n attack of some sort, and three times
the enemy succeeded in setting the towers on fire, only to be
extinguished with great difficulty by the use of earth and water. The
enemy employed every device to get into the fort, and succeeded in
mining close up to the walls, adding thus the labour of making
counter-mines to the other tasks of the garrison. The principal fight
took place on the 17th April. The enemy had been for some days previous
in the apparently innocent amusement of making a noise with drums and
pipes in a summer-house not far from the walls. One of the men
suggested that the noise was made to cover the sound of mining--a not
uncommon trick of Umra Khan's. Accordingly men were told off to listen,
and the sound of mining was heard close to a tower, so close indeed that
no time was to be lost in blowing it up. This dangerous duty was
successfully performed by Lieutenant Harley, who rushed the summer-house
with 100 men. There was a fierce hand-to-hand fight, and some 30
Chitralis were killed, and the mine successfully destroyed; Harley and
his men regaining the fort in an hour and twenty minutes. From the
start 22 of the brave 100 were hit, of whom 9 were killed. Nothing of
importance occurred after this, for the enemy had heard of the close
approach of Colonel Kelly, and by the 19th of April had disappeared.

Thus ended a defence as gallant as any recorded in this book. For
forty-six days this little band of sepoys, with five English leaders,
held the fort, with inadequate defences and no artillery, against a
superior force; the sepoys suffering greatly from want of food, for
their caste forbade their eating horseflesh,--their ghi or melted
butter, which is as meat to the native, had run out, and all they had
left was half rations of flour. To the want of food must be added the
mental effect, first of the disastrous day at the opening, then of the
absolute ignorance of the measures taken to relieve, and the apparent
hopelessness of their position, if we are to take due measure of the
pluck and determination of the garrison.

THE DEFENCE OF RESHUN.

On the 5th of March, Lieutenants Edwardes and Fowler left Mastuj with
orders to join the British agent at Chitral, and they had with them 20
Bengal Sappers and 40 men of the Kashmir Rifles, conveying sixty boxes
of ammunition and seven days' rations. The day on which they arrived at
Reshun they heard rumours of opposition ahead of them, and therefore