The Shandur Pass is about ninety miles from Chitral and 130 from Gilgit. On the west side of this pass, as has been already mentioned, the whole country was up in arms against the British, and news now reached Gilgit, that besides the garrison of Chitral being shut up, the post of Mastuj was besieged, and, finally, that the detachment of troops under Captain Ross had been annihilated, and that officer killed, and that a second detachment under Lieutenant Edwardes and Fowler had been attacked on the way to Chitral. On the east side of the Shandur Pass is the province of Yasin, formerly independent, but during recent years an integral part of the Chitral state. This province had so far remained quiet, but it could not of course be known whether Colonel Kelly in marching through it would encounter opposition. Even if he did not meet with actual hostility, and if the people were only passively obstructive, his task of reaching Chitral would be an almost hopeless one, for both in the matter of supplies and of transport he must of necessity largely depend upon the people of the country through which he passed. On March 23rd and 24th Colonel Kelly's force set out from Gilgit, the news having just previously reached them of the annihilation of Captain Ross's party. The first detachment which Colonel Kelly himself accompanied was composed of 200 men of the 32nd Pioneers under Captain Borrodaile, with Lieutenants Bethune (afterwards killed in Tibet) and Cobbe, and Surgeon-Captain Browning-Smith; and the second detachment of 200 Pioneers under Lieutenants Petersen and Cooke. Two guns of the Kashmir Mountain Battery also accompanied the latter detachment.