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+The Project Gutenberg EBook of The Unveiling of Lhasa, by Edmund Candler
+
+This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with
+almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or
+re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included
+with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org
+
+
+Title: The Unveiling of Lhasa
+
+Author: Edmund Candler
+
+Release Date: August 6, 2010 [EBook #33359]
+
+Language: English
+
+Character set encoding: ASCII
+
+*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE UNVEILING OF LHASA ***
+
+
+
+
+Produced by Steven Gibbs, Asad Razzaki and the Online
+Distributed Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+Transcriber's Note:
+
+
+ Variations in spelling and hyphenation have been retained as in
+ the original.
+
+ Some typographical and punctuation errors have been corrected. A
+ complete list follows the text.
+
+ Words italicized in the original are surrounded by _underscores_.
+
+ The 'oe' ligature is represented as oe.
+
+
+
+
+ THE UNVEILING
+ OF LHASA
+
+ BY
+
+ EDMUND CANDLER
+
+ AUTHOR OF 'A VAGABOND IN ASIA'
+
+
+ _WITH ILLUSTRATIONS AND MAP_
+
+ LONDON
+ EDWARD ARNOLD
+ Publisher to H.M. India Office
+ 41 & 43 MADDOX STREET, BOND STREET, W.
+ 1905
+ [_All rights reserved_]
+
+
+
+
+ THESE PAGES,
+ WRITTEN MOSTLY IN THE DRY COLD WIND OF TIBET,
+ OFTEN WHEN INK WAS FROZEN AND ONE'S HAND TOO NUMBED
+ TO FEEL A PEN, ARE DEDICATED TO
+
+ COLONEL HOGGE, C.B.,
+
+ AND
+
+ THE OFFICERS OF THE 23RD SIKH PIONEERS,
+ WHOSE GENIAL SOCIETY IS ONE OF THE MOST PLEASANT
+ MEMORIES OF A RIGOROUS CAMPAIGN.
+
+
+
+
+PREFACE
+
+
+The recent expedition to Lhasa was full of interest, not only on account
+of the political issues involved and the physical difficulties overcome,
+but owing to the many dramatic incidents which attended the Mission's
+progress. It was my good fortune to witness nearly all these stirring
+events, and I have written the following narrative of what I saw in the
+hope that a continuous story of the affair may interest readers who have
+hitherto been able to form an idea of it only from the telegrams in the
+daily Press. The greater part of the book was written on the spot, while
+the impressions of events and scenery were still fresh. Owing to wounds
+I was not present at the bombardment and relief of Gyantse, but this
+phase of the operations is dealt with by Mr. Henry Newman, _Reuter's_
+correspondent, who was an eye-witness. I am especially indebted to him
+for his account, which was written in Lhasa, and occupied many mornings
+that might have been devoted to well-earned rest.
+
+My thanks are also due to the Proprietors of the _Daily Mail_ for
+permission to use material of which they hold the copyright; and I am
+indebted to the Editors of the _Graphic_ and _Black and White_ for
+allowing me to reproduce certain photographs by Lieutenant Bailey.
+
+The illustrations are from sketches by Lieutenant Rybot, and photographs
+by Lieutenants Bailey, Bethell, and Lewis, to whom I owe my cordial
+thanks.
+
+ EDMUND CANDLER.
