fferings of these wretched men must
have been, without antiseptics or anaesthetics, is terrible to think
of. Perhaps, however, vigorous constitutions and the keen air of the
mountains were Nature's substitutes.

Thus the episode of the Mamund Valley came to an end. On the morning of
the 12th, the troops moved out of the camp at Inayat Kila for the last
time, and the long line of men, guns and transport animals, trailed
slowly away across the plain of Khar. The tribesmen gathered on the
hills to watch the departure of their enemies, but whatever feelings of
satisfaction they may have felt at the spectacle, were dissipated when
they turned their eyes towards their valley. Not a tower, not a fort
was to be seen. The villages were destroyed. The crops had been trampled
down. They had lost heavily in killed and wounded, and the winter was
at hand. No defiant shots pursued the retiring column. The ferocious
Mamunds were weary of war.

And as the soldiers marched away, their reflections could not have been
wholly triumphant. For a month they had held Inayat Kila, and during
that month they had been constantly fighting. The Mamunds were crushed.
The Imperial power had been asserted, but the cost was heavy. 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:--

British Officers.... Killed or died of wounds 7
" " .... Wounded.... 17
" Soldiers.... Killed .... 7
" " .... Wounded.... 41
Native Officers .... Killed .... 0
" " .... Wounded.... 7
" Soldiers .... Killed .... 48
" " .... Wounded.... 147
Followers ...... ..... 8
----
Total..... 282

Horses and mules..... ..... 150

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 length they struck a blow at
civilisation, and civilisation, though compelled to record the odious
vices that the fierce lig