We left camp that night at half-past seven, and crept up the nullah with our blankets to the foot of the climb, and there we waited till the morning.
A few hundred yards beyond there was a village buried among bushes, and then a deep nullah cut clean across the valley.
One of the sharpshooters lying ready on the British side of the nullahsaid that they looked for all the world like a black train of ants.
The road which wound down behind the fort into the bed of the nullah and zigzagged up again on the far side had been broken away, the cliffs were unscaleable, and the stone sangars on the brow proof against shell and bullet.
I got leave and used to creep up the nullah in the darkness to the tongue of the glacier with a little telescope and lie hidden all day behind a boulder working out the way, until darkness came again and allowed me to get back to camp.
The sides of the nullah were extraordinarily precipitous, and on the edge furthest from us stone sangars were already built as a second line of defence.
Then from a sangar lower down the line where the cliffs of the nullah curved outwards they were seen and the alarm was given.
I had crept up thenullah time after time towards the glacier at its head, thinking that if ever the position was to be taken it must be turned at that end.
The Nullah runs southwesterly after leaving its source in the chain of hills dividing Ugogo from Magunda Mkali.
We should arrive at Munieka on the morrow; the day after would be a terekeza from Mabunguru Nullah to a camp near Unyambogi; two hours the next day would bring us to Kiti, where there was plenty of water and food.
A broad ditch or nullah with walled sides, which during the rains drains the Tartar city, ran towards the wall on which we stood, passing beneath our feet through a tunnel in it, which could be closed by an iron grating.
The nullah was crossed by several bridges, over one of which passes Legation Street, along which we had ridden in our rickshas that morning.
From the nullah behind the house and from the hills came our Boer-log in number more than a hundred, and Sikandar Khan said, "Now we see the meaning of last night's signal.
After a sharp encounter we retired, according to plan, and on the return to our lines we heard murmurings in a nullah to our right.
General Buller told them to take the waggons up to the battery, but instantly they emerged a stream of bullets and shells fell all round, and most of the men got into the nullah again.
A little nullah was by, and into that I hobbled and sat down.
The next day he went back up the nullah prepared to spend the night out, shot a young male ibex and dragged the carcase down to where he had seen the ounce the day before.
The nest was placed in a small tree, about 20 feet from the ground, in a nullah and well exposed to view.
The nest was on a bank of a nullah well concealed among dead leaves, about 2 feet above the bottom of the bank.
This order reached the battery, and with the sappers as an escort they turned back, recrossed a nullah and met the general with two companies of Sikhs outside the village of Bilot.
A dropping fire began after dinner from the great nullah to the north of the camp, and all lights were put out and the tents struck.
At length the bottom of the spur was reached, and the remainder of the two companies turned to bay in the nullah with fixed bayonets.
Suddenly from a nullah a long line of tribesmen rose and fired a volley.
The boundary nullah is a mere streamlet: it runs between two ridges of the Patkaye: its course being about ESE.
Both Coal and Salt exist in the valley; the only indication of the existence of the former I saw, was a mass of lignite in the bed of a nullah between Tsilone and Meinkhoong.
We left Meerpore and proceeded about one and a half mile from Joke, following the nullah until we came on a canal in which, from a bund having been thrown across, there was a puddle or two of water.
No descent, but rather small ascent on the whole, say 200 feet, the ascent from the principal nullahcrossed being equal, though much shorter than the descent to it.
Halted: there being some water collected in attempts to form a nullah from the last rain, it is quite brownish and opaque, but deposits no sediment, and makes good tea, although disagreeable to drink in any other form.
On the descent to the nullah the following plants were found.
Towards the nullah we passed a village with some wheat and buckwheat cultivation; Plantago, Ranunculus, Thymus, were interspersed.
Turkish artillery recommenced their bombardment, under cover of which two battalions emerged from the nullah to the northeast of our most advanced trench and commenced an attack across the open, advancing in two regular lines.
Simultaneously the enemy attacked the knoll we captured due west of Krithia, advancing from a nullah in close formation in several lines.
Twenty shaven polls were found hiding in the nullah down which the Tibetans had crept in the dark, and were immediately despatched.
But from the shallow nullah where they lay concealed, not 200 yards distant, and watched our sentry, they could survey the uncompromising front which they had set themselves to attack with the naked sword.
The great hope, however, was that the British guns would succeed in wrecking the redoubt that commanded the outlet of the nullah before the infantry moved.
We waited at the spot where the support line ran down to the nullah and from which C Company was to emerge, while our artillery thundered against the enemy's position.
The nullah was twisted and partly covered by curving banks on either flank; so that it was hoped that our men might nevertheless avoid complete exposure.
There is a nullah a few yards on; we had better keep in that for a quarter of a mile; it does not go quite the way we want, but it will be safer to follow it till we are well out of sight of any one who may be watching the plain.
Mount," from Graeme, and straightway there was a cessation of comments and a frenzied descent to the nullah and horses, each man seizing the first animal he came to, regardless of ownership.
