470 CHAPTER VII.

THE RISING AT THE MALAKAND.

THE outbreak at Maizar seemed such a purely local disturbance that it caused little anxiety along the frontier. That it possessed no special importance and was no sign of coming trouble in other quarters seemed to be further indicated by the way in i which the other tribes of turbulent Wazi-!ristan held aloof from the Maddakhels, and by the collapse of their expected resistance to j Corrie Bird's advance. At the Malakand and / about Chakdara fort in the first weeksof July " there had been strange rumours of a miracle working Mullah— locally known as the Mad Mullah, orthe MadFakir— who was talking to the Swat country tribes of a comingHoly War. But these stories wereset down as empty bazaar gossip. A great rising against the " infidels" was in preparation, but up to the last moment the secret was wellkept by the tribesmen.

The first warningof the great rising of1897 came from a curious quarter. On the afternoon ofMonday,July 26th— the same day on which General Corrie Bird was busy blowing up the towers of Maizar— there was a polo match played by the officers of the Malakand garrison, at Khar, where the northern slope of the pass goes downto the Swat River. When the game was overand the native grooms were gettingthe ponies ready for the return to camp,some of the villagers whispered to them that they hadbetter get away home without delay, for there was going to be a fight. Little was thought of the warning at the time, although a message had come in earlier in the day telling of a small disturbance at Thana, opposite Chakdara fort, where the suspension bridge crosses the river. But early in the evening a number of the local levies employed on the military road arrivedin the camppanic stricken, and reporting that the Mullah was gathering the Swat tribesmen between Chakdara and the Malakand, andmeant to march on the Pass. Major Deane, the political officer of the district, and Brigadier-General Meiklejohn, commanding the Malakand Brigade,had aconsultation, as the resultof which a telegram was sent to Mardan requesting the Guides'Cavalry to comeup toreinforce the camp, andit was decided that a small columnshould marchat 3 a.m. from the Malakand and disperse the Mullah's gathering early next day. At 7 p.m. came news that the Mullah's force was actually on the move. It was then decided that thecolumnshould move out at midnight to hold a defile four miles to the northward, the Brigadier following at 3 a.m. with reinforcements. The troops to marchat midnight were to be the 45th Sikhs, two companies of the 31st Punjaub Infantry, two mountain guns,and a squadronof the nth Bengal Lancers, the whole under the command ofColonel McCrae of the Sikhs.

As yet no one took a serious viewof the disturbance. The generalimpression seems to have been that the troops would have to dealrather with a numerous body of rioters than with the vanguard of aninsurrection. Alittle before ten o'clock a native officer of the local levies came in with the news that the Mad Mullah had reached Khar, and that his followers were advancing on the camp by both the military road and the oldBuddhist pilgrim track, adding that the hillsides were swarming with armed men. No one had any idea that the enemy were so near. The coming attack was a complete surprise.

The bugles sounded the " Assembly." The officers, after completing their preparations for the march,were just finishing a late dinner when the buglecallrang out in the still mountain air. Even then they did not realise that danger was so close at hand. "Everyonesprang up," writes Lieutenant Spencer Churchill. " For a moment there was silence while the officers seized their swordsand belts and hurriedlyfastened them on. Several, thinking that it was merely the warning for the movable column to fall in, waited tolight their cigarettes. Then from many quarters the loud explosion of musketry burst forth, a sound which, for six days and nights, was to know no intermission.''

There are two camps at the Malakand, the southern or " Crater Camp,"in a hollow near the point where the two roads cross the ridge, and