+
+ LONDON,
+ _January, 1905._
+
+
+
+
+CONTENTS
+
+
+CHAPTER I
+
+THE CAUSES OF THE EXPEDITION
+
+PAGES
+
+ A retrospect--Early visitors to Lhasa--The Jesuits--The
+ Capuchins--Van der Putte--Thomas Manning--The Lazarist
+ fathers--Policy of exclusion due to Chinese
+ influence--The Nepalese invasion--Bogle and Turner--The
+ Macaulay Mission--Tibetans invade Indian territory--The
+ expedition of 1888--The convention with China--British
+ blundering--Our treatment of the Shata Shape--The
+ Yatung trade mart--Tibetans repudiate the
+ convention--Fiction of the Chinese suzerainty--A policy
+ of drift--Tibetan Mission to the Czar--Dorjieff and his
+ intrigues--The Dalai Lama and Russian designs--Our
+ great countermove--Boycotted at Khamba Jong--The
+ advance sanctioned--Winter quarters at Tuna 1-21
+
+CHAPTER II
+
+OVER THE FRONTIER
+
+ From the base to Gnatong--A race to Chumbi--A perilous
+ night ride--Forest scenery--Gnatong three years ago and
+ now--Gnatong in action--A mountain lake--The Jelap la
+ and beyond--Undefended barriers--Yatung and its Customs
+ House--Chumbi--The first Press message from
+ Tibet--Arctic clothing--Scenes in camp--A very
+ uncomfortable 'picnic' 22-34
+
+CHAPTER III
+
+THE CHUMBI VALLEY
+
+ The Tomos--A hardy race--Their habits and
+ diversions--Chinamen in exile--A prosperous valley--But
+ a cheerless clime--Kasi and his statistics--Trade
+ figures--Tibetan cruelties--Kasi as general
+ provider--Mountain scenery--The spirit of the
+ Himalayas--A glorious flora--The Himalayas and the
+ Alps--The wall of Gob-sorg--Chinamen and Tomos--A
+ future hill-station--Lingmathang--A cosy cave--The
+ Mounted Infantry Corps--Two famous regiments--Sport at
+ Lingmathang--The Sikkim stag--Gamebirds and
+ wildfowl--Gautsa camp 35-61
+
+CHAPTER IV
+
+PHARI JONG
+
+ Gautsa to Phari Jong--A wonderful old fortress--Tibetan
+ dirt--A medical armoury--The Lamas' library--Roadmaking
+ and sport--The Tibetan gazelle and other
+ animals--Evening diversions--Cold, grime, and
+ misery--Manning's journal--Bogle's account of
+ Phari--History of the fortress--The town and its
+ occupants--The mystery of Tibet--The significance of
+ the frescoes--Departure from Phari--The monastery of
+ the Red Lamas--Chumulari--The Tibetan New Year--Bogle's
+ narrative--The Tang la and the road to Lhasa 62-82
+
+CHAPTER V
+
+THE ROAD AND TRANSPORT
+
+ A transport 'show'--Difficulties of the way--Vicissitudes
+ of climate--Frozen heights and sweltering
+ valleys--Disease amongst transport animals--A tale of
+ disaster--The stricken Yak Corps--Troubles of the
+ transport officer--Mules to the rescue--The coolie
+ transport corps--Carrying power of the transport
+ items--The problem and its solution--The ekka and the
+ yak--A providentially ascetic beast--Splendid work of
+ the transport service--Courage and endurance of
+ officers and men--The 12th Mule Corps benighted in a
+ blizzard--Rifle-bolts and Maxims
+ frost-jammed--Difficulties of a Russian advance on
+ Lhasa--The new Ammo Chu cart-road 83-98
+
+CHAPTER VI
+
+THE ACTION AT THE HOT SPRINGS
+
+ The deadlock at Tuna--Discomforts of the garrison--The
+ Lamas' curse--The attitude of Bhutan--A diplomatic
+ triumph--Tedious delays--A welcome move forward--The
+ Tibetan camp at Hot Springs--The Lhasa Depon meets
+ Colonel Younghusband--Futile conferences--The Tibetan
+ position surrounded--Coolness of the Sikhs and
+ Gurkhas--The disarming--A sudden outbreak--A desperate
+ struggle--The action of the Lhasa General--The rabble
+ disillusioned in their gods--A beaten and bewildered
+ enemy--Reflections after the event--Tibetans in
+ hospital--Three months afterwards 99-114
+
+CHAPTER VII
+
+A HUMAN MISCELLANY
+
+ In a doolie to the base--Tibetan bearers--A retrospect--A
+ reverie and a reminiscence--Snow-bound at Phari--The
+ Bhutia as bearer--The Lepchas and their
+ humours--Mongolian odours--The road at last--Platitudes