The few remaining could now be seen coming out of the smoke and tearing down a slope to a nullah a short way off, and they were not seen again.
This made us hurry still more, then the nullah had to be crossed to the south side.
Star shells were thrown over us, and we hid in the nullah while we were loading the stretchers and raising them to the top of the bank.
The Turks are said to have suffered enormously, being taken by surprise in a nullah along which they were marching in close formation.
At last we got a guide, but his idea of the whereabouts of the wounded was most hazy; all he knew was that they were collected in a nullah somewhere not far off.
We came on a nullahat last and walked along its high steep banks, calling if anyone was at the bottom, in a voice not too loud owing to our proximity to the Turks.
The banks of the nullah had been hollowed out by the action of the water, so affording a certain amount of shade, for which we were very grateful after the burning heart of the open sandy plain.
The message dispatched, we set off once more, with our new cavalcade in attendance, and had gone some twenty or twenty-five miles when Idu again asked for a halt as he believed he saw men camped in a little nullah straight ahead of us.
As I followed up this ravine, walking stealthily along in the delightful shade of the overhanging palms, I observed on my left a little nullah which opened out of the main channel through a confused mass of jungle and creeper.
This would have taken too long to erect when railhead was at the place, so a diversion had been made round it, the temporary track leading down almost to the bed of the nullah and up again on the further side.
That is the nullahin which they say the tiger retires at night.
The tiger had killed a cow the day before, and the villagers were certain that he had retired to a deep nullah round which a careful watch had been kept all day.
The big fellow worked with painful care for more than an hour before he became sure of himself; then his speed quickened, following a dry nullah at last, for several miles.
Not a sign of a track that human eye could detect after that--straight, dry, stonynullah bed, deeply shadowed from the narrow walls and stretching ahead apparently for miles.
They couldn't have been three seconds clambering down the rocks to the nullah bed, yet the male tiger was twenty feet nearer when they looked up.
The nullah itself was sheltered, but it was marshy; so we lay down in a shallow but dry water-channel beyond, and obtained what sleep we could.
The three set about collecting sticks in the nullah and brewing some strong tea, which refreshed them immensely.
He had been cut off from the nullah by the chance arrival of a shepherd, and had been biding his time till the latter should think fit to move to pastures new.
In the meantime Cochrane and the two others had to get back to the nullah where Grunt and Ellis had been left.
On doing so we were much dismayed to find that the nullah was dry.
There was nothing for it but to lie where we were till twilight had faded, and then to cut south-west with the idea of hitting the nullah at a point above the flocks.
This, too, was the only way of obtaining a deep drink; except for half a mug of tea made from several-times stewed leaves, all the water brought down to the nullah each day was utilised for cooking the wheat.
As daylight appeared the eight of us had moved for better concealment to the bottom of what was seen to be a horseshoe valley, and when the shout was heard we were lying there in a small nullah which was narrow and steep-sided.
To that therefore we moved in broad daylight, glad to find that we should at least have some water, for a muddy trickle flowed down the nullah bed.
Suddenly my attention was riveted upon three forms that walked slowly out of the nullah and climbed the slope on the other side, about three hundred and fifty yards away.
We crossed the nullah and the carriage jolted down and across a few minutes later.
Slowly the British force worked up towards the enemy’s position--a deep nullah directly in front of the line of march.
This brave battalion marched up to the nullah under a heavy fire of matchlocks, without returning a shot till within forty paces of the intrenchment, and then stormed it like British soldiers.
It is a mere footpath that leaves the road on the hither side of the bridge, and skirting the dry bed of the nullah touches the river close to the old temple.
We now saw the Pioneers moving down the nullah towards the river, while at the same time the Levies showed on the ridge and took possession of the sangar.
Just before the maidan the road drops down on to the river bed, and then runs up on to the maidan itself, which gradually slopes up to the centre, where it is divided by a deep nullah that I think they call in America a cañon.
We struck the nullah close opposite the empty sangar No.
We were all right, I saw, so I gave the order to advance--keeping along the edge of the nullah so as to get at the sangars.
Just as we were turning in, the picket on the road over the nullah first let drive a volley, and Oldham, who was on duty, took some men and doubled out to see what was the matter.
There are two places to cross it, one the regular road to Chitral, which zig-zags down the nullahnear the mouth, and the other a goat track about half-way between the road and the hills.
We had a short halt, and then moved on, and took up a position covering the fort, with our front on a nullah and pickets facing south.
After a time he came down the hill, and the procession moved down along the nullah and out of sight.
From Rahman there is a path across the hills to Chitral, by means of a nullah called the Goland Gol, of which mention will be made hereafter but at this time of year it was impossible to use this path, owing to the snow.
After a time the fire from the sangar slackened, and as things seemed to be going all right, I stopped the Levies firing, and, taking two of them, went forward up to the edge of the nullah to see if there was any sign of a road.
Then the Pioneers moved down the nullah and crossed by the goat track.
From here I could see pretty well the whole of the position occupied by the enemy, except the end of the Nisa Gol nullah where it debouches on to the river.
