On the 3rd of March, at about 4.30 P.M., news was received by the British officers in Chitral fort that Sher Afzul, with a large force, was approaching. Captain Colin Campbell, of the Central India Horse, and, for the time, Inspecting Officer of the Kashmir Imperial Service Troops, was in command of the troops now in Chitral; and, late in the afternoon though it was, he thought it necessary to go out with a strong reconnoitring force to ascertain the strength and intentions of the Chitrali force. Hostilities between the British and the Chitralis had not yet commenced, and with a large armed force advancing towards the fort it was necessary for the British garrison to take every precaution against being caught unawares. Two hundred Kashmir Infantry under Captains Campbell, Townshend, and Baird, and accompanied by the British Agent, Surgeon-Major Robertson, Lieutenant Gurdon, and Surgeon-Captain Whitchurch, therefore set out from the fort to reconnoitre the Chitrali dispositions. There is no regular town of Chitral, but round the fort, which is merely the residence of the Mehtars, there are scattered over the valley a number of little hamlets, and detached houses, dotted among the cultivated lands which stretch for a distance of about three miles down the valley. These cultivated lands are on some gently sloping ground, from a mile to a mile and a half in width, which runs down from the high, steep hill-sides on the right bank to the river. Leaving fifty men in the _serai_ a quarter of a mile from the fort, and detaching a section under Captain Baird, which Lieutenant Gurdon accompanied, to ascend the hill-sides on the right, Captains Campbell and Townshend advanced for a mile and a half down the valley, towards a house in which it was stated that Sher Afzul had established himself. On arrival at the house it was found that Sher Afzul was not in it, and Captain Townshend then advanced still further down the valley, while Captain Baird's flanking party was strengthened by an additional twenty-five men. Captain Townshend could see a number of men moving about among the trees and houses of a hamlet 500 yards beyond the house which it had been supposed Sher Afzul was occupying; and on the hill-sides which Baird's party were ascending there were some hundreds of the Chitralis. On these hill-slopes firing now commenced, and Captain Townshend concluding that the men he could see in the front moving about in the hamlet were the enemy, opened fire with a section volley. The fire was immediately returned by the enemy, who, being armed with Martini-Henry and Snider rifles, made, says Captain Townshend, most excellent shooting. Among the enemy were several hundred of Umra Khan's men, drilled and trained by pensioners from our own Indian Army; and there were, indeed, many of these pensioners themselves in the force which was now advancing upon Chitral.