+ in epigram--Lucknow doolie-wallahs--Their hymn of the
+ obvious--Meetings on the road--A motley of
+ races--Through a tropical forest--The Tista and
+ civilization 115-126
+
+CHAPTER VIII
+
+THE ADVANCE OF THE MISSION OPPOSED
+
+ The Tibetans responsible for hostilities--Their version of
+ the Hot Springs affair--Treacherous attack at
+ Samando--Wall-building--The Red Idol Gorge action--A
+ stiff climb--The enemy outflanked--Impressed
+ peasants--First phase of the opposition--Bad
+ generalship--Lack of enterprise--Erratic shooting--All
+ quiet at Gyantse--Enemy occupy Karo la--A booby
+ trap--Colonel Brander's sortie--Frontal attack
+ repulsed--Captain Bethune killed--Failure of flanking
+ movement--A critical moment--Sikhs turn the
+ position--Flight and pursuit--Second phase of the
+ opposition--Advanced tactics--Danger of being cut
+ off--The attack on Kangma--Desperate gallantry of the
+ enemy--Patriots or fanatics? 127-151
+
+CHAPTER IX
+
+GYANTSE (BY HENRY NEWMAN)
+
+ A happy valley--Devastated by war--Why the Jong was
+ evacuated--The lull before the storm--Tibetans
+ massing--The attack on the mission--A hot ten
+ minutes--Pyjamaed warriors--Wounded to the rescue--The
+ Gurkhas' rally--The camp bombarded--The labour of
+ defence work--Hadow's Maxim--Life during the
+ siege--Tibetans reinforced--They enfilade our
+ position--The taking of the 'Gurkha Post'--Terrible
+ carnage 152-169
+
+CHAPTER X
+
+GYANTSE--_continued_
+
+ Attack on the postal riders--Brilliant exploit of the
+ Mounted Infantry--Communications threatened--Clearing
+ the villages--A narrow shave--Arrival of
+ reinforcements--The storming of
+ Palla--House-fighting--Capture of the post--A fantastic
+ display--Night attacks--Seven miles of front--Advance
+ of the relief column--The Tibetans cornered--Naini
+ monastery taken--Capture of Tsaden--Our losses--The
+ armistice--Tibetans refuse to surrender the Jong--A
+ bristling fortress--The attack at dawn--The
+ breach--Gallantry of Lieutenant Grant and his
+ Gurkhas--Capture of the Jong 170-194
+
+CHAPTER XI
+
+GOSSIP ON THE ROAD TO THE FRONT
+
+ A garden in the forest--A jeremiad on transport--The
+ servant question--Jung Bir--British
+ Bhutan--Kalimpong--'The Bhutia tat'--Father
+ Desgodins--An adventurous career--A lost
+ opportunity--Chinese duplicity--Phuntshog--New arms and
+ new friends for Tibet--A mysterious Lama--Dorjieff
+ again--The inscrutable Tibetan 195-206
+
+CHAPTER XII
+
+TO THE GREAT RIVER
+
+ Failure of peace negociations--Opposition expected--Details
+ of force--March to the Karo la--Villages deserted--The
+ second Karo la action--The Gurkhas' climb--The Tibetan
+ rout--The Kham prisoners--Hopelessness of the Tibetans'
+ struggle--Their troops disheartened--Arrival at
+ Nagartse--Tedious delegates--The victory of a
+ personality--Brush with Tibetan cavalry--The last
+ shot--The Shapes despoiled--Modern rifles--Exaggerated
+ reports of Russian assistance--The Yamdok Tso--Dorje
+ Phagmo--Legends of the lake--The incubus of an
+ army--Why men travel--Wildfowl--Pehte--View from the
+ Khamba Pass--From the desert to Arcadia--The Tibetan of
+ the tablelands--The Tuna plateau--Homely scenes--A mood
+ of indolence--The course of the Tsangpo--The
+ Brahmaputra Irawaddy controversy--The projected Tsangpo
+ trip--Legendary geography--Lost opportunities 207-238
+
+CHAPTER XIII
+
+LHASA AND ITS VANISHED DEITY
+
+ The passage of the river--Major Bretherton drowned--The Kyi
+ Chu valley--Tropical heat--Atisa's tomb--Foraging in
+ holy places--First sight of the Potala--Hidden
+ Lhasa--Symbols of remonstrance--Prophecies of
+ invasion--And decay of Buddhism--Medieval
+ Tibet--Spiritual terrorism--Lamas' fears of
+ enlightenment--The last mystery unveiled--Arrival at
+ Lhasa--View from the Chagpo Ri--Entry into the
+ city--Apathy of the people--The Potala--Magnificence
