CHITRAL AND THE N.W. FRONTIER CAMPAIGN. 532 the gorge. Nextmorning the pass wasattacked. The batteries began to shell the enemy'sposition about nine a.m. At noon the frontal attack composed of the WestKent, theHighlandLight Infantry, and the 21st Punjaubis, was sent up the gorge and the slopes on each of it. The 20th Punjaubis had marched at an earlier hour, and werein the hills steadily workinground one of the enemy's flanks. Experience in mountain warfare had by this time reduced the capture of a passto a regular system. There were to be no more Dargais. The fire of the flank attack could be heard as the front attack climbed the pass, fired on from the sungars. The enemy appeared not to have many rifles, and tried to supplement his feeble fireby rolling downstones.

A little after one the Punjaubi flankers appeared inpossession of a high crest above the pass, and began to descend on to the ridge, firing on the enemy. Immediately all the standards disappeared from the crest, and the pass was won. One man had been hit and wounded in the advance. The enemy,who were stronger than had been expected, mustering about 2,000, had lostonly about twenty killedandsixty wounded. They had made no stubborn defence. They had heldthe pass merely becauseit would have been against the code of mountain honour to surrender withoutsome show of afight.

opposition. A considerable amount of new ground was surveyed, and the various sections of the tribe submitted to the terms imposed on them, the chief features of which were,as usual, the payment of a fine and the surrender of a certain numberof rifles.

Early in January, after the withdrawal of Sir WilliamLockhart's army fromTirah,Sir Bindon Blood himselfconducted a large force into the country of the Bunerwals. At the end of Decemberan ultimatum was sent to the Buner menand to anumber of smaller clans who had acted with them in the attack on the Malakand andin the fight at Landaki. It called on them to send a deputation to make formal submission at Maidan, to restore all Government property, and to hand over withit a certain quantity of rifles and rupees. The force which Sir Bindon Blood concentrated to enforce these demands wasa division of twobrigades,thus composed:— ist Brigade (General Meiklejohn):West Kent Regiment, Highland Light Infantry, and 20th and31st Punjaubis.

2nd Brigade (General Jeffreys) : East Kent Regiment, Guides' Infantry, and 16th and 21st Punjaubis.

Attached to the Division:Four squadrons of cavalry, a field battery, two mountainbatteries, and a company of engineers.

Among those who knew the frontier there wasmuch discussion as to what the Buner men woulddo. The best judgespredicted that they would make one fight, to save their honour as warriors, and then submit. This was what happened. The Bunerwals replied to the ultimatum by sending word to all the sections of the tribe, and to the minor clans who were its neighbours,calling on them to guard the passes.

Amessage to the menof the Swat Valley asking their aid met with a refusal. The time of grace allowedby the Government having expired,Sir Bindon Blood's division was concentrated on January 6th, 1898, at Sanghao, at the foot of the Tangao Pass, one of the gateways into Buner. The pass was a gorge about a mile long,up which the road ran to the crest, some 1,800 feet above the valley at Sanghao. The ascent was flanked by steep rocky hillsides. About thirty standards were counted on the sungars at the top of the pass, and the tribesmen were reported to havecollected about a thousand men for its defence.

While Sir Bindon Blood was clearing the Tangao Pass, a smaller column under Colonel Adams,V.C.,madea diversionby threateningthe UmbeylaPass andtheneighbouringdefilesonthe southside of theBuner country. On the 7th he surprised the Pirsai Pass, andcleared it almost without firing a shot. The division camped that evening inBuner,andin the followingdays the clans of the district sent in delegates to arrange for their submission. It was a solid-gain to have thus exacted in their own country the submission of a tribe that had longboasted of its exploits against the British in the Umbeyla campaignof more than thirty years ago.

The war ended with the winter,in the submission of the most stubborn of the border tribes, the Zakka Khel Afridis. It was nearly ninemonths since tlae waveof unrest hadbroken ininsurrection along the border. Had the tribal risings been simultaneous the resultmight have been still moreserious disasters than those which marred the record of victory of the Indian Government in the first stages of the campaign, and disaster on the frontier on a large scale might have thrown the Afghan sword into the scale against England and produced a dangerous On the 6th, despite the enemy's attempts to interrupt them by rolling down stones, the sappers improved the road to the entrance of