success, but we may perhaps pass the less important by,
and come to the stiff encounter that faced them during the expedition
against the Mahsud Waziri tribe in 1860.

The British force operating in that country had in the course of the
campaign been split up into two columns; one under Sir Neville
Chamberlain[12] had gone forward, lightly equipped, into the Waziri
fastnesses; while a weaker column, some one thousand five hundred strong
under Lumsden and including the Guides, was left at Pallosin to guard
camp, equipage, and stores. Knowing the enemy he had to deal with, and
his predilection for, and skill in executing the unexpected in war,
Lumsden drew in his camp, so as to make it as snug and defensible as
possible, and putting out strong picquets with their supports all round,
he awaited the few days' absence of the main column. During the interval
no signs of the enemy could be seen, nor could any news of him be
obtained by means of spies. To all intents and purposes he seemed to
have disappeared, and the little column lay, apparently unnoticed and
unheeded, amidst the great mountains. Yet suddenly, from anywhere, from
nowhere, from the very bowels of the earth, the Waziris rose in their
thousands, and hurled themselves at the British camp.

[12] Afterwards Field-Marshal Sir Neville Chamberlain, G.C.B., &c.

_Reveille_ was just sounding in the grey dawn of April 23rd, when three
thousand Waziris armed with swords and guns, and fired with fierce
fanaticism, boldly charged that side of the camp which was held by the
Guides. The storm first fell on the outlying picquets, who fired a
volley, and then received the great rush of white-robed swordsmen on
their bayonets. They fought with the utmost gallantry, but the weight of
numbers was against them, and in a few minutes, standing bravely at
their posts, they were practically annihilated. Yet the strife was not
in vain, for it was strong enough to cause all but the bravest of the
brave to pause before proceeding to attack the kernel of the nut, whose
shell had been so hard to crack. And thus it came about that only five
hundred of the three thousand swordsmen faced the death beyond. These,
with scarce a pause, and calling loudly on Allah to give them victory,
swept swiftly on to the camp of the Guides. In that war-seasoned corps,
half an hour before dawn, wet or dry, in freezing cold or tropical heat,
the inlying picquet, a hundred strong, falls in, and stands silent