+ and squalor--The secret of romance--A vanished
+ deity--'Thou shalt not kill'--Secret assassinations--A
+ marvellous disappearance--The Dalai Lama joins
+ Dorjieff--His personality and character--The verdict of
+ the Nepalese Resident--The voice without a soul--The
+ wisdom of his flight--A romantic picture--The place of
+ the dead 239-264
+
+CHAPTER XIV
+
+THE CITY AND ITS TEMPLES
+
+ Sullen monks--A Lama runs amok--The environs of Lhasa--The
+ Lingkhor--The Ragyabas--The cathedral--Service before
+ the Great Buddhas--The Lamas' chant--Vessels of
+ gold--'Hell'--White mice--The many-handed
+ Buddha--Silence and abstraction--The bazaar--Hats--The
+ Mongolians--Curio-hunting--The Ramo-che--Sorcery--The
+ adventures of a soul--Lamaism and Roman
+ Catholicism--The decay of Buddhism--The three great
+ monasteries--Their political influence--Depung--An
+ ecclesiastical University--The 'impossible' Tibetan--An
+ ultimatum--Consternation at Depung--Temporizing and
+ evasion--An ugly mob--A political deadlock 265-285
+
+CHAPTER XV
+
+THE SETTLEMENT
+
+ An irresponsible administration--An insolent reply--Tibetan
+ haggling--Release of the Lachung men--Social relations
+ with the Tibetans--A guarded ultimatum--A diplomatic
+ triumph--The signing of the treaty--Colonel
+ Younghusband's speech--The terms--Political prisoners
+ liberated--Deposition of the Dalai Lama--The Tashe
+ Lama--Prospect of an Anglophile Pope--The practical
+ results of the expedition--Russia discredited--Why a
+ Resident should be left at Lhasa--China hesitates to
+ sign the Treaty--The 'vicious circle' again--Her
+ acquiescence not of vital importance--The attitude of
+ Tibet to Great Britain--Fear and respect the only
+ guarantee of future good conduct 286-304
+
+
+
+
+LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS
+
+
+ A COLD DAY IN TIBET _frontispiece_
+
+ HEADQUARTERS OF THE MISSION AT LHASA _to face p._ 6
+
+ CHORTEN " 12
+
+ PANORAMA OF A CONVENT " 12
+
+ TUNA VILLAGE " 20
+
+ CHINESE GENERAL MA " 30
+
+ ON THE ROAD TO GAUTSA " 30
+
+ ROCK SCULPTURES 41
+
+ PRAYING-FLAGS AND MANI WALL _to face p._ 54
+
+ OFFICERS' TENTS, MOUNTED INFANTRY CAMP, LINGMATHANG " 54
+
+ SUBADAR SANGAT SINGH, 1ST MOUNTED INFANTRY " 60
+
+ WOUNDED KYANG " 70
+
+ GOA, OR TIBETAN GAZELLE " 70
+
+ THE TANG LA " 76
+
+ PHARI JONG " 76
+
+ MOUNTED INFANTRY PONIES, TUNA CAMP " 94
+
+ YAK IN EKKA " 94
+
+ THE DEPON'S LAST CONFERENCE WITH COLONEL YOUNGHUSBAND _to face p._ 102
+
+ TIBETANS RETREATING FROM SANGARS " 106
+
+ TURNING TIBETANS OUT OF THE SANGARS ON THE HILLSIDE " 106
+
+ DIAGRAMMATIC VIEW OF HOT SPRINGS ACTION " 110
+
+ THE TIBETAN DEAD " 118
+
+ FIELD-HOSPITAL DOOLIE WITH TIBETAN BEARERS " 118
+
+ TIBETAN SOLDIERS " 124
+
+ WOUNDED TIBETAN " 130
+
+ WOUNDED TIBETAN IN BRITISH HOSPITAL " 130
+
+ PIONEERS DESTROYING KANGMA WALL " 142
+
+ GYANTSE JONG " 154
+
+ GOLDEN-ROOFED TEMPLE, GYANTSE " 182
+
+ BUDDHAS IN PALKHOR CHOIDE " 182
+
+ TSACHEN MONASTERY " 198
+
+ GROUP OF SHAPES PARLEYING " 198
+
+ SKETCH OF THE KARO LA 213
+
+ KHAM PRISONERS _to face p._ 214
+
+ GURKHAS CLIMBING AT THE KARO LA " 214
+
+ PEHTE JONG " 222
+
+ GUBCHI JONG " 230
+
+ OLD CHAIN-BRIDGE AT CHAKSAM " 236
+
+ CROSSING THE TSANGPO " 236
+
+ THE POTALA " 244
+
+ ENTRY INTO LHASA " 250
+
+ CORNER OF COURTYARD OF ASTROLOGER'S TEMPLE, NECHANG _to face p._ 250
+
+ THE POTALA, WEST FRONT " 260
+
+ MOUNTED INFANTRY GUARD AT THE POTALA " 260
+
+ METAL BOWLS OUTSIDE THE JOKHANG " 268
+
+ STREET SCENE IN LHASA " 268
+
+ THE TSARUNG SHAPE " 274
+
+ MONGOLIANS IN LHASA " 274
+
+ THE TA LAMA " 286
+
+ SOLDIER OF THE AMBAN'S ESCORT " 286
+
+ COLONEL YOUNGHUSBAND AND THE AMBAN AT THE RACES " 290
+
+ THE TSARUNG SHAPE AND THE SECHUNG SHAPE LEAVING
+ LHALU HOUSE AFTER THE DURBAR _to face p._ 294
+
+ TIBETAN DRAMA PLAYED IN THE COURTYARD OF LHALU HOUSE " 298
+
+
+
+
+THE UNVEILING OF LHASA
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER I
