With the co-operation of a force from the Hazara district Sittana, the stronghold of the Hindustanis, was skilfully surrounded, and a fierce hand-to-hand conflict ensued.  Their Pathan allies, whose hearts were evidently not in the business, showed but lukewarm enthusiasm, and escaped as best they could; but the Hindustanis stood to a man.  They fought like fanatics, coming boldly and doggedly on, and going through all the preliminary attitudes and posturing of the Indian prize-ring.  Their advance was made steadily and in perfect silence, without a shout or a word of any kind, unlike the yelling charge of the Afghan ghazi.  All were dressed in their bravest and best for the occasion, as is meet for him who goes to meet his Lord, most of them in pure white, but some of the leaders in richly embroidered velvet coats.  The fight was short, desperate, and decisive; and in the end every one of these brave, if misguided, warriors was killed or captured.  The brunt of the charge fell on the 18th Punjab Infantry, who lost one officer and sixteen men in the encounter.

Many another fight too did the Guides have during the next few years with unvarying 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,