THE ENCOUNTER UN THE BUDDHIST ROAD. 471 the"North Camp," about half a mile away to the northward. The headquartersof the brigade were in the Crater Camp, which containedthe lines of the 45th Sikhs and the 24th Punjaub Infantry. The nthBengalLancers, a mountain battery, the 31st Punjaub Infantry, and the transport werein the North Camp. It was connected by telegraph with the small fort on one of the knolls overlooking the Crater Camp, which was the citadel of the position. It was on this, the southern camp, that the main onset of the tribesmenwas about to break.

whenLieutenant Climo, at the had of a company of thePunjaubis, charged and drove them out at the bayonet's point. Climo heldon there till near eleven o'clock, whenhe had to fall back on the Engineers' lines. These formed the centre of the camp,and here thegreater part of the regiment had rallied, fired upon from the surrounding knolls and ridges, and so hard pressed by the swordsmen that the general himself and his staff took part in the defence with sword and revolver. The guard house, heldby Lieutenant Watling and a companyof Engineers, was stormed, the lieutenant being badly wounded. There was a reservesupply ot ammunition in the place, and it was resolved to retain it. The general, Captain Holland, Lieutenants Climo and Manley, R.E., with less than twenty men, recaptured it after three attempts, in which half the party were killed and wounded. The tribesmen had, however, carried off the cartridge boxes. Holland was shot during the fight, and General Meiklejohn himself had a narrow escape, his neck being bruisedby a blow from the flat of a sword, which happily was wieldedby an unskilful hand.

The advance of the enemy on the Buddhist road was checked by the prompt action of ColonelMcCrae. While the menin camp were turning out, the Colonel, with Major Taylor and just twenty ofhis Sikhs, ran off to a point where the roadturnsasharp corner andenters anarrow rock cutting. He reached the defile just in time. Up through the darkness in front, half heard,half seen, surged a massof overa thousand fanaticalswordsmen. McCrae halted his handful of men and sent volley after volley into the crowd, effectually checking their advance.

The tribesmen halted, yelling their war-cries, and firing some random shots. Some of them workedtheir wayup the hillon the flank of the party and began to roll down stones McCrae retired slowly along the defile. Several of his men werekilled, Taylor was mortally mounded, he himself had receiveda severe stab by accident with a bayonet. After twenty minutes' hard fighting the first reinforcement arrived, thirty men under Lieutenant Barfs, who reported that the rest of the regiment was near at hand. McCrae then fell back to the next ridge, and held on there till the enemy gaveup the attack four hours later. "There is no doubt," wrote General Meiklejohnin his official report," that the gallantresistance made by this small body in the gorge against vastly superior numbers till the arrivalof the rest of the regiment saved the camp from being rushed on that side, andI cannot speak too highly of the behaviour ot Lieutenant-Colonel McCrae and Major Taylor on this occasion."

Another of the few white menin the garrison had a more wi.iulcrli.vr .cape. Lieutenant L. Manley,of the CommissBHaiTT'epartnient,wasin a hut with Sergeant Harrington when the camp wasrushed. They triedto keep the door closed against the tribesmen, but it was burst in. Manley drewhis revolver and shot the first man who entered, but he was then cut down by a swordsman, andhacked to pieces by others as he lay on the ground. In the rush the lamp in the hut was broken, and Harrington,who was unarmed, found himselfalone in the dark with the swordsmen. He knocked down two or three ol them, and then getting free of them stoodsilent and motionless in a corner. They groped for him along the walls, their hands just missing him. More than once he thought they had found him. At last, supposing he had escaped in the confusion, they left the hut, where he remained hid till later in the night the commissariat lines were retaken by the garrison. A Victoria Cross was won by LieutenantCostello, of the 24th Punjaubis, who about one a.m., hearing a wounded man crying for help on the open ground near the bazaar, went out and brought him in,though the place was swept by rifle fire, and the enemy's swordsmen were prowlingaboutin the darkna Butother attacks of the enemyhadmeanwhilebeen less successfully met. The North Camp had been attacked, and a great body of tribesmen had broken into the Crater Camp by the military road. Thepiquets of the24thPunjaubis on the road,near the watercourse to the left of it,were driven in by sheer weight of numbers. The first check the enemy received was at the camp bazaar. Theyhad just rushed the place At 2.30 a.m.- the garrison of the camp was so exhausted by continuous fighting, anel had lost