+
+THE CAUSES OF THE EXPEDITION
+
+
+The conduct of Great Britain in her relations with Tibet puts me in mind
+of the dilemma of a big boy at school who submits to the attacks of a
+precocious youngster rather than incur the imputation of 'bully.' At
+last the situation becomes intolerable, and the big boy, bully if you
+will, turns on the youth and administers the deserved thrashing. There
+is naturally a good deal of remonstrance from spectators who have not
+observed the byplay which led to the encounter. But sympathy must be
+sacrificed to the restitution of fitting and respectful relations.
+
+The aim of this record of an individual's impressions of the recent
+Tibetan expedition is to convey some idea of the life we led in Tibet,
+the scenes through which we passed, and the strange people we fought and
+conquered. We killed several thousand of these brave, ill-armed men; and
+as the story of the fighting is not always pleasant reading, I think it
+right before describing the punitive side of the expedition to make it
+quite clear that military operations were unavoidable--that we were
+drawn into the vortex of war against our will by the folly and obstinacy
+of the Tibetans.
+
+The briefest review of the rebuffs Great Britain has submitted to during
+the last twenty years will suffice to show that, so far from being to
+blame in adopting punitive measures, she is open to the charge of
+unpardonable weakness in allowing affairs to reach the crisis which made
+such punishment necessary.
+
+It must be remembered that Tibet has not always been closed to
+strangers. The history of European travellers in Lhasa forms a
+literature to itself. Until the end of the eighteenth century only
+physical obstacles stood in the way of an entry to the capital. Jesuits
+and Capuchins reached Lhasa, made long stays there, and were even
+encouraged by the Tibetan Government. The first[1] Europeans to visit
+the city and leave an authentic record of their journey were the Fathers
+Grueber and d'Orville, who penetrated Tibet from China in 1661 by the
+Sining route, and stayed in Lhasa two months. In 1715 the Jesuits
+Desideri and Freyre reached Lhasa; Desideri stayed there thirteen years.
+In 1719 arrived Horace de la Penna and the Capuchin Mission, who built
+a chapel and a hospice, made several converts, and were not finally
+expelled till 1740.[2] The Dutchman Van der Putte, first layman to
+penetrate to the capital, arrived in 1720, and stayed there some years.
+After this we have no record of a European reaching Lhasa until the
+adventurous journey in 1811 of Thomas Manning, the first and only
+Englishman to reach the city before this year. Manning arrived in the
+retinue of a Chinese General whom he had met at Phari Jong, and whose
+gratitude he had won for medical services. He remained in the capital
+four months, and during his stay he made the acquaintance of several
+Chinese and Tibetan officials, and was even presented to the Dalai Lama
+himself. The influence of his patron, however, was not strong enough to
+insure his safety in the city. He was warned that his life was
+endangered, and returned to India by the same way he came. In 1846 the
+Lazarist missionaries Huc and Gabet reached Lhasa in the disguise of
+Lamas after eighteen months' wanderings through China and Mongolia,
+during which they must have suffered as much from privations and
+hardships as any travellers who have survived to tell the tale. They
+were received kindly by the Amban and Regent, but permission to stay
+was firmly refused them on the grounds that they were there to subvert
+the religion of the State. Despite the attempts of several determined
+travellers, none of whom got within a hundred miles of Lhasa, the
+Lazarist fathers were the last Europeans to set foot in the city until
+Colonel Younghusband rode through the Pargo Kaling gate on August 4,
+1904.
