" 1 Field Medical Depot.

The fighting of the preceding fortnight had left significant and
terrible marks on the once smiling landscape. The rice crops were
trampled down in all directions. The ruins of the villages which had
been burned looked from a distance like blots of ink. The fearful losses
which the enemy had sustained, had made an appreciable diminution,
not of an army, but of a population. In the attacks upon the Malakand
position, about 700 tribesmen had perished. In the siege of Chakdara,
where the open ground had afforded opportunity to the modern weapons
and Maxim guns, over 2000 had been killed and wounded. Many others had
fallen in the relief of Chakdara and in the cavalry pursuit. For days
their bodies lay scattered about the country. In the standing crops, in
the ruins of villages, and among the rocks, festering bodies lay in the
blazing sun, filling the valley with a dreadful smell. To devour these
great numbers of vultures quickly assembled and disputed the abundant
prey with the odious lizards, which I have mentioned in an earlier
chapter, and which emerged from holes and corners to attack the corpses.
Although every consideration of decency and health stimulated the energy
of the victors in interring the bodies of their enemies, it was
some days before this task could be accomplished, and even then, in
out-of-the-way places, there remained a good many that had escaped the
burying parties.

Meanwhile the punishment that the tribesmen of the Swat Valley had
received, and their heavy losses, had broken the spirit of many, and
several deputations came to make their submission. The Lower Swatis
surrendered unconditionally, and were allowed to return to their
villages. Of this permission they at once availed themselves, and their
figures could be seen moving about their ruined homes and endeavouring
to repair the damage. Others sat by the roadside and watched in sullen
despair the steady accumulation of troops in their valley, which had
been the only result of their appeal to arms.

It is no exaggeration to say, that perhaps half the tribesmen who
attacked the Malakand, had thought that the soldiers there, were the
only troops that the Sirkar [The Government] possessed. "Kill these,"
they said, "and all is done." What did they know of the distant
regiments which the telegraph wires were drawing, from far down in the
south of India? Little did they realise they had set the world humming;
that milit