CHITRAL AND THE N.W. FRONTIER CAMPAIGN. 454 the Chitralis from the hill-slopes on the other side of the stream. With both flanks turned,the enemywas ready to go. The flight had actually begun, when the infantry and guns advanced, forded the river, and climbed the steep path beyond. The enemy were believed to have been between four and five hundred strong, armed with Sniders and Martinis. They lost between fifty and sixty men. The victors had only four wounded— a Madras Pioneer and three of the Kashmir sappers.

zags, down one side and up the other, near its junction with the river; and at the other end of the line, on the enemy's left, where the stream issues from the hill,there is a mere goat track. Both crossings were barrels by sungars, and the goat track was further protected by stone shoots on the slope above. Besides these two sungars there were sixteen others,each witha garrisonof 80 or 100 riflemen. The attack hoped tofind a wayacross at somepoint between the two paths.

While the levies were sent to the hills onthe right to try to get across the head of the ravine, theguns and the infantry opened from the plain upon the sungars at short range. Beynon and Oldham,of the Engineers, slipped out in front of the firing and,creeping to the edge of the ravine,examinedwhat seemeda likelyplace, and reported a possible crossing. For anyone but a practised mountaineer it would have been hopeless. One had to go downa sheer precipicefor seventy feet by sliding downa rope;then,by a short ladder,a ledge was reached, from which it waspossible to climb down to the stream at the bottomof the ravine. Up the other sideran in zigzags a goat track, only practicable for great part of its length by working along on hands and knees. While Oldham, with eleven of his Kashmir sappers, clambered down andbegan to improvethepath,Beynon went back to give the wordto Moberlyandhis Kashmirs to follow,and then, accompaniedby his native orderly, joined Oldham in the gully. A heavy fire was directed by Kelly's men on its further side in order to preventthe enemycoming to the edgeandfiring down on the storming part}-. The two officers, the orderly and the sappers, climbed to the opposing brink of the gully in safety. Then Moberly joined them, but for a few anxious minutes his men did not appear. It was no fault of theirs ; thepath hadbeen blocked by an accident. The little party that had got across gathered behind some rocks and openedsire on theChitralis,assistedby the rifles of their friends on the other side. Almost at the same moment the nativelevies succeededin crossingtheravine higher up, near the hills, and once more the enemy, on finding what they had thought an inaccessible barrier had been passed, abandoned all their defences and fled down the valley. The fight had lasted two hours, and what,ifproperly held, wouldhave been an impregnable position had been stormedby aninferior force with a loss ofsix killed and sixteen wounded. The enemy's loss was sixtykilled and 100 wounded.

The first result of this splendidlittle fight was the reliefof Mastuj, which was reached the same afternoon. Lieutenant Moberly had 250 men with him in the fort, Kashmir Imperial troops, a few Sikhs, and fifty Punial levies. He had brought in from Buni,LieutenantJones and the survivors of Ross's party, before he washimself besieged. At Mastuj, Kelly was joined by his second detachment, so that nearly 800 fighting men were assembled in and around the fort. Reconnaissancessent out fromthesort onthenth and 12th showed that the enemy held a strong position between sour and five miles further downthe valley, barring the route to Chitral,at a place known as Nisa Gol. It is supposed to be the same place as"Nysa," where Alexanderthe Great turnedback fromhis attempt to reach the Kashmir regionby following the Mastuj Valley.

At Nisa Gol the river runs under the cliffs and steepslopes on the south side of the valley. On itsother bank there is a stonyplain less than a mile wide,from which again the slopesrise precipitously. From this mountain wall a small streamruns to the river,cutting out for itself a deepravine withalmostperpendicularsides, that forms a barrier right across the plain. This ravine is over 200 feet deep, and looks like a trench dug out by giants to close the pass. The Chitralis had erected breastworks along its western side, and from these and sungars on the precipitous rocks to right and left they could sweep with rifle fire the plain, across which lay the only possible approach.

The defenders of the Nisa Gol were some 1,500 strong. Against them Colonel Kelly advanced with about 600 men— namely, 382 Pioneers under Borrodaile, Stewart's mountain guns,Oldham's 34 Kashmir sappers, 100 Kashmirrifles under Moberly, drawn from the Mastuj garrison, and 100 of the Hunza and Punial levies. Ladders and ropes had been provided for thepassing of the Nisa Gol ravine. There were two regular crossings. The path from Mastuj to Chitral runs across it by steep zig-The Chitralis rallied in the terrible Koragh