1 THE
2 rOSlTION TURNED
3 451
4 cheer. The garrisons of the enemy's fortresses, reahz-
5 ing that we had efl'ectively turned this position, on
6 whose impregnabihty tliey had reUed, that we had
7 ontilanked them, and that their retreat would be
8 speedily cut off did they remain where they were, were
9 seized with panic, and we looked down upon lon^r
10 streams of men hurrying up the valley on both sides
11 of the river, the defenders of Maiun, Thol, and the
12 Ziarat, hundreds upon hundreds of Kanjuts, racing up
13 to Hunza and Nagar for their lives, and abandoning to
14 us all the country within sight. Many horsemen, too,
15 were galloping up the valley, evidently notables ; and
16 among them, as we afterwards learnt, were the leaders
17 of the Kanjut forces, their general, the Wazir Dadu,
18 and the infamous Uzr Khan of Naszar.
19 These terror-stricken people were not able to get
20 away so fast as they would have liked ; for just beyond
21 Maiun the mountain falls precipitously into the river,
22 and for some distance the path is very narrow and dif-
23 ficult. Here the hurrying fugitives were checked by a
24 tremendous block of humanity. We were surprised to
25 see what large garrisons these forts had contained. Our
26 guns shelled the flying tribesmen, but with httle effect
27 from this distance.
28 The attack had thus proved a complete success. As
29 one of our officers remarked, one might see many a
30 bigger fight than this was, but never a prettier one.
31 The whole affair was very cleverly planned and con-
32 ducted ; while the dash with which the Kashmir sepoys,
33 under their two British officers, rushed the sangas, evi-
34 dently demoralised the bulk of the Kanjuts who held
35 them ; and to this must be attributed the extraordi-
36 nary disparity between our casualties and those of the
37 enemy.
38 The 5th Gurkhas had gallantly borne the brunt of
39 G
40 G
41 2