In March, 1851, Lord Dalhousie visited Peshawur and discussed with Sir Colin the policy to be adopted towards the troublesome and turbulent tribes on the north-western border. Scarcely had the Governor-General gone when news came in that a Momund tribe, of the region north of Peshawur between the Swat and Cabul rivers, had been raiding into British territory. Dalhousie left to Sir Colin the decision whether to make signal reprisals or to adopt defensive measures, and, as the result of the description of the wild and rugged region sent him by Sir Colin after a reconnaissance he had made, elected for the defensive as an experiment. It failed, for in October the Momunds of Michni made an irruption upon some villages within British territory. The Governor-General now decided on an immediate resort to active measures, and Sir Colin was ordered to inflict summary chastisement on the offending tribe. He marched from Peshawur on October 25th with a force of all arms about twelve hundred strong, and advanced to the confines of the Michni territory. He did not hurry, because he desired that his political officer should have opportunity to inform the inhabitants of the conditions intended to be offered them; which were annexation of the territory, exile for the irreconcilables, and the retention of their lands by the cultivators on payment of revenue. Campbell's humane view was that "to drive into the hills the whole population of Michni, occupying some seven and twenty villages, could only result in forcing them to prey on the plunder of the villages inside the border." The villages and fortalices whose inhabitants were implicated in the violation of British territory were destroyed under a harmless fire maintained by the mountaineers; but, as Campbell records, "while engaged in duties in which no soldier can take pleasure no lives were lost on either side. God knows the rendering homeless of two or three hundred families is a despicable task enough, without adding loss of life to this severe punishment." The British camp was more than once assailed by bodies of Momund tribes, and one of those attacks was made by some five thousand hillmen whom Sir Colin dispersed by shell fire. A fort was built and garrisoned in the Michni country, and the field-force returned to Peshawur in February, 1852. With the results it had accomplished the Governor-General expressed his entire satisfaction.