ABSTRACT
This chapter resumes the story of relations with the Mahsuds which was broken off at the end of chapter three. At the end of the 1860s, it may be recalled, the Mahsuds were still causing considerable difficulties, and the British responded by creating new frontier posts. This was viewed as a challenge and the tribesmen reacted aggressively, and in response the Bahlolzais and Shaman Khels were barred from British territory. In 1871 Colonel Alexander Munro became the Derajat Commissioner, and Captain Charles Macaulay took over as Deputy Commissioner of the Dera Ismail Khan District.2 Macaulay, 'a fine upstanding figure of a man, blue-eyed and fair-haired5, was then thirty-two years old.3 He had already served in the Awadh campaign of 1858-9 and then with the First Sikh Cavalry in the China expedition of 1860, in which he took part in the occupation of Beijing. Severely wounded in China at he had been awarded medals for both campaigns. A nephew of Lord Macaulay, he proved to be one of the most energetic and creative frontier officers of this period.4
