3-082-685 - The Print Collector/Heritage Images

The Chitral Expedition: View at Mouth of Kashmir Smats Cave, in the Gorge of Pudja Mountain, Yusufzai, 1895. 'From Hoti-Murdan; To Malakand Pass; In the distance are the plains over which Sir Robert Low's columns marched to the Mulakand Pass...My secret purpose was to reach and ascend Pudja...which rose in formidable grandeur 5000 ft. above the plains...we made our way up the gorge into the fastnesses of the mountain, and daylight found us on the flank of Pudja itself...we reached the summit, and there what a view all around! Back over the Yusufzai and Peshawur plains we could see where lay the Kaibar [Kyhyber] Pass, and then where stood Peshawur, Nowshera, and Attock on the great historical road down to India...my survey over, we had a long trudge down the steep mountain-side to our bivouac in the Cave of Kasmir Smats. In the morning I explored the recesses of this great cavern and found considerable Buddhist remains half-smothered in a fine dust and debris...The overthrow and destruction may have been due to earthquakes, but it was evident throughout all these Buddhist settlements that the invading Mussulmans...had been the destroyers...In the V of the gorge, may be seen the very track of our columns to the Malakand Pass'. From "Illustrated London News", 1895.