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of whom were Kohdaminies, who were the Bacha's partisans. In Baladeh, the Marshal called a Jirgah of the southern tribes. All their chiefs were invited to this meeting. Invitations were also sent to Mohammad Siddiq, to the Governor of Gardez and to other influential local chiefs, all of whom responded except Mohammad Siddiq, who had no desire to discuss such matters. But it was at this time that Allah Nawaz Khan somehow succeeded in making his entry into the Gardez fort. He won over some of the chiefs to his side, and asked them to compel Mohammad Siddiq to take part in the meeting and if he refused, to threaten him that they would withdraw their help. They at last prevailed upon Mohammad Siddiq who was obliged to leave for Baladeh, but he took with him some three hundred men fully armed. On the 15th April, S. Shah Wali Khan, who had left Khost by a different route, also reached Baladeh, where this heterogeneous host manned from widely divergent and mutually inimical tribes was massed together. Mohammad Siddiq, not slow to realize the possibilities of such a mixed army, succeeded at last in bringing about a clash among 119 مخالف