The route to Chitral from the Swat Valley leads through this country. Leaving the Swat River at Chakdara, the road turns abruptly to the west and enters the Uch Valley, passing by the Katgola Pass (3000 feet) into the Talash Valley, where, as Bellew tells us and as later travellers have confirmed, there are extensive ruins of massive fortifications on the south side of the valley and nine or ten miles from the Panjkora, covering the hills for a distance of several miles. From here the ascent is very steep to the summit of the Kamrani Pass, to the north-east of which, in a valley, lies Mundah, the stronghold of Mian Gul Jan, the quarrelsome younger brother of the Khan of Dir. The descent from the kotal to Sado or Khungai is very steep. Turning to the right from Sado, the road passes up the Panjkora Valley, the river being crossed on the fourth march from Sado at Chutiatun, whence, a few miles further along the right bank of the Dir stream, Dir itself is reached. “Here,” writes Enriquez, “situated on a low hill is the stronghold of the Khan. The fort has three towers, each surmounted with a loop-holed fighting top.... The vale of Dir is well cultivated and numbers of chenars are scattered about it, so that its greenness is refreshing after the wearying aridity of the Panjkora. The little town of Dir occupies a steep khud abreast of the fort. Its crazy huts are built one above the other, so that the roof of one forms the promenade or front garden of the one above.” Then on up the Dir Valley, via Mirga, to the Lowari Pass and Chitral. An alternative route, branching off from Sado, runs westward for some way and then, turning northward again, ascends the bed of the Jandol River to the Janbatai Pass (7212 feet); after crossing this the road leads along the Baraul Valley to Chutiatun and Dir, where it joins the first mentioned road. The people of Dir and Bajaur are all Sunni Muhammadans, intensely bigoted, but superstitious rather than religious. Their country is very much priest-ridden, and the people are unusually susceptible to the influence of the mullahs, who are able to excite them to fanaticism more easily and to a greater degree than among other Pathans. The fighting men in Dir and Bajaur number probably not less than 80,000; they, and more particularly the men of Dir, have a very strong sense of discipline; and in the event of a general fanatical rising the combination of tribes which could be formed would be by no means one to be despised, since they would probably receive material assistance, if not indeed open and active help, from Swat, from the Utman Khels, and very possibly from the men of Buner. OPERATIONS. [Sidenote: Umra Khan of Jandol] It will be convenient here to give some account of Umra Khan of Jandol, whose usurpations were responsible for the formation of the Chitral Relief Expedition, the operations of which, in the countries of Dir and Bajaur, are about to be described.