The Afridi country being bleak and sterile, and the rainfall but small, agriculture is only scantily pursued, although they raise a coarse kind of rice in the Bara Valley, a considerable amount of which finds its way to the Peshawar market. Some of the tribe also gain a precarious living by cutting and selling timber for firewood, but many of the clans possess great stock in cattle, cows, sheep and goats, and go in for breeding mules and donkeys, which are much thought of locally. Their chief manufactures are coarse mats and cloth, while in Maidan, at Ilmgudar near Fort Bara, and in the Kohat Pass there are factories which annually turn out a certain number of rifles.
The Afridi in appearance is generally a fine, tall, athletic highlander, whose springy step at once denotes his mountain origin. They are lean but muscular men, with long, gaunt faces, high noses and cheekbones, and rather fair complexions. Brave and hardy, they make good soldiers, but are apt to be somewhat homesick in the hot weather, and they have gained a greater reputation for fidelity as soldiers than in any other way. The Afridi has uniformly shown himself ready to enlist in our army, and at the present moment there are probably 4000 of this tribe serving in the ranks of the Indian army or in the Khyber Rifles. But since the Pathan is notoriously restless and dislikes expatriation, the average length of service is shorter than in the case of our other Indian soldiers; the result being that a greater number of trained soldiers from Pathan squadrons and companies annually pass back to their homes, than is the case with a proportionately larger establishment of any other race. While, therefore, their loyalty, while actually in our service and even during frontier expeditions against their own kinsmen, has been all that could be wished, it is not perhaps saying much—considering their normal family relations—that they should cheerfully fight for us against them. But, on the other hand, it can hardly be expected that men who have become again merged in their tribe, and who, according to their own ideas, are no longer bound to us by any obligation, should maintain an attitude of complete aloofness from any tribal movement prompted by racial feeling, or by that fanaticism which, on the border, has been defined as “a sentiment of religious intolerance excited into reckless action.” During the Tirah Campaign the number of pensioners and reservists who fought against our troops is believed to have been very large. As long ago as 1884 it was stated of the Afridis that “almost every fighting man possesses a gun or pistol, besides other arms; many of the firearms are rifled, and some have percussion locks.” To-day the armament of these tribesmen is far more complete and up-to-date,[102] and there can be no doubt that the fighting powers of the Afridis have increased during recent years to a very formidable extent. At the same time our powers of effectively dealing with them have increased in a still greater ratio. Our soldiers are more suitably trained for the particular warfare waged in these border hills; they are infinitely better armed; the services of transport and supply are more efficiently organised; the country of the independent tribesmen is more thoroughly known; the moral effect of uniformly successful expeditions—are all factors which more than counterbalance any accession of strength which the last twenty-five years have brought to the Afridis.