The party assembled under the roof of the Residency included the Commander-in-Chief, of whom Sir Charles says: 'Sir Frederick Roberts knows India as no one else knows it, and knows the Indian Army as no one else has ever known it'; the Adjutant-General; the Quartermaster- General, who was Director of Military Intelligence; the Military Member of Council, General Chesney; and Sir Charles Elliott, the Member of Council for Public Works, who had charge of the strategic railways. With them were the Inspectors-General of Artillery and of Military Works, the Secretary of the Defence Commission, and the General in Command at Quetta, as well as his predecessor, who had not yet vacated the post. He saw manoeuvres outside Quetta in the valleys that lead from the Afghan side, and he had the experience of riding up and down those stony hill slopes beside the Commander-in-Chief. He explored the Khojak tunnel, then under process of construction, running through 'a wall-like range which reminds one of the solitude of Sainte-Baume in Provence,' surveyed all the defences of Quetta, and then, while Lady Dilke went on by rail to Simla, he set out to ride, in company with Sir Frederick Roberts and Sir Robert Sandeman, from Harnai, through the Bori and Zhob Valleys, towards the Gomul Pass. On that journey he saw great gatherings of chiefs and tribesmen come in to meet and salute the representatives of British rule. He watched Sir Robert Sandeman parleying with the borderers, and was introduced to them as the statesman who had sanctioned the new road. These were regions beyond the reach of telegraph, where outposts maintained communications by a pigeon post, of which the mountain hawk took heavy toll; and each day's journey was a hard and heavy ride. The ride continued for twelve days, through scorching sun by day and bitter cold at night; and every march brought its full portion of strange and beautiful sights. All the romance of border rule, outposts among robber tribes, order maintained through the agency of subsidized chiefs, were disclosed; and even when the conditions of travel changed, when a train took them from the Upper Indus to Nowshera and Peshawur, it brought to Sir Charles the opportunity of seeing what interested him no less than the wild tribal levies--namely, the pick of British regulars in India, both native and European. The splendour and beauty of the pageant pleased the eye, and there was not lacking a dramatic interest. He had seen by Sir Frederick Roberts's side the mountain battle-ground where the day of Maiwand was avenged and British prestige restored; now he was present when Ayub Khan, the victor of Maiwand, voluntarily came forward to hold speech for the first time with the conqueror who so swiftly blotted out the Afghan's victory.