CHAPTER IX


NEARING CHITRAL

The next morning, April 17th, we started sharp at 7 A.M. Two prisoners
had been brought in the night before, one of whom had a Snider and
twenty rounds of ammunition, the other a matchlock. They confessed that
they had fought us at Nisa Gol, and stated they were now going home. We
thought differently, and requested them to carry boxes of ammunition;
one of them, the owner of the Snider, objected, on the ground that he
was a mullah, but the objection was overruled as frivolous, and he
accompanied us to Chitral. We always gave the ammunition to doubtful
characters, as they were then under the direct supervision of the guard,
and the loads were also more awkward and heavier than skins of flour.

We dropped down the hills now to the river bank. I was on rearguard, a
nuisance at the best of times, as any check at the head of the column
acts on the rearguard in increasing ratio to the length of the column,
so a good deal of time is spent in wondering why the dickens they don't
get on in front. That was a particularly bad day for halts: the first
one was caused by the column having to cross the Perpish Gol, a very
similar place to the Nisa Gol, but undefended. About two miles farther
on, the road ran across the face of a cliff, and had been destroyed; it
took some three hours to repair it, and then the baggage could only get
along slowly.

We had some five unladen donkeys that were kept at the end of the
baggage column in case of need, and, one of them trying to push past