CHITRAL AND THE N.W. FRONTIER CAMPAIGN. 442 naandecl access to the water by a small cutting, which had been roofed over to make it safer for the water-carriers. Walls, houses, and trees affordedcover for an attack close up to the fort, and its roof was exposed to fire at long range from the hills across the river. About a mile down the stream there was a bridge fortified with towers, which was held by a small detachment. On March 3rd, the morning brought another summons from Sher Afzul,and a little later came news that the enemy was only three miles away. So Robertson directed Captain Campbell, the military commandant ofhis escort, to move out with part of the garrison and reconnoitre the advance of the invaders. It was important to keep Sher Afzul at a respectful distance if possible, as the fort was not yet prepared for defence. Accordingly, in the afternoon, Campbell, with Captains Baird and Townshend andLieutenant Gurdon,movedout to the southwards with 200 of the Kashmir troops— about half the garrison. The enemy were met with on the right bank of the river belowthebridge,andBaird,who ledtheadvance, became closely engaged before he realised that his party were hopelessly outnumbered. The party retired to the fort, pursued through the gathering darkness by an enemy flushed with success, whooutflanked them and cut off some of the smallerdetachmentsfrom the main body. Allthat was left of the garrison, except40 men, turned out to cover the retreat. Robertson, whohadriddenwith thereconnaissance,narrow!' escaped death or capture. Baird was mortallv wounded; Campbell severely wounded in the knee. Two Kashmir officers, a general and a major, were shot dead, one on the right, the other on the left of Townshend, who assumed the command when Campbell fell. Our total loss was 22 killed and 36 wounded. As the result of the fight,thebridgehadto beabandoned and the garrison was closelybesiegedin the tort, which was now for fifty days cut off from all communicationwith the outer world.

recognisedhimasMehtar,buthadsubsequentlyto cancel the act andput his boy brother, Shuja-ul-Mulk,in his place, for Amir was found to be hopelessly weak,unpopular, and not altogether trustworthy. The commandant at Kila Drosh handed the fort over to Umra Khan without a show of resistance. Then Sher Afzul arrived from Cabul, doubtless let go by the Afghan Government, which wasjust thencausingendless trouble on the matter of frontier delimitation north ofthe Khyber. Afzul's arrivalwasfollowed by rapid desertions of the Chitralis to the invading army. Robertson had already occupied and provisionedthe Chitralsort as a precaution. He now found himself obliged to give up all hope that Amir-ul-Mulk would make a stand against Sher Afzul and UmraKhan. An offer to Sher Afzul to put his claims before the Indian Government on the ground that he was the ablest and most popular prince of the Chitrali ruling family was met by a summons from Afzul to Robertson, calling on him to recognise the new pretender as Mehtar, evacuate the fort, and send all his troops back toIndia except sixteen men. If this were done, Sher Afzul would be the friendof theIndian Government.

When things had reached this stage there wasnothingfor it but to prepare to holdout in Chitraltillhelpcouldcome from India. Retreat through the snowy passes in the face of a treacherous enemy would have meant destruction. Sher Afzul's summons was rejected as an impertinent act of defiance. He and his ally Umra Khan were warned that their best course would be to withdraw from the country. But the two chiefs evidently despised the smallforce opposed to them, and counted on being able to hold their ownevenagainst theIndian Government ;perhaps calculatingon ageneralrising of the tribes, and verylikely reckoning on delusive promises received from the Afghan Commanderin-Chief, Gholam Hyder Khan. Umra and Afzul advanced on Chitral fort in the first week of March,and thus war had come as the result of the murderous struggle for the throne of the little mountainState.

A gallant deed donein the fight of March ;rd must be here recorded. Captain Baird had been badly wounded. Surgeon-Captain YVhitchurch, who was with the party, placed him on a stretcher,and,protectedby a handful ofGoorkhas belonging to the Kashmir regiment, tried to get him back to the fort. Four of the stretcher bearers were shot down in succession, and the little party had by this time fallen behind and been cut off from the general line of retreat in the darkness. The stretcher or litter wasnow Dr. Robertson had an escort of 83 Sikhs and 310 Kashmiris, with 6 British officers. With himin the fort were a number of Chitralis who had thrown in their lot with Shuja-ul-Mulk, but who for the most part could not be thoroughly trusted. The fort was a small enclosure, with walls and towers of rough logs, strengthened with a kind of loose rubble lining. It stood on the bank of the Chitral River,and a tower com-