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The main cause of this long list of casualties was, as I have already written, the proximity of the Afghan border. But it would be unjust and ungenerous to deny to the people of the Mamund Valley that reputation for courage, tactical skill and marksmanship, which they have so well deserved. During an indefinite period they had brawled and fought in the unpenetrated gloom of barbarism.

At any rate, I cannot doubt, nor did any one who was present during the fighting in the Mamund Valley, that the natives were aided by regular soldiers from the Afghan army, and to a greater extent by Afghan tribesmen, not only by the supply of arms and ammunition but by actual intervention.

Indeed, in every fight in the Mamund Valley, the cavalry were the first in, and the last out. In the official despatches Sir Bindon Blood thus alludes to the work of the cavalry: "I would now wish to invite attention to the invaluable nature of the services rendered by the cavalry.

Every night his pickets watched our camps, and much good sleep was obtained by weary men in consequence. At the end of the fighting he was the intermediary between the Government and the Mamund tribesmen.

Thirty-one officers and 251 men had been killed and wounded out of a fighting force that had on no occasion exceeded 1200 men. The casualties of General Jeffrey's brigade in the Mamund Valley were as follows:

We shall return to the Mamund Valley and have a further opportunity of studying its people and natural features. "When the wild Bajaur mountain men lay choking with their blood, And the Kafirs held their footing..." "A Sermon in Lower Bengal," SIR A. LYALL. Few spectacles in nature are so mournful and so sinister as the implacable cruelty with which a wounded animal is pursued by its fellows.

The Mamund jirgahs filled two other sides. Sir Bindon Blood, with Major Deane on his left and his officers around him, occupied the fourth side. Then the Mamunds solemnly tendered their submission. They expressed their deep regret at their action, and deplored the disasters that had befallen them. They declared, they had only fought because they feared annexation.

I do not allude to this matter, to raise hostile feelings against the Afghan tribesmen or their ruler, but only to explain the difficulties encountered in the Mamund Valley by the 2nd Brigade of the Malakand Field Force: to explain how it was that defenders of obscure villages were numbered by thousands, and why the weapons of poverty-stricken agriculturists were excellent Martini-Henry rifles.

In consequence of this information, Sir Bindon Blood cancelled the orders for the passage of the Rambat Pass and instructed General Jeffreys to enter the Mamund Valley and thoroughly chastise the tribesmen. I was allowed to go back with the native officer's escort to the 2nd Brigade, in order to witness the operations which had been ordered.

It is with a vague and undefined feeling of satisfaction that I conduct the reader back to the entrenched camp of Inayat Kila at the entrance of the Mamund Valley, where so much happened, and with which so many memories and experiences are associated. Now that the troops are gone, the scene of life and activity has become solitary and silent.