Chitral Campaign

Who or why or how or what? opens one of Edward Lears limericks Is the Akond of Swat? The answer to the question lies within this book - a newspapermans account of a British military expedition mounted against Chtral Swat and Bajour in 1895. The Akond was the religious leader of Swat an area on Indias ever turbulent north-west fronteir renowned for its religious piety and its jealously preserved Purdah ( the word literally means curtain) which was kept firmly closed against foreign incursions until the campaign narrated in this book. This is an excellent account of a colonial campaign in a tough area where the truculence of the tribespeople towards the British is more than matched by the harshness of the terrain.Thompsons prose is clear and straightforward and the events he recounts exciting and tense. He makes no pretence to be writing an official history but what is possibly more valuable tells a great story. The book is profusely illustrated with some sixty photographs plus sketches plans and maps. A must for anyone interested in British India in late Victorian times.