The universal detestation of Afghan rule has, no doubt, greatly assisted us to gain the confidence of the Turis. Our advance into the Kurram Valley was hailed with delight. “There can be no doubt,” wrote Major Collett, “that the people in the Kurram Valley were glad to see us, and that, smarting, as they then were, under Sher Ali’s late exactions, they regarded General Roberts’ troops as deliverers from an oppressive Government.” During the operations in the valley the Turis furnished transport and supplies, and a levy was raised among them of from 350 to 400 men under their own Maliks. Prior to our withdrawal in 1880 the tribe made a formal petition to the Indian Government that they should for the future be independent of Kabul. This request was granted, but the experiment then instituted of managing, unaided, their own affairs did not prove a success. Faction fighting broke out, and for a long period complete anarchy prevailed, and, finally, in 1893 we occupied the Kurram Valley. In the Turis we now possess a true and loyal race occupying a country of great strategical advantages.
The Turis helped our troops against the Zaimukhts in 1879, and against the Chamkannis, twenty years later. They stood by us, too, in the troublous year of 1897, and their eagerness for the fray when hostilities first broke out, is thus described in an Indian newspaper of that date: “The road into Sadda, on the 3rd and 4th September, presented a most extraordinary sight. On the 3rd, before the news of the advance of reinforcements had been confirmed by letter, bands upon bands of friendly Turis, horse and foot, could be seen making their way from Upper Kurram to Sadda, and other points likely to be attacked in Lower Kurram. The big attack was expected on the night of the 3rd September; all these men were going down to help to beat off the common enemy; they all gladly responded to the call of the Political Officer, and every village sent a contingent, just as they would have done in the old days before we took over the safe custody of the valley. Many an old raider’s heart must have beat quicker as he thought of the past, when he had ridden forth in just the same way on some foray far across the border. Breech-loaders were very scarce, but two-thirds of the men had jazails, and all of them had the long Pathan knife stuck through their kummerbunds, while here and there was a revolver or pistol, the latter generally of native workmanship. To look at their merry faces, one would have imagined they were off to a wedding or other tamasha, and not going to fight against odds for hearth and home. The Turi cavalry, especially, took things with evident lightness of heart. Here and there a grass _chupli_ would be stuck up in the middle of the road, and the next minute it was to be seen at the end of a lance, high in the air.... The following day they were to be seen returning to their homes; the arrival of reinforcements in the very nick of time had made their presence no longer necessary in Lower Kurram.”