of fully 4500 feet. They showed themselves freely on the sky-line, lounging about with their matchlocks in their hands. Sometimes a dozen or more would be seized with a dancing frenzy, flash their talwars, and whirl round like the spinning dervishes at Constantinople. We could distinctly hear them felling trees, and now and again the dull thud of falling rocks and stones proved that they were still intrenching their position. As night closed in, the crest was lit up by a hundred log-fires.
Strong though the position was, the defence was weak. The attack was well planned and carried out, and deserved a less feeble resistance. As usual in Asiatic warfare, success was due to a turning movement. So well was this managed, that within a few minutes of the front attack opening fire, the rattle of independent rifle-firing was heard from a ridge behind the enemy's highest breastwork, and all opposition soon melted away. Oddly enough the first body found was that of Jamál, the Khyderzai chief, who had, ten days before, vaguely announced that he would meet me on the Takht. He had kept his word. The seizure of their spring, and the flight of the moolahs before a shot had been fired, had taken all heart out of the enemy. The few wounded picked up, as soon as assured that they would not be killed, cursed their priests for inciting them to oppose the Sarkar Angrez, and showed in many ways their gratitude for the kind treatment they were receiving, and repented much of their folly in fighting. By 8.30 A.M. we had all clambered over the last breastwork, and were inside the Khyderzai position, in amongst the pine-trees and wild roses, rather dry and brown certainly; but still
there was music to the ear in the "going in the tree-tops," and sweet scents for the nostrils in the wild thyme and other fragrant herbs and plants about our feet; and the still blazing log-fires – ringed round by the footprints of the enemy, who had spent part of the night in the performances of circular war-dances – were ready for our fry-pans. What a picnic breakfast that was! Never were frizzling bacon, tinned butter, and unleavened cakes more appetising or more largely consumed. Water, however, was at a premium; we were still nine miles from the northern peak, the route to which lay through a weird, waterless depression, impracticable for mules, because of the terrible fissures and chasms which cracked its surface in all directions. As to Solomon's Throne, there it was almost directly in front, quite three miles north of the position generally assigned to it; and there too was the Survey Southern Station – fixed in anticipation from several stations in British territory – seemingly inaccessible, but even, if not so useless for survey purposes as the ridge we were on, interposed between it and the hitherto unknown regions westwards.
I returned to camp in the afternoon. That morning before dawn I had gone round amongst the different "friendly" Shirani chiefs with us, and tried to induce some of them to act as guides, but every man had some excuse. Some were in such a dead slumber that I could not wake them with my boot; some were sulky, – we ought to wait another day, (to eat up more of our fast-failing supplies?) and send a deputation up with the Koran, and persuade the mountaineers to come down peaceably. Some said there was no road; some professed to be suffering from colic, and unable to move. In fact, all made excuses;
