an officer of the Lancers; a section rode forward and
surrounded both men. Resistance was useless. Flight was impossible.
They were prisoners. Yet they behaved with Oriental composure and calmly
accepted the inevitable. They ordered their ponies and, mounting, rode
behind us under escort.

We pursued our way up the valley. As we approached each fort, a khan
and his retainers advanced and greeted us. Against these there was no
definite charge, and the relations throughout were amicable. At the
head of the valley is Barwa, the home of the most powerful of these
princelets. This fort had belonged to Umra Khan, and attested, by
superiority of construction, the intellectual development of that
remarkable man. After the Chitral expedition it had been given by
the Government to its present owner, who, bitterly hated by the other
chieftains of the valley, his near relatives mostly, had no choice but
loyalty to the British. He received us with courtesy and invited us to
enter and see the fort. This, after taking all precautions and posting
sentries, we did. It was the best specimen of Afghan architecture I have
seen. In this very fort Lieutenants Fowler and Edwards were confined in
1895, when the prisoners of Umra Khan. The new chief showed their room
which opened on a balcony, whence a fine view of the whole valley
could be obtained. There are many worse places of durance. The fort
is carefully defended and completely commands the various approaches.
Judicious arrangements of loopholes and towers cover all dead ground.
Inside the walls galleries of brushwood enabled the defenders to fire
without exposing themselves. In the middle is the keep, which, if
Fortune were adverse, would be the last stronghold of the garrison.

What a strange system of society is disclosed by all this! Here was this
man, his back against the mountains, maintaining himself against the
rest of the valley, against all his kin, with the fear of death and the
chances of war ever in his mind, and holding his own, partly by force
of arms, partly by the support of the British agents, and partly through
the incessant feuds of his adversaries.

It is "all against all," in these valleys. The two khans who had
been arrested would have fled to the hills. They knew they were to be
punished. Still they dared not leave their stronghold. A neighbour, a
relation, a brother perhaps, would step into the unguarded keep and
hold it for his own. Every stone of these forts