who promptly annexed it, as he was in want of one, having mislaid his
own. Shah Mirza also collared a fowl, which no doubt formed his next
meal.

I caught up the column before they had gone much more than a mile, just
as they were crossing a stream. After that we had some level marching
into the village of Rahman, and by this time the snow was only lying in
patches. Here we made a short halt. From Rahman there is a path across
the hills to Chitral, by means of a nullah called the Goland Gol, of
which mention will be made hereafter but at this time of year it was
impossible to use this path, owing to the snow.

During the halt, the headman of the village came up to make his salaams,
and also told me that a man of Ghizr had passed through that morning,
escaping from the enemy. He was reported to be one of Gough's
messengers, captured when taking letters to Moberly at Mastuj. I told
the headman that he had better show his goodwill by bringing in the man,
which he promised to do, and sent him in that night to our camp at
Gasht. We learned little from him, except that the enemy were going to
fight us between Gasht and Mastuj, and that the latter place was all
right. This man had no idea of numbers, and when asked the strength of
the enemy, replied invariably that there were very many men, but seemed
equally uncertain if there were five hundred or five thousand collected
in the sangar before us, and yet he had been a prisoner in their camp
for some fifteen days.

I found the best way of getting information out of the prisoners was to
set Shah Mirza or Humayun on the job. They used to squat down over the
fire with the prisoners and engage them in conversation gradually
getting what they knew out of them by simple-looking questions. Of
course I couldn't do this as I didn't know their language, and the
presence of a British officer put them on their guard at once.

Between Rahman and Mastuj the country is pretty much the same, a narrow
valley running between high, stony hills, their tops covered with snow
and their feet with boulders; then the bed of the valley more or less
rocky, and the river winding from side to side, and below the main level
of the valley, at depths varying from fifty to two hundred feet, the
sides nearly always sheer cliff; at intervals were nullahs, down which
ran streams of snow water from the hills to the river, or fans of
alluvial deposit brought down by floods in previous years. On the flank
of on