over and flow down the slope and bring back the fast-vanishing day.

The sepoys hated these hills, not because they were dangerous, since that troubled them not at all, but because they were well-known to be the haunts of fairies. In 1915 we started out from Manjhi for two days in No Man's Land. At the end of that time, as we had noticed certain signs of Mahsud presence in our neighbourhood, I decided to lie up above the head of the Zarwanni and see if the Mahsuds would walk into our trap. Our food was exhausted, so I sent a naik and two men to buy chupattis and onions in Gumal village, with which we could make shift for two more days. We waited and waited for the sepoys to return with the provisions, but in vain. At last, hungry and savage, we descended into the plains and found the men waiting with the food all complete. I asked the naik what he meant by not coming up to us, and he replied, "We tried to get to you, sahib, but the fairies threw stones at us and drove us back."

The last time I was in No Man's Land was in May 1916, when I went out with a strong company to search for a practicable route from the Sheranna Nullah southwards to Zarkanni Post. These hills have been only roughly surveyed, and the map is therefore not quite accurate. For a few miles, however, it served us well enough, and we went forward at a good pace. Then suddenly we came upon a deep rift in the hills, a regular cañon, running due east and west, right across our track. Its sides were far too steep to admit of a descent into its bed, so we started to follow its course, hoping to find a practicable crossing higher up. The going was extraordinarily bad, and we had to make continual detours, for ever forcing a way through thick belts of thorntrees and scrub. At the end of the afternoon we were still on the wrong side of the ravine, and as we were tired out by our hard marching in the pitiless heat of the May day-and only those who have served in Waziristan know what this means, I decided to bivouac for the night. The splintered peak of an isolated hill gave us a good camping-ground. From it we could see far and wide over the sad and lonely land. Not another living thing shared our solitude, and the scrape of a foot on the rock or the tinkle of a falling stone seemed like an insult to the genius of the stricken spot. We were astir long before sunrise to continue

our search for a crossing. The sun had risen high by the time I decided to leave the ravine and make for the Loe Sheranna to see if it opened into that.

We struck north, and got into the Sheranna near its junction with the Loe Sheranna. Suddenly the picket signalled down to us to halt. I crept up to see what was happening. The Loe Sheranna lay in front of me, and the N.C.O. in charge of the picket said that he had seen a man go to ground in the rocks on its far side. The incident well exemplified the marvellous keenness of the transborder Pathan's vision. The rocks were a good eight hundred yards away, yet the picket had seen a man drop to cover among them as he too had seen the slight movement of the sepoys.

We debouched into the main nullah with all precautions, and extended widely. In front of us was the wide level bed, from which, four hundred yards to the right, rose a lofty isolated mass of rock. Away in front of us were the hills at the base of which the man had been seen. We had only gone a few yards when from the far side of the nullah a burst of well-aimed fire knocked up the sand and pebbles all around us. As we replied to this, another party of the enemy opened on us from the rocks on our right. Leaving a strong picket to keep the Sheranna open and to guard our rear, I swung round towards the rocks, but the others declined to

await our coming, and dashed back to their main body, getting well peppered on the way. On the rocks I left another strong picket who managed to fire into the enemy with some effect, for our farther advance was almost unopposed, and when we arrived at the position we found it empty, save for a man lying with his thigh broken by a bullet. From him we learnt that our opponents had suffered about a dozen casualties, but the other wounded had managed to get away with the help of their companions. He quickly recovered his spirits when he saw

that we had no intention of cutting his throat.

We pressed on for a little way in pursuit, but could not venture far into that wild unknown country. From a high point I looked north and west to the farthest verge of No Man's Land. Range beyond tumbled range the hills rose, a friendless lifeless land, until they merged into the slopes which rose to where, through the wicked dance of the heat haze, I could dimly see the great head of the Takht-iSuleiman serene in the coolness of its eleven thousand feet of height.

OLD Joe Gagné was a splendid old rascal. He was seventy years old, slim, wiry, blackhaired, and unstooping; and continuous exposure to the sun and all kinds of weather had turned his face to brown parchment. He was quite illiterate and fearfully dirty in person and habits, but his great force of character and the remembrance of his father's and grandfather's good service to the firm (the family seemed to go back to the French Régime at least) made it difficult for the woods manager to pension the old devil off. So he was made caretaker of a small depôt of tools and provisions intended for the next winter's logging work; it was thought that here, with some hens to keep and the dam to fish in and the bush-telephone to gossip over in the evenings, he would be happy, and could do little harm beyond poisoning occasional portageurs who looked in at the depôt for a meal. And portageurs take a lot of poisoning!

At the same time, the local

I.

Fire Protective Association 1 required a permanent guardian to check the travel-permits of persons entering the forest by the road which passed this depôt. Bonhomme Gagné being ready to their hand, they enrolled him as a garde-feu, told him to turn back any and every person who attempted to cross the bridge without a permit, and instructed him in the other (simple) duties of his post. These he understood perfectly, being a clever old man; and he was not at all ill-pleased with his ranger's badge and the authority that it carried with it.

For the upper parts of Bonhomme Gagné's road a moving patrol was required, to catch any one who might slip past his vigilance, and more particularly to prevent smoking or the lighting of fires on the part of authorised travellers, such as the portageurs aforementioned. The choice fell upon one Joe Proulx, another old servant of the lumber firm: red-faced and stout but vail