PATHAN  , the name applied throughout

India to the Afghans, especially to those permanently settled in the country and to those dwelling on the borderland . It is apparently derived from the Afghan name for their own language, Pushtu or Pukhtu, and may be traced back to the Paktues of Herodotus . In Igor the total number of Pathans in all India was nearly 31 millions, but the speakers of Pushtu numbered less than l t millions . The name is frequently, but incorrectly, applied to the Mahommedan dynasties that preceded the Moguls at Delhi, and also to the style of architecture employed by them; but of these dynasties only the Lodis were Afghans . The Pathans of the Indian borderland inhabit the mountainous country on the Punjab frontier, stretching northwards from a line drawn roughly across the southern border of the Dera Ismail Khan district . South of this line are the Baluchis . The Pathans include all the strongest and most warlike tribes of the North-West frontier of India, such as the Afridis, Orakzais, Waziris, Mohmands, Swatis and many other clans . Those in the settled districts of the North-West Frontier Province (in 1901) numbered 883,779, or more than two-fifths of the population . Each of the principal divisions is dealt with separately in this work under its tribal name . The Pathans are split up into different tribes, each tribe into clans, and each clan into sections, so that the nomenclature is often very puzzling . The tribe, clan and section are alike distinguished by patronymics formed from the name of the common ancestor by the addition of the word zai or khel; zai being a corruption of the Pushtu word we, meaning son, while khel is an Arabic word meaning an association or company . Both terms are used indifferently for both the larger and smaller divisions .

Pathans enlist largely in the native

army of India; and since the frontier risings of 1897 they have been formed with increasing frequency into class-regiments and regiments of native militia . They make excellent soldiers . The greater partof the Pathan country was placed under British political control by the Durand agreement made with the Amir of Afghanistan in 1893 .