CHAPTER XX
THROUGH KHYBER PASS WITH THE CARAVANS
NE who reads much of British and Anglo-Indian print learns that the Indian Empire is not only bounded on the north by the Himalayas and their continuation, the Hindu Kush, but that running with these lofty boundaries are artificial, imaginary lines marking the administrative, the defensive, the strategic, political, geographic, actual, military, temporary, and prospective frontiers. Then, too, says Lord Curzon (London Times, December 20, 1894): "Our frontier must be, not hypothetical, fluctuating, adventitious, but definite, recognizable, scientific," adding yet more to the list of qualitative adjectives commonly applied to the word frontier—never meaning anything, however, but the northwest frontier, in Anglo-Indian speech. One might naturally wish to see the region of such an aggregation of frontiers, where boundaries run like contour-lines on a topographic map—the wavering, imaginary lines upon the earth's Asiatic surface, for which, and to which, literally, millions of lives have been sacrificed—expressions of an "idea" for which many more lives must be given.
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