There are, at this date, some nine hundred Turis in the Kurram Militia. So assured is their loyalty that a systematic effort is now being made to arm them better. Their weapons are all registered, and means are available on the spot for arming the Turi lashkar on emergency.
CHAPTER XVII. WAZIRISTAN AND ITS TRIBES.[134]
On the annexation of the Punjab in 1849 by the Indian Government, and our consequent occupation of Kohat, the inhabitants of Waziristan became our neighbours for one hundred and forty miles along the boundary line—from the north-west corner of the Kohat district to the Gomal Pass west of Dera Ismail Khan. Waziristan, the frontier Switzerland, is in shape a rough parallelogram, averaging one hundred miles in length from north to south, with a general breadth of sixty miles from east to west; at the north-west corner a wedge of hilly country juts into the Kohat and Bannu districts. It is bounded on the west and north-west by Afghanistan; on the north-east and east by the British districts of Kurram, Kohat, Bannu and Dera Ismail Khan; and on the south by Baluchistan.
The two first named are the only Wazirs proper, and all four have but little in common with each other, and for many generations have been in a perpetual state of feud.
Bellew and Ibbetson are inclined to think that the Wazirs are a tribe of Rajput origin, and it is probable that ethnologically they are an Indian race with a large admixture of Scythian or Tartar blood. Their own traditions, however, represent them to be the descendants of Wazir, who was the son of Suleiman, who was the son of Kakai, himself the son of Karlan and grandson of Ghurghusht, so that they are usually described as being a tribe of Karlanri or Ghurghusht Pathans. From this common origin come the Wazirs, a title which properly includes both Darwesh Khel and Mahsuds, but the name Wazir has now been practically appropriated by the former. The ancient home of the Wazirs appears to have been in Birmal, in Afghanistan, whence they began to move eastward at the close of the fourteenth century, ousting the Khattaks from Shawal and the Kohat border north of the Tochi. In process of time they took possession of the mountainous region about Shuidar, and the whole country as far as the Gomal River, south of which but few of their settlements are to be found. The Darwesh Khel and Mahsuds differ greatly in habits and characteristics, and are practically separate tribes; but despite the enmity existing between them, their villages are much mixed up, and many of the leading men of each are connected by marriage.