From Dir to Ashreth in Chitral territory via the Lowari Pass was twenty-three miles, and the whole of General Gatacre’s column, in spite of the extraordinary difficulties of the road, was concentrated at Ashreth by the 30th April, and was ordered to halt there for the present. On the 10th May the 1st Battalion the Buffs, the Derajat Mountain Battery, and the 4th Company Bengal Sappers and Miners were led by General Gatacre to Chitral, where the Gilgit Column had arrived on the 20th April, and with this the object of the expedition may be said to have been accomplished; Umra Khan, who had actually originated all the trouble, had fled the country, while on the 27th April Sher Afzul, the late claimant to the Mehtarship of Chitral, had been brought into our camp at Dir, having been captured in Bashkar by some of the Khan of Dir’s levies. [Sidenote: Withdrawal of the Force] On the 10th May the troops hitherto serving on the lines of communication were formed into a Fourth Brigade of the Chitral Relief Force, under Brigadier-General Hammond, V.C., C.B., D.S.O., A.D.C., and it was not until the middle of August that some of the troops—mostly of the Fourth Brigade—commenced their return march to India. On the 4th September the Third Brigade ceased to exist; on the 28th General Low’s Headquarters demobilised at Nowshera; and about the same date Brigadier-General Waterfield assumed command of the Malakand Brigade and of all troops remaining beyond the frontier. On the final withdrawal of the force it was found that while regular troops must continue to be maintained on the Malakand Pass, at Chakdara, and in Chitral territory, it would be possible to keep open the Nowshera-Chitral road by peaceful means, its security from the Swat River to the borders of Chitral territory being maintained by levies, and the route adopted being via Panjkora and Dir. During this expedition the troops under Lieutenant-General Sir Robert Low had sustained a loss in action of twenty-one killed and 101 wounded; but in addition, and in consequence of fanatical attacks, further casualties were experienced, altogether two soldiers and forty-nine followers having been killed, and three soldiers and forty-seven followers wounded, between the middle of April and the date of the final withdrawal of the force.