433 CHAPTER I.

THE HUNZA-NAGAR VALLF.V IN the story of the reconquest of the Soudan we have seen how British officers led Egyptian and Soudanese troops to victory in the deserts of Africa. We are now to follow the course of even more arduous campaigns carried on by the Indian army under the same leadership among the mountains of Asia.

The scene of these wars with the hill tribes of the North-Western Frontier is oneof the wildestandmost difficult regionsin the world. Indiais cut off from Central Asia by a huge mountain barrier. Range beyond range of snow-capped giants rise to a height that would scarcely be equalled if the Pyrenees were piled upon the Alps. On the northwest the Indus,flowing down from a mountain valley between the Himalayan ridges, runs to the sea past the long spurs of another mountain wall that forms the eastern barrier of the Afghan highlands. All these ranges radiate from the tabs -land of the Pamirs, a region higher than Mont Blanc, whose desolate uplands are covered deep in snow and ice through the long winter. Tts valleys in the brief summer give pasturage to the flocks of a few shepherds. In the u 11,1er itsonly inhabitants are thehandful of inn soldiers who hold an isolated frontier post almost on the edge of the everlasting snow. 28