During the first year of its existence the young corps was engaged in several more of the same class of enterprise, and in all acquitted itself with quiet distinction.  As, however, the history of one is in most particulars that of another, it will not be necessary to enter into a detailed account of each.

The British in the Peshawur Valley, as elsewhere in the Punjab, were in a somewhat peculiar position.  They were not administering, or policing, the country on behalf of the British Government, but in the name of the Sikh Durbar.  In the Peshawur Valley, in which broad term may be included the plains of Yusafzai, the Sikh rule was but feebly maintained amidst a warlike race of an antagonistic faith.  In the matter of the collection of revenue, therefore, the ordinary machinery of government was not sufficiently strong to effect regular and punctual payment; and consequently, when any village or district was much in arrears, it became customary to send a body of troops to collect the revenue.  If the case was merely one of dilatoriness, unaccompanied by hostile intent, the case was sufficiently met by the payment of the arrears due, and by bearing the cost of feeding the troops while the money was being collected.  But more often, dealing as they were with a weak and discredited government, the hardy warriors of the frontier, sending their wives and cattle to some safe glen in the distant hills, openly defied both the tax-collector and the troops that followed him.  It then became a case either of coercion or of leaving it alone.  An effete administration, like that of the Sikhs, if thus roughly faced, as often as not let the matter rest.  But with the infusion of British blood a new era commenced; and the principle was insisted on that, where revenue was due, the villagers must pay or fight.  And further, if they chose the latter alternative, a heavy extra penalty would fall on them, such as the confiscation of their cattle, the destruction of their strongholds, and the losses inevitable when the appeal is made to warlike arbitration.

It was on such an expedition that one of the Guides had a curious and fatal adventure.  Colonel George Lawrence, who was the British Representative in Peshawur, was out in Yusafzai with a brigade of Sikh troops, collecting revenue and generally asserting the rights of government.  Co-operating with him was Lumsden with the Guides.  Among the recalcitrants was the village of Babuzai, situated in a strong position in the Lundkwar Valley, and Lawrence determined promptly to coerce it.  His plan of operation was to send the Guides’ infantry by night to work along the hills, so that before daylight they would be occupying the commanding heights behind the village, and thus cut off escape into the mountains.  He himself, at dawn, would be in position with the Sikh brigade to attack from the open plain; while the Guides’ cavalry were disposed so as to cut off the retreat to the right up the valley.