Certainly one of the most successful was that which Cavagnari, who was afterwards murdered at Kabul, made.

It was not much of an affair, but it shows what can be done with dash.
"In 1877 we were making a canal, to tap the Swat river at a point where it enters British territory.

Naturally, the Swat villagers on the other side of the frontier considered that the operation was a deep-laid plot for injuring them; and it was at the village of Sappri that the chief went down, with a number of desperate men, and murdered all the coolies engaged in the work.

Cavagnari issued orders that the chief must pay a heavy fine, in money and cattle; and that the actual murderers must be tried for their crime.

The Khan, however, took no notice of the demand.
"Forty miles southeast of Sappri was the British cantonment of Murdan, where the corps of Guides is permanently quartered.