"I leave to-morrow to take command of my Brigade at Hoti Mardan, about twenty-five miles north-east of Peshawur, and we shall march from there on April 1, right away for Chitral; but without doubt we shall have some rough work and some fighting. Umra Khan knows he will have no mercy after destroying Captain Ross's detachment, and will do his best to raise the whole border against us. "I have four first-class regiments--the Seaforth Highlanders, the Buffs, the 25th Punjab Infantry, the Second 4th Ghoorkas, and we are all sound and prepared to go anywhere, so I hope we shall all come well out of it. * * * * * "I think myself we shall have to drop our tents, small as they are, and march without them. Our difficulty will be crossing deep rivers; we shall have no boats, and must trust to making rafts of skins and floating the men across; but it is always a shaky business when there are bullets flying about." On March 30, in drenching rain, the first troops marched out of Hoti Mardan; on April 2 they met the enemy, who were lying in wait for them on the slopes of the Malakand Pass. But {130} in this and the subsequent engagements on the banks of the Swat and the Panjkora Rivers, the Third Brigade took no part, being held in reserve. A stirring account of the fighting is given by Colonel Younghusband in his _Story of the Guides_. A bridge of rafts was thrown across the Panjkora River; the Guides Cavalry and Infantry were passed over on the afternoon of April 15, with orders to reconnoitre certain villages early the next morning. But in the night a flood arose, huge trees crashed down on the swollen stream, completely wrecking the bridge. Two miles below this point, the Sappers were rigging up a suspension bridge; and in the meantime an attempt was made to float the men across on rafts supported by mussocks, or inflated goat-skins, and navigated by native boatmen. [Sidenote: A rescue]