By LIEUTENANT W.G.L. BEYNON, D.S.O. 1st BATTALLION 3rd GOORKA RIFLES 1896 21st October 1895 Before you read this short history of a few brief weeks, I must warn you that it is no record of exciting adventure or heroic deeds, but simply an account of the daily life of British officers and Indian troops on a frontier expedition. How we lived and marched, what we ate and drank, our small jokes and trials, our marches through snow or rain, hot valleys or pleasant fields, in short, all that contribut

"Would you like to go up to Gilgit?" "Rather." I was down in the military offices at Simla, hunting for a book and some maps, when I was asked the above question. No idea of Gilgit had before entered my head, but with the question came the answer, and I have since wondered why I never before thought of applying for the billet. This was at the end of June 1894, and on the 24th August I was crossing the Burzil pass into the Gilgit district. As day broke on the 31st August, I dropped down several t

Colonel Kelly assumed command on the 22nd March, and the next morning the first detachment of two hundred Pioneers, under Borradaile, marched off. The local Bible, commonly known as the Gazetteer, states that it never rains in Gilgit; this being so, it naturally started to rain on the morning of the 23rd, and kept it up for two days. We were marching without tents, so the first night the men had to run up their waterproof sheets into shelters. Colonel Kelly, Luard, and myself started about 2 P.M

Shortly after leaving Pingal, the character of the country changed considerably, and instead of a continual alternation of cliff and river bed, the valley became more open and level; we were, in fact, nearing the upper end of the valley. Beyond Cheshi the road leads up a bluff and down the other side on to the bed of the Pandur Lake. This lake had, at the beginning of 1894, been a sheet of water some four and a half miles long, but, the dam at its end having given way in July, it had drained off

That night we had beef for dinner. This may appear a trivial fact, but it meant a great and blessed change from the eternal mutton we had been living on, none of us having tasted beef for quite six months, except in its condensed or tinned state, which does not count. Gilgit is a dependency of Kashmir, whose ruling family, being Hindus, strongly object to cow-killing, and therefore the law runs that no cows are to be slaughtered; hence none of us since crossing the bridge at Kohalla had tasted f

At 5 A.M. the next morning, my orderly, Gammer Sing Gurung, woke me. It was still dark, and I dressed as quickly as possible, so as not to disturb the others, who were snoring peacefully around me. Dressing consisted of putting on my coat, putties, and some canvas shoes with rope soles. I knew the ground I should be going over would be pretty bad, and with rope soles you can skip about rocks like a young lamb, whereas shooting boots would send you flying over the cliffs. By the time I had had so

While at Mastuj we heard from Jones the story of the disaster at Koragh—which I will give. Ross, with Jones and about ninety-three Sikhs, left Mastuj on the 7th March, with the intention of helping Edwardes and Fowler, who were believed to be in danger at Reshun, and marched to Buni; leaving a detachment there of thirty-three sepoys under a native officer, he marched with Jones and sixty men for Reshun, hoping to arrive there that day. After leaving Buni, the road runs for some distance along fl

Next morning, 13th April, we were all having a good square breakfast by 6 A.M., and punctually at seven o'clock the column moved off, headed by the Levies. Our force consisted of— 400 Pioneers, 100 Kashmir Infantry, 40 Kashmir Sappers, 2 Mountain guns, 100 Hunza and Punyal Levies; rather less than a single battalion, and not much with which to force our way through seventy miles of bad country, but still we were determined to get to Chitral before the Peshawur force. It was a perfect morning, ni

We were up by daylight the next morning, had breakfast, and were ready to march by 7 A.M. The wounded were sent back under Luard and the escort who had brought out the baggage, and we moved off in the opposite direction. Our order of march was always the same, each company taking it in turn to act as advance or rear guard, and every British officer, with the exception of Colonel Kelly and Borradaile, taking his turn on duty. When my company of Kashmir troops was on rear or advance guard, I went

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

I picked out a camping ground even better than we had enjoyed at Mori, and then shared some chupatties and chocolate with Rajah Akbar Khan. The main body came in by two o'clock, and the baggage shortly after. Foraging parties were sent out, and Oldham sent to report on the bridge in case we decided to cross. He reported it as practicable, so a guard was put on it to keep it so. Stewart came into camp that day like a bear with a sore head. "Here had he been hauling his guns over condemned precipi