Tank by the Muhsoods, and hardly had the troops returned from the expedition against the Cabul Khail when they were called upon to march against one of the most powerful of all the Wuzeeree tribes.

The Muhsood Wuzeerees inhabit a large tract of the wildest hill country lying between the Bunnoo and Tank valleys, to the westward of the Ghubbur mountain. In the course of many years they had gradually overcome the smaller clans around them, and as their numbers increased so the limit of their power extended, till at length they grew to be the tribe most dreaded along the whole of the western border. They mustered, in the days of which I am writing, 12,000 fighting men; the whole tribe were thieves and proud of their prowess as such, and they lived almost entirely by making raids upon their neighbours.

From the date of the annexation of the Derajat, when the Wuzeerees became our neighbours on the north-west, every endeavour had been made to conciliate them, but in spite of all overtures they continued to exhibit the most hostile spirit towards us. No traveller or caravan was safe within many miles of their border, and life had been only rendered moderately secure, by the establishment of a line of posts and the maintenance of a strong force of frontier police.1

Mistaking our conciliatory action for weakness, the Muhsoods year by year became more and more aggressive, and, conceiving that their immunity from attack was due to our inability to penetrate their mountain passes, their inroads became more and more frequent. But punish

'The Punjab Reports, 1859-61; General Chamberlain's report upon the tribes; and Taylor's Derah Ishmael Khan memorandum.

ment was now to overtake them, and if the chastisement they received in the campaign (a sketch of which I am about to give) appears at first sight to have been severe, it will be well to remember that in the five years 1855-59 the police reports of the district officer alone, omitting altogether the constant necessity for action on the part of the soldiers, show that no less than 184 crimes of a heinous nature were reported against them. Twice within the same period had the Chief Commissioner recommended that a force should be sent to exact redress for destruction of villages and the wholesale murder of inhabitants; but on both occasions circumstances arose which prevented his suggestions being carried out.

At last, however, affairs culminated in an act of aggression on the part of the Muhsoods which, in the matter of boldness, put all their former misdeeds into the shade. On March 13, 1860, without any provocation, they advanced into the plains with a force numbering 4,000 men, fully intending to sack and destroy the town of Tank, and they were only prevented from carrying out their design by the the gallantry and quick-wittedness of a Ressaldar, named Sahadut Khan, commanding a party of 158 sabres. By feigning to retire, this gallant soldier induced the enemy to follow him; the Muhsoods fell into the trap and came on with shouts of derision; but when the Ressaldar reached ground where cavalry could act with advantage, he suddenly wheeled round and charged his pursuers, completely routing them and killing upwards of 200 of their number.

To suffer annoyance of this sort any longer was impossible, and Chamberlain was directed to enter the country with a force of 5,000 men.

The chief difficulty in an undertaking such as that now determined on, was want of knowledge concerning the country in which operations were to be carried out. No enemy had ever penetrated into the Wuzeeree highlands, no European had travelled there, and though it was believed that large towns were situated in the valleys and on the slopes of the great mountains of the interior, their position and their distance one from another were alike unknown.

Before the expedition started, therefore, it was necessary that information should be obtained concerning the routes and distances from point to point, the probable armed strength of the tribes, the supplies which might be looked for, and the nature of the country generally. The time for collecting this information was necessarily short, as it was important that the expedition should start as quickly as possible. But there was another difficulty. Who could be found to undertake such a task at a moment's notice? Whoever he might be, it was imperative that he should be possessed of a thorough knowledge of the characteristics of the tribes, that he should have influence with the inhabitants along the border, that he should be a good draughtsman, and, lastly, that his energy and perseverance should be unlimited. And who could fulfil these conditions more ably than Reynell Taylor? Let us see how he set

about the task.

'I returned from Sealkot,' he writes, on March 19 and went to Tank on the 21st, and, assisted by Captain Coxe, immediately commenced the examination of the country, a task which was unremittingly continued until twentyfive days later, when the force entered the hills

'The materials on which I worked were as follows. A native map of the Muhsood country on the Tank side, and a map of the Dour valley, prepared in March last under my instructions by Hafiz Ahmed Khan of Bunnoo. These two maps may be said to have formed sketches of the country on each side of the Ruzmuk pass. They had to be put together, arranged on a scale, and tested as closely as could be by the cross-examination of spies who had visited the country.'

The materials were thus meagre enough, but there was something more than this. The difficulties,' writes General Coxe, which Reynell Taylor had to contend against in his endeavours to obtain reliable information from the Buttunees—a tribe residing partly within and partly beyond our border-and from other rude dwellers on the border, were immense. They had no idea of the compass beyond the rising and setting of the sun; distances were reckoned by one man by the interval between two meals, and by another from the moment at which the sun was so many spears high till noon. The "koss," which we have taken at the estimate of two miles, might be one or might be five, according to the intelligence or the mood of the informant. Taylor's perseverance, however, was rewarded, and a map was prepared containing an estimate wonderfully accurate under the circumstances.'

The rapidity with which the work was performed may be gathered from the fact that within five weeks of the attack on Tank, the force under the command of General Chamberlain, and accompanied by Reynell Taylor as chief political officer, entered the hills. On April 17 and 18 the Wuzeeree positions at Innis Tungha and at Kot Shinghee

were destroyed without opposition, and on the 19th the camp was pitched at Pulloseen.1

So far the force had encountered no obstacle to its advance, and the enemy seemed anxious to avoid the combat. The point reached was more than twenty miles from Tank, but before advancing further, Chamberlain decided to leave 1,700 men at Pulloseen under Lumsden, while he moved in a westerly direction himself through a difficult defile known as the Shahoor pass. The main objects to be obtained by this flank movement were: in the first place, to examine a portion of the country in this direction before pushing further with the whole force; secondly, to show that the nature of the mountain passes afforded no barrier to the march of the troops; and thirdly, to visit Jungeh Khan's home and do all the injury possible to the crops and property of the tribes who were most notoriously mischievous on the Tank border.

Needless to say, Reynell Taylor chose to accompany Chamberlain's portion of the army, for where possible, and even when his position as a political officer should have prevented his taking part in active operations, he was always among the first in an advance. On this occasion he very nearly paid the penalty for his temerity with his life, but his wonted coolness and intrepidity came to his aid, and he not only saved his own life, but the lives of more than one of those who accompanied him. I have received many far more sensational versions of the story, but I prefer to adhere to the account, however inadequate, which Reynell Taylor himself gave of the affair within a few

1 The account of the Muhsood Wuzeeree expedition is taken almost entirely from Reynell Taylor's own official, but unpublished, report of the proceedings.