On the 18th December the Peshawar Column reconnoitred the Khyber Pass as far as Fort Maude; on the 23rd Ali Musjid was occupied; and on the 26th the column marched to Lundi Kotal, finding villages deserted, barracks destroyed, and everywhere damage done to Government property. The Shinwaris living about Lundi Kotal, who had assisted in the early attacks on the Khyber posts, had by now paid up their fines and submitted, and proved their repentance by assisting in picqueting the hills and keeping off Zakha Khel raiders, and even restored some of the property taken away when the serai at Lundi Kotal was looted.
The Bazar Valley, which is one of a series of parallel valleys running almost due east and west, is only about twenty miles long, with an average breadth of between eight and twelve miles from watershed to watershed, and lies at an elevation of 3000 feet. On the north the Alachi Mountains separate it from the Khyber, and on the south the Sur Ghar Range divides it from the Bara Valley. Through the valley the Bazar stream runs almost due east till it joins the Khyber stream at Jabagai. The east end of the valley is narrow, and just before its final debouchure into the Peshawar Plain it contracts into an almost impassable defile. The west end, on the other hand, is comparatively wide and open, and climbs gradually up to the snow-capped range of the Safed Koh, the lower ridges of which form the boundary of the Bazar Valley. The Zakha Khel own this upper portion of the valley. It consists of two main branches, each about two miles broad, enclosing between them an irregular spur. This spur, running out from the main watershed in a series of relatively small hills, ends in an abrupt peak just above China. About two and a half miles east of China the two branch valleys unite, and in the apex of their junction, closing the mouth of the China plain, is an isolated hill known as Khar Ghundai.
Through the circle of mountains to the south-west and west go four main passes—Mangal Bagh and Bukar leading into the Bara Valley, and the Thabai and Sisobi, or Tsatsobi, into Afghanistan. The former give communication to neighbours, the latter form back-doors or “bolt-holes” into Afghanistan, and the existence of these back-doors constitutes the real difficulty of dealing effectively with the Zakha Khels. The “front-door” is over the Alachi Range, crossed by the Chora, Alachi, Bori, and Bazar Passes, and of these the first named is the easiest, but it leads, as has been already stated, through Malikdin Khel territory.