The early history of Chitral is a record of intrigue, civil war and assassination—“a monotonous tale of murder and perfidy—the slaying of brother by brother, of son by father,” and each successive Mehtar appears to have waded to the throne through seas of blood. The founder of the Chitral Royal Family was Shah Katur, whose descendants, dividing into two branches, parcelled the mountainous country from Kafiristan to Gilgit between them—the Khushwakt branch ruling the eastern portion, while the Katur branch governed in the west, or Lower Chitral. At the time of the British occupation of the Punjab, one Gauhar Aman reigned in the Khushwakt district, while Shah Afzul II. ruled in Lower Chitral. About 1854 the Kashmir State, having long suffered from the encroachments of the ruler of Upper Chitral, appealed to Shah Afzul for assistance, and he, induced thereto far more by hatred of his kinsman than by any wish to oblige the Kashmir authorities, seized, in 1855, Mastuj, then the headquarters of the Khushwaktia chief. Possession was, however, regained in the year following, but the place was again captured by the Chitralis in 1857. In this year Shah Afzul II. died quietly in his bed—the demise of a ruler from natural causes was almost unprecedented in this country—and was succeeded by his second son, Aman-ul-Mulk, known as “the great Mehtar.” In 1860 the eastern chief also died, being succeeded in the Mehtarship of Khushwaktia by Mir Wali, who was deposed and slain by his own brother; while in 1880 Aman-ul-Mulk invaded and possessed himself of the eastern portion of Chitral, uniting the whole country under his sovereignty. Not long after this, during the viceroyalty of Lord Lytton, it was decided that the policy of the Government of India should be so extended as to control the external affairs of Chitral in a direction friendly to our interests; so as to secure an effective guardianship over the northern passes, and to keep watch over what goes on beyond them. To initiate and carry out this policy, Major Biddulph was sent to Gilgit in 1877 and spent some years there, succeeding in entering into relations with Aman-ul-Mulk, then Mehtar of Chitral. No very definite arrangement was come to at this time, the position was considered rather too isolated, and Major Biddulph was withdrawn. Then in 1885 Lord Dufferin despatched the late General Sir William Lockhart at the head of an important mission, to enter into more definite and closer relations with the Mehtar of Chitral, and to report upon the defences of the country. Colonel Lockhart, as he then was, spent more than a year in Chitral; he wintered at Gilgit, traversed the State of Hunza, crossed the Hindu Kush, passed through Wakhan down the southernmost branch of the Oxus, and travelled over Chitral territory from one end of the country to the other. Similar visits were paid to Chitral by Colonel Durand in 1888 and 1889, and in this latter year the Agency at Gilgit,