Chitrāl

Chitrāl, a small mountain state in the upper basin of the Kashkar or Kunar, a tributary of the Kabul River, and bordering on Cashmere and Kafiristan, is 5200 feet above sea-level. Major Bidulph, the first European to enter it, described it in Tribes of the Hindoo Koosh (1880). The people are Moslems, but mostly speak a language closely akin to that of their pagan neighbours in Kafiristan. Upper Chitrāl, with its capital Mastuj, is closely connected with Gilgit. Lower Chitrāl enjoyed till lately undisturbed independence. But in 1894 an English resident and small body of troops were besieged in Chitrāl, so in March 1895 an expedition was sent (the main body by the Swat valley, the other from Gilgit), which after sharp fighting advanced triumphantly through very difficult country, relieved the besieged, and annihilated all opposition. See Sir G. S. Robertson's Chitrāl: the Story of a Minor Siege (1898).