The _Kuki Khel_ number some 5600 fighting men, and occupy the Rajgal valley and the eastern end of the Khyber Pass, as far as the Rohtas Hill, which overhangs the fort at Ali Musjid, and also the Bezai Spur—a long underfeature which flanks, but at a considerable distance, the latter part of the railway and road from Peshawar to Fort Jumrud. This clan has a bitter feud with the Zakha Khel, and is Gar in politics.
The _Malikdin Khel_ is the Khan Khel or head clan of the Afridis, and is closely connected with the Kambar Khel, their settlements in Maidan, Chora and Kajurai lying together. In Maidan they occupy the central and northern portion of the valley—Bagh, the recognised meeting place of the Afridi Jirgahs, “where the Khyber raid and Afridi rebellion of 1897–98 were planned, and where fanaticism, intrigue and sedition have always been hot-bedded and nourished,” being in their country. The Malikdin Khels number some 6000 fighting men, and are Samil in politics.
The _Kambar Khel_ is numerically the most powerful of all the Afridi clans, being able on emergency to put 10,000 armed men in the field; they belong to the Gar political faction. This clan is very migratory, occupying in the hot weather the Kahu Darra and the valley of the Shalobar River, which joins the Bara River at Dwatoi, and moving in the winter to the Kajurai Plain and to other minor settlements. This clan is very strongly represented in the Indian Army and Border Militia.
The _Kamrai_ or _Kumar Khel_ form but a small clan, Samil in politics, having its settlements in the extreme west of the Bara Valley, and also moving down to the Kajurai Valley to the west of Peshawar in the winter months. Their fighting men number no more than about 800.
The _Zakha Khel_ owe their undoubted importance to their geographical position in Afridi-land, rather than to the number of armed men they can turn out—probably not less than 6000. Their holdings stretch diagonally across the Afridi country from the south-east corner of Maidan to the Khyber Pass; they are the wildest and most turbulent amongst their tribe, and their land being unproductive they depend a good deal upon raiding and blackmail for their livelihood, are “the wolves of the community,” and since—at any rate up to recent times—“they lent no soldiers to the ranks of the British army and had no pensions to lose,” the Zakha Khels have always been more ready to give trouble than the rest of their fellow-tribesmen. They hold, moreover, some five miles of the country lying on either side of the road in what Warburton calls “the real Khyber proper,” from the Shrine of Gurgurra (the sloe-tree)—where a small post is held by the Khyber Rifles—to Loargai in the Shinwari country. Of this shrine Warburton tells the following story of the manner in which the Zakha Khels managed to remove the reproach which had been levelled against them, _i.e._ that their country possessed none of the ziarats, or sacred shrines, to the memory of saints or martyrs. “The Zakha Khel Afridis,” writes Warburton, “bear a most unenviable name as being the greatest thieves, housebreakers, robbers and raiders amongst all the Khyber clans, their word or promise never being believed or trusted by their Afridi brethren without a substantial security being taken for its fulfilment. Naturally a race so little trusted were not fortunate enough to possess a holy man whose tomb would have served as a sanctuary to swear by, and thus save the necessity of the substantial security. One day, however, a Kaka Khel Mia came into their limits with the object of seeking safe conduct through their territory to the next tribe. They received him with all politeness, but finding in the course of conversation that he was of saintly character—a holy Kaka Khel Mia—they came to the conclusion that he was just the individual wanted to put their character for truthfulness on a better footing. They therefore killed him and buried him, making his tomb a shrine for all true believers to reverence, and a security for themselves to swear by.”