After leaving Buni, the road runs for some distance along flat ground until the junction of the Turikho and Yarkhun rivers is reached. At this point the road leads up along the face of a cliff and then down on to a small plain, where are a few houses and some patches of cultivation. This is known as the village of Koragh, and immediately after, the river runs between the cliffs, which draw together and make the mouth of the defile. The path which follows the left bank crosses the débris fallen from the cliffs above and then runs along the edge of the river at the foot of another and smaller cliff, or in summer, when the river is full, the path runs over this smaller cliff. Ross's party took the lower road. After the second cliff the paths lead on to a small plain about two hundred yards wide at its greatest width, and perhaps half a mile long, and then runs up and across the face of a third cliff which drops sheer down into the river. This cliff forms the end of the trap. It would be hard to find a better place for an ambuscade. Ross's advance guard was on this plain, approaching the spur which closes the trap, when they were fired on. Ross went forward to reconnoitre the ground, and at once saw the impossibility of driving the enemy out with his small force, and therefore ordered Jones to go back and hold the entrance of the defile to enable them to escape. On the first shot being fired, the coolies had chucked their loads and bolted, as likely as not helping to man the sangars enclosing the party. Jones, taking ten men, made an attempt to reach the mouth of the defile, but found it already occupied by the enemy, who had run up stone sangars, and by the time he had got within a hundred yards of it, eight of his ten men were wounded. He therefore fell back on the main party, who had taken refuge in some caves at the foot of the cliff. The caves, now half full of water, owing to the rising of the river, can be seen in the photograph. The party remained in these caves till 9 P.M., when they made another attempt to cut their way out, but were driven back by avalanches of stones. They then had to scale the mountainside, but were stopped by an impossible cliff, and one sepoy, falling over, was killed, so they came back to the caves dead tired. Here they remained the whole of the next day, the enemy trying an occasional shot from across the river, where they had erected sangars; but the Sikhs had, in their turn, built sangars across the mouth of their cave, which sheltered them. Then the enemy tried rolling stones over the top of the cliff, but this only had the effect of strengthening the sangars, so they shut that up. During that day, Ross and Jones came to the conclusion that there was nothing to be done but cut their way out; everyone must take his chance, the rush to be made about 2 A.M. On the morning of the 10th, accordingly, at the time fixed, they made their sortie.