748 bayonets, 1st Battalion 1st Gurkhas. 744 bayonets, 3rd Sikh Infantry. 741 bayonets, 20th Punjab Infantry, while, in addition, the following units were held in readiness at Multan and Dera Ismail Khan to form a reserve brigade, viz.: 2nd Battalion Border Regiment. One squadron 1st Punjab Cavalry. No. 8 Mountain Battery. 4th Punjab Infantry. 38th Dogras. On the 1st October the escort was concentrated at Dera Ismail Khan, and within ten days the Ahmadzai clan of the Darwesh Khels from Wana had sent in their jirgah, _unanimously repeating a previous invitation to the British Government to take over their country and permit them to become British subjects_. _Operations of the Waziristan Field Force, 1894._—The escort finally left Dera Ismail Khan on the 13th October, concentrating again at Khajuri Kach and reaching Wana—via Spin and Karab Kot—on the 25th. A jirgah of the Wana Ahmadzai came in here and expressed pleasure at the arrival of the troops, but none the less the camp was fired into two nights in succession, and it was reported that the mullahs were endeavouring to stir up strife and to prevent a really representative jirgah from coming in. [Sidenote: The Camp at Wana] The plain of Wana is about 13 miles long, 11 broad, and very stony; the camp was placed at the eastern end of it, the ground in the vicinity being much cut up by ravines. The position, moreover, which had been chosen for the camp of the British Joint Commissioner, was a source of weakness and of anxiety to the General in command of the escort, having been pitched some 210 yards from the south-east corner of the military camp, so as to afford the jirgahs free access to the Political Officers. Up to the end of October there was no reason to anticipate an attack upon the escort by any large body of Mahsuds; but on the 1st November it became known that the Mullah Powindah, a noted firebrand, was in the neighbourhood with not less than 1000 followers, and that he had expressed his intention of attacking the Wana camp. Picquets were accordingly doubled, the defences were strengthened, and the troops ordered to be under arms at 4 a.m. every day. The camp was surrounded by some thirteen picquets, furnished by the 3rd Sikhs, 20th Punjab Infantry and 1st Gurkhas, in addition to an old Darwesh Khel fort held by 100 rifles of the last-named regiment; but, contrary to the procedure usually followed in frontier warfare, the majority of these picquets were no more than observation posts, and were not intended to hold their own in any serious attack, but were to fall back, in some cases on their supports, in others on their regiments in camp.