The Chitral campaign : a narrative of events in Chitral, Swat, and Bajour . loth the enemy contentedthemselves with investing the village, and gettinggradually closer up to it. This they had no diffi-culty in doing, for there was plenty of cover—stonewalls, and detached houses and trees—of which theycould avail themselves. Only about thirty yards offwas a large chunar or sycamore tree in which theybuilt a crows nest from which they kept up a verygalling fire. They w^ere able indeed to get so closeup to the walls without exposing themselves, thatseveral times they tried to knock holes in themwi
The Chitral campaign : a narrative of events in Chitral, Swat, and Bajour . loth the enemy contentedthemselves with investing the village, and gettinggradually closer up to it. This they had no diffi-culty in doing, for there was plenty of cover—stonewalls, and detached houses and trees—of which theycould avail themselves. Only about thirty yards offwas a large chunar or sycamore tree in which theybuilt a crows nest from which they kept up a verygalling fire. They w^ere able indeed to get so closeup to the walls without exposing themselves, thatseveral times they tried to knock holes in themwith battering rams, and the weak places had inconsequence to be loopholed and barricaded fromthe inside. The village is built in blocks, the houses in eachblock communicating with each other; and inone of them, in accordance with their creed, wereburnt the bodies of the Hindu sepoys who w^erekilled, those of the Mahommedans being of the houses they converted into ahospital, and though neither of them had anyknowledge of surgery, they did what they could. DEFENCE OF RESHUN 97 for the men who were wounded, but that was notmuch as they had no proper appHances. Theycould only make rough splints and , too, had a little carbolic acid and somecarbolic tooth powder, which they made into alotion, and dressed the wounds with that. The houses in Chitral are low, only eight orten feet in height, and have flat roofs. The roomsare dirty and very dark, and open into a court-yard, which is generally full of all kinds of the houses are narrow paths often not morethan three feet in width—^just enough to allow aman to pass. The enemy, after many unsuccessfulattempts, finally succeeded in establishing themselvesin a house just alongside the block of houses held bythe besieged, and tried hard to drive a hole throughthe wall. But though they were at such closequarters—not more than five feet off—they were notable to do much damage, for the wal
Size: 1315px × 1900px
Photo credit: © The Reading Room / Alamy / Afripics
License: Licensed
Model Released: No
Keywords: ., bookcentury1800, bookdecade1890, bookidchitralcampa, bookyear1895
