NEWS OF THE WEEK.
MHE expedition to Chitral has begun well, though it is evident that it will cost much money and many lives. The difficulty of collecting sufficient transport at Peshawur proved to be excessive; but money was freely spent ; the orders as to speed were stringent, and on April 2nd the first division, with General Low as Commander-in-Chief, left Peshawnr. Eleven or twelve miles on, in the first pass, called the Malakand, the Swatees had collected to the number of three thousand, had built low stone walls, and proposed to fight with desperation. They did so on Wednesday. The mountain artillery and machine-guns did much execution, but failed to dislodge them ; and at last the Scottish Borderers, the Gordon Highlanders, and the Guides—all picked troops—attacked the mountaineers' position with the bayonet. The Swatees, headed by their Mullahs, fought like the brave men they are, but they could not stand the rushes, and after losing more than five hundred men, fled. We lost only three killed and fifty wounded, the propor- tion of officers in the latter list being, however, large. A defeat at first acts on Pathans like an ill-omen, but Irmra Khan has not been personally defeated, he has evidently secured the friendship of all the tribes on the route, and there is pass after pass, each higher than the last, still to be scaled. English troops, however, do their last work best ; and the feeling that Fate is against them takes the energy out of Pathans.
