Early in June the bulk of the troops composing the force returned to India, but some remained until the end of November in occupation of Seri and Oghi and of the crest of the Black Mountain.
In these operations—which cost us nine killed and thirty-nine wounded—we had a larger coalition against us than in any other expedition, with the exception of the Ambela outbreak of 1863 and the Pathan revolt of 1897.
In March 1892 the Hassanzais and Mada Khels broke the engagement into which they had entered with the British Government, by permitting Hashim Ali to return to their country and settle at Baio; and accordingly in October a force of 6250 men and two guns, organised in two brigades, advanced from Darband under Major-General Sir William Lockhart. The Indus was crossed at Marer, and on the 6th October the two brigades advanced on Baio—the First Brigade from Wale and the Second Brigade from Manjakot. Baio was found deserted, and was destroyed, as was also Doba, a Mada Khel village. Demolitions were also carried out in Manja Kot, Karor, Garhi and Nawekili, and the force was back on the 11th October at Darband, where it was broken up. None of the tribesmen offered any resistance, and there were no casualties, but the troops suffered a good deal from fever and also from cholera.
Since this expedition the Black Mountain clans and their neighbours have given no serious trouble.
The clansmen occupying the British border from the Black Mountain to the Utman Khel territory belong, with the exception of the Gaduns, to the important tribe of Yusafzai Pathans, of which the Hassanzais, Akazais and Chagarzais, already described, are also branches.
The Yusafzais inhabit the division of that name in the Peshawar district, as well as independent territory beyond the border. They are the descendants of the original Gandhari, who in ancient days occupied the Peshawar Valley, emigrating thence to the Helmand in the fifth century, and becoming fused with the Afghans of Ghor. In the fifteenth century, owing to pressure, the Yusafzais migrated with other tribes northwards to Kabul, and from thence in the sixteenth century into the Peshawar Valley, where they acquired the plain country north of the Kabul River and west of Mardan. Meanwhile, the Mohmands of the Ghoria Khel had followed the Yusafzais, and they in turn defeated the Dilazaks—whom the Yusafzais had already dispossessed of their lands—and forced them into the present Yusafzai plain, in the north-east corner of the Peshawar Valley. The Yusafzais then, with the help of other tribes, drove the Dilazaks across the Indus into Hazara. The Yusafzais, with the Utman Khel and Tarkanris, now settled themselves in the Yusafzai plain, and during the next few years these three tribes made themselves masters of all the hill country along that border, from the Indus to the range separating the Bajaur and Kunar Valleys. In a later division of the country the Tarkanris took Bajaur; the Utman Khel the Swat Valley up to the junction of that river with the Panjkhora; while the Yusafzais occupied all the hills to the east as far as the Indus, including Lower Swat, Buner, Chamla and the Peshawar Valley east of Hastnagar and north of the Kabul River. At the present time the Yusafzais inhabit the north-east of the Peshawar district, or the Yusafzai plain, Swat, Buner, Panjkhora, and several strips of independent territory north and east of the Peshawar Valley. They have also considerable settlements to the east of the Indus as we have seen.