and most of us took the opportunity to write home. I also took a
photograph when everyone was assembled over the homely cup of tea. The
bottles on the table look like whisky, but they only contain treacle
made by melting down country goor, the extract of sugar-cane. It was our
substitute for butter or jam, luxuries we had not seen for weeks. Whisky
was a dream of the past, and rum a scarcity. In fact, there was no
difference between what we and the sepoys ate, except in the manner of
cooking.

We went to sleep that night with the blissful consciousness that the
next day was a halt at any rate, and I think we needed the rest. We had
put on our least ragged coats to march in and make as brave a show as
possible, but our kit generally was in a pretty disreputable state, and
there was a good deal of work wanted in the laundry line. Most of us,
also, had misgivings about our boots. I was reduced to choosing between
boots with large holes in the soles or chuplies mended with string; the
boots I kept for show days, as the holes didn't show, and the chuplies
for ordinary work. Most of the other officers were much in the same
plight.

So ended the march of Colonel Kelly's column to Chitral. Our record, on
the whole, was not bad, though, of course, judging by actual distance,
we had not done much; it was more the difficult nature of the ground and
the altitude at which some of it was done that lent interest to the
march, and I am unfeignedly glad my luck caused me to participate in it.

The next day the Kashmir troops of the garrison came out and camped with
us, and revelled in the fresh air after the poisonous atmosphere of the
fort. Poor chaps! they were walking skeletons, bloodless, and as quiet
as the ghosts they resembled, most of them reduced to jerseys and