Mr. Ibbetson wrote of the Pathan in 1881: “The true Pathan is perhaps the most barbaric of all the races with which we are brought into contact in the Punjab.... He is bloodthirsty, cruel and vindictive in the highest degree; he does not know what truth or faith is, insomuch that the saying _Afghan be iman_ (_i.e._ an Afghan is without conscience) has passed into a proverb among his neighbours; and though he is not without courage of a sort, and is often curiously reckless of his life, he would scorn to face an enemy whom he could stab from behind, or to meet him on equal terms if it were possible to take advantage of him, however meanly. It is easy to convict him out of his own mouth; here are some of his proverbs: ‘a Pathan’s enmity smoulders like a dung fire’; ‘a cousin’s tooth breaks upon a cousin’;[1] ‘keep a cousin poor but use him’; ‘when he is little play with him; when he is grown up he is a cousin, fight him’; ‘speak good words to an enemy very softly; gradually destroy him root and branch.’ At the same time he has a code of honour which he strictly observes, and which he quotes with pride under the name of _Pukhtunwali_. It imposes on him three chief obligations—_Nanawatai_, or the right of asylum, which compels him to shelter and protect even an enemy who comes as a suppliant; _Badal_, or the necessity for revenge by retaliation; and _Mailmastai_, or openhanded hospitality to all who may demand it. And of these three perhaps the last is the greatest. And there is a charm about him, especially about the leading men, which almost makes one forget his treacherous nature. As the proverb says—‘the Pathan is one moment a saint, and the next a devil.’ For centuries he has been, on our frontier at least, subject to no man. He leads a wild, free, active life in the rugged fastnesses of his mountains; and there is an air of masculine independence about him which is refreshing in a country like India. He is a bigot of the most fanatical type, exceedingly proud and extraordinarily superstitious.” Holdich says of the Pathan that “he will shoot his own relations just as soon as the relations of his enemy—possibly sooner—and he will shoot them from behind. Yet the individual Pathan may be trusted to be true to his salt and to his engagements.”