+
+ [1] Friar Oderic of Portenone is supposed to have visited Lhasa in
+ 1325, but the authenticity of this record is open to doubt.
+
+ [2] When in Lhasa I sought in vain for any trace of these buildings.
+ The most enlightened Tibetans are ignorant, or pretend to be so,
+ that Christian missionaries have resided in the city. In the
+ cathedral, however, we found a bell with the inscription, 'TE
+ DEUM LAUDAMUS,' which is probably a relic of the Capuchins.
+
+The records of these travellers to Lhasa, and of others who visited
+different parts of Tibet before the end of the eighteenth century, do
+not point to any serious political obstacles to the admission of
+strangers. Two centuries ago, Europeans might travel in remote parts of
+Asia with greater safety than is possible to-day. Suspicions have
+naturally increased with our encroachments, and the white man now
+inspires fear where he used only to awake interest.[3]
+
+ [3] Suspicion and jealousy of foreigners seems to have been the
+ guiding principle both of Tibetans and Chinese even in the
+ earlier history of the country. The attitude is well illustrated
+ by a letter written in 1774 by the Regent at Lhasa to the Teshu
+ Lama with reference to Bogle's mission: 'He had heard of two
+ Fringies being arrived in the Deb Raja's dominions, with a great
+ retinue of servants; that the Fringies were fond of war, and
+ after insinuating themselves into a country raised disturbances
+ and made themselves masters of it; that as no Fringies had ever
+ been admitted into Tibet, he advised the Lama to find some method
+ of sending them back, either on account of the violence of the
+ small-pox or on any other pretence.'
+
+The policy of strict exclusion in Tibet seems to have been synchronous
+with Chinese ascendancy. At the end of the eighteenth century the
+Nepalese invaded and overran the country. The Lamas turned to China for
+help, and a force of 70,000 men was sent to their assistance. The
+Chinese drove the Gurkhas over their frontier, and practically
+annihilated their army within a day's march of Khatmandu. From this date
+China has virtually or nominally ruled in Lhasa, and an important result
+of her intervention has been to sow distrust of the British. She
+represented that we had instigated the Nepalese invasion, and warned the
+Lamas that the only way to obviate our designs on Tibet was to avoid all
+communication with India, and keep the passes strictly closed to
+foreigners.
+
+Shortly before the Nepalese War, Warren Hastings had sent the two
+missions of Bogle and Turner to Shigatze. Bogle was cordially received
+by the Grand Teshu Lama, and an intimate friendship was established
+between the two men. On his return to India he reported that the only
+bar to a complete understanding with Tibet was the obstinacy of the
+Regent and the Chinese agents at Lhasa, who were inspired by Peking. An
+attempt was arranged to influence the Chinese Government in the matter,
+but both Bogle and the Teshu Lama died before it could be carried out.
+Ten years later Turner was despatched to Tibet, and received the same
+welcome as his predecessor. Everything pointed to the continuance of a
+steady and consistent policy by which the barrier of obstruction might
+have been broken down. But Warren Hastings was recalled in 1785, and
+Lord Cornwallis, the next Governor-General, took no steps to approach
+and conciliate the Tibetans. It was in 1792 that the Tibetan-Nepalese
+War broke out, which, owing to the misrepresentations of China,
+precluded any possibility of an understanding between India and Tibet.
+Such was the uncompromising spirit of the Lamas that, until Lord
+Dufferin sanctioned the commercial mission of Mr. Colman Macaulay in
+1886, no succeeding Viceroy after Warren Hastings thought it worth while
+to renew the attempt to enter into friendly relations with the country.
+
+The Macaulay Mission incident was the beginning of that weak and
+abortive policy which lost us the respect of the Tibetans, and led to
+the succession of affronts and indignities which made the recent
+expedition to Lhasa inevitable. The escort had already advanced into
+Sikkim, and Mr. Macaulay was about to join it, when orders were received
+from Government for its return. The withdrawal was a concession to the
+Chinese, with whom we were then engaged in the delimitation of the
+Burmese frontier. This display of weakness incited the Tibetans to such
+a pitch of vanity and insolence that they invaded our territory and
+established a military post at Lingtu, only seventy miles from
+Darjeeling.
