Our objective, Khwash, lay on a plateau about six miles wide, bordered on either side by two ranges of hills. These hills have an altitude of some six thousand feet and run parallel to each other on the North-East and South-West sides of the fort. The fort itself is somewhere about four thousand five hundred feet above sea-level. This plateau was at one time well populated, well wooded and cultivated with some seventy-three karezes running along it, all tapping the great underground stream which flows from the Southern slopes of the Koh-i-taftan. We were hot and played out after our sixteen-mile march, so halted to rest, and to speculate as to whether Mahommed-Hassan would surrender on, or before, the time-limit given him. We had not long to wait, however, for hardly had we halted when we saw a messenger, on foot and carrying a white flag, coming towards us. He salaamed as he reached us and said he bore a message from Mahommed-Hassan, imploring me not to blow Khwash into the skies, as he had heard all about the defeat of the Yarmahommedzais under Jiand, and that, under the circumstances, he recognised the folly of attempting to oppose my advance. Moreover, he was now on his way to surrender himself and the fort. So bluff still held the day! And sure enough, a few minutes later, Mahommed-Hassan, a miserable-looking creature, arrived and tendered his formal surrender. [Illustration: KHWASH FORT.] As we marched forward in style to enter the fort the Yarmahommedzai garrison marched out and joined the local population of "Khwashis," who have lived in and around the fort for many generations. These latter are peaceful cultivators of the soil, and are allowed to exist because they are useful servants to Jiand and his fighting men. They and their womenfolk are graciously allowed to keep a certain proportion of the crops they grow, the bulk of which goes to Jiand. These Khwashis are a much lower type of humanity than the Raiders, and only ask to be allowed to exist in peace. The fort, on closer inspection, proved to be some seventy yards square, with two gates, one to the South-East and one to the North-West. The outer walls rise to about thirty feet with towers at the four corners, three of which are about thirty-five feet high, while the fourth is probably fully fifty feet. This latter tower was the one occupied by the garrison. Of the seventy-three fine karezes originally existing in and around the fort we could only find two. But one of these was a particularly good one whose waters came to the surface and flowed outside the South-East walls in an extraordinarily clear and limpid stream, in refreshing contrast to so many of the tepid, brackish streams found throughout the Sarhad.