The Jamrud column, starting at 5 p.m. on the 19th December, and moving by Chora, a village inhabited by friendly Malikdin Khels, reached Walai in the Bazar Valley by midday on the 20th, and from here communication was established with the Dakka column, which had then reached the Sisobi Pass[114]—about three miles to the east—and expected to effect a junction with the Jamrud Column next day. On the 21st the Jamrud Column marched to China, and visited every village of any importance in the valley, destroying all the towers, returning that night to Walai, and withdrawing thence unopposed to Ali Musjid on the 22nd. The Dakka troops destroyed the towers in the vicinity of their bivouac, marching later to Nikai, which was also burnt. It being then too late to arrive at the Sisobi Pass on the return march before nightfall, the General (Tytler) halted, owing to difficulties as to water, in the Thabai Pass, with the intention of retiring on Dakka by this route. During the night the tribesmen assembled in strength about the camp, and when the march was resumed at daybreak it was seen that the enemy meant disputing every foot of it. The Afridis notoriously attack the baggage guard in preference to any other part of a force, and it was therefore determined to change the usual order of march. Orders were consequently issued for each corps to take its own baggage with it; the artillery and sappers, being most encumbered with mules, followed close to the advanced guard; while a very strong rearguard was left behind, which, being wholly relieved from the charge of baggage, was able to resist the pressure from the rear. The road was winding, steep, and very difficult for mules, and from the moment the force started a lively but ineffective fusillade was opened on the column. The heights were taken and held by flanking parties; the rearguard was hotly engaged; the enemy seized the positions of the rearguard and of the flanking parties as soon as they were abandoned; and Dakka was not reached by the whole column until 11.30 p.m., when the force had marched 22 miles, and had lost two men killed and twenty wounded. [Sidenote: Expedition of 1879]