CHITRAL AND THE N.W. FRONTIER CAMPAIGN. 516 number of houses and towers from which the troopshad been firedon.

had twoof their officers hit, one of them (Lieutenant Jones) being killed, and the other wounded. Then the march along the defile began. The track was evenworse thanhadbeen anticipated. Often in single file, always ina long column,menandanimals stumbled andstruggled over the rocks, or splashed through the almost frozen mountain river, which was often waist deep. Again and again the enemy'srifles rang out from spurs of the hills in front, finding a broad mark in the crowdedgully. The general himself had more than one narrowescape. At last Dwatoi was reached,but so heavy was the fire from the ridges and precipices around that strongparties had to be pushed up every hill to keep the enemy at bay. The night came on, and it began to freeze hard, the thermometer dropping to within twelve degrees of zero. But the baggage was still struggling through the defile, escorted by Colonel Haughton and the 36th Sikhs. They did not reach Dwatoi till near dawn.

On the 2ist the rearguard finally evacuated Maidan Camp. The enemy at once rushed downto the deserted camping ground,but were driven off by some shells from the mountain guns. On tlae same morning General Gaselee's brigade destroyed about seventy towers round Bagh.

On the same day peace was concluded with the Aka Khel Afridis and some of the other clans whose submission had been refused at an earlier datein thehope that they would be able to induce their kinsmen, the ZakkaKhel,to join them in a general surrender. The four clans whosedelegates surrendered at Bagh agreed to pay a joint fine of 50,000 rupees, and to hand overallstolen property, and 800 good rifles. It now remainedto prosecute the campaign against the tribes who still held out, the chief of whom were the Zakka Khel, who had been fighting roundCamp Bagh,but most of whose warriors were said to beretiring into the fastnesses of the Bara Valley.

Meanwhile the menhad a terrible experience. Wet through as they were, they had neither great-coats nor blankets. Their only food was what was in their haversacks. If a fire was lighted to make tea or warm up some food, a shower ofbullets from the Afridis soon scattered the wet and wearycrowd that gathered roundit. Sir William Lockhart and General Westmacott wereas badlyoff as everyoneelse. Wet, tireless, and shelterless, officers and mensuffered silently through the long night, surrounded and often fired upon by watchful foes. There were few losses by the enemy's bullets, but that awful night at Dwatoi sent many a man back to the base hospitals, and marked many a soldier, British andnative,for the grave.

The nearest way into the head of tlae Bara Valley was by the DwatoiDefile, a great ravine running north-eastward from Bagh through the hills, to the hamlet of Dwatoi (literally, " Two rivers "),built at the junction of the defile with another stream, which runs down the Rajgul Valley, the united streams forming the Bara River. The walls of the DwatoiDefile are precipices and steep rocky slopes several hundred feet high. There is no path through it, but thereis a track that winds among the rocksin the narrow space between precipice and river, crosses andrecrosses the stream, and sometimes actually follows its bed. The march into the defile was of the nature of a reconnaissance, for the ground was only known by native reports. Sir William Lockhart's plan was to march through the defile onNovember 22nd,spend the 23rd at Dwatoi,mapping and reconnoitring the country, andreturn to Bagh on the 24th. He himself accompanied the expedition,the immediatecommand of which was given to General Westmacott, the troops detailed forit being the ScottishBorderers, theYorkshire Regiment, the first battalions of the 2nd and 3rd Goorkhas, the 28th Bombay Pioneers, two companies of Engineers,and two mountain batteries.

On the 23rd reconnaissances were pushed out in variousdirections, and the ground was carefully surveyed. On the next day,before daylight, thereturn marchbegan. " The intensity ofthe cold,"saysColonelHutchinson,"maybeimagined from the fact that the spray from the water splashed up by wading froze as it fell, while moustaches became mere blocks of ice, and the horses' tails,as they swished them about in the stream, were immediately covered with long spiky icicles. Several cases of frostbite occurred before camp wasreached."

The Yorkshires and the Goorkhas held the heights on either flank during the retreat. Colonel Haughton, with the 36th Sikhs (his own regiment), the 3rd Goorkhas, and two companies of the Scottish Borderers, covered As a firststep the heights on onesideof the pass werecrownedby the Yorkshires,and on the other by a Goorkha battalion. Inclearing them there were some casualties, and the Yorkshires