+
+We allowed the invaders to remain in the protected State of Sikkim two
+years before we made any reprisal. In 1888, after several vain appeals
+to China to use her influence to withdraw the Tibetan troops, we
+reluctantly decided on a military expedition. The Tibetans were driven
+from their position, defeated in three separate engagements, and pursued
+over the frontier as far as Chumbi. We ought to have concluded a treaty
+with them on the spot, when we were in a position to enforce it, but we
+were afraid of offending the susceptibilities of China, whose suzerainty
+over Tibet we still recognised, though she had acknowledged her
+inability to restrain the Tibetans from invading our territory. At the
+conclusion of the campaign, in which the Tibetans showed no military
+instincts whatever, we returned to our post at Gnatong, on the Sikkim
+frontier.
+
+After two years of fruitless discussion, a convention was drawn up
+between Great Britain and China, by which Great Britain's exclusive
+control over the internal administration and foreign relations of Sikkim
+was recognised, the Sikkim-Tibet boundary was defined, and both Powers
+undertook to prevent acts of aggression from their respective sides of
+the frontier. The questions of pasturage, trade facilities, and the
+method in which official communications should be conducted between the
+Government of India and the authorities at Lhasa were deferred for
+future discussion. Nearly three more years passed before the trade
+regulations were drawn up in Darjeeling--in December, 1903. The
+negociations were characterized by the same shuffling and equivocation
+on the part of the Chinese, and the same weak-kneed policy of
+forbearance and conciliation on the part of the British. Treaty and
+regulations were alike impotent, and our concessions went so far that we
+exacted nothing as the fruit of our victory over the Tibetans--not even
+a fraction of the cost of the campaign.
+
+Our ignorance of the Tibetans, their Government, and their relations
+with China was at this time so profound that we took our cue from the
+Chinese, who always referred to the Lhasa authorities as 'the
+barbarians.' The Shata Shape, the most influential of the four members
+of Council, attended the negociations on behalf of the Tibetans. He was
+officially ignored, and no one thought of asking him to attach his
+signature to the treaty. The omission was a blunder of far-reaching
+consequences. Had we realized that Chinese authority was practically
+non-existent in Lhasa, and that the temporal affairs of Tibet were
+mainly directed by the four Shapes and the Tsong-du (the very existence
+of which, by the way, was unknown to us), we might have secured a
+diplomatic agent in the Shata Shape who would have proved invaluable to
+us in our future relations with the country. Unfortunately, during his
+stay in Darjeeling the Shape's feelings were lacerated by ill-treatment
+as well as neglect. In an unfortunate encounter with British youth,
+which was said to have arisen from his jostling an English lady off the
+path, he was taken by the scruff of the neck and ducked in the public
+fountain. So he returned to Tibet with no love for the English, and
+after certain courteous overtures from the agents of 'another Power,'
+became a confirmed, though more or less accidental, Russophile. Though
+deposed,[4] he has at the present moment a large following among the
+monks of the Gaden monastery.
+
+ [4] The Shata Shape and his three colleagues were deposed by the
+ Dalai Lama in October, 1903.
+
+In the regulations of 1893 it was stipulated that a trade mart should be
+established at Yatung, a small hamlet six miles beyond our frontier. The
+place is obviously unsuitable, situated as it is in a narrow pine-clad
+ravine, where one can throw a stone from cliff to cliff across the
+valley. No traders have ever resorted there, and the Tibetans have
+studiously boycotted the place. To show their contempt for the treaty,
+and their determination to ignore it, they built a wall a quarter of a
+mile beyond the Customs House, through which no Tibetan or British
+subject was allowed to pass, and, to nullify the object of the mart, a
+tax of 10 per cent. on Indian goods was levied at Phari. Every attempt
+was made by Sheng Tai, the late Amban, to induce the Tibetans to
+substitute Phari for Yatung as a trade mart. But, as an official report
+admits, 'it was found impossible to overcome their reluctance. Yatung
+was eventually accepted both by the Chinese and British Governments as
+the only alternative to breaking off the negociations altogether.' This
+confession of weakness appears to me abject enough to quote as typical
+of our attitude throughout. In deference to Tibetan wishes, we allowed
+nearly every clause of the treaty to be separately stultified.
+
+The Tibetans, as might be expected, met our forbearance by further
+rebuffs. Not content with evading their treaty obligations in respect to
+trade, they proceeded to overthrow our boundary pillars, violate grazing
+rights, and erect guard-houses at Giagong, in Sikkim territory. When
+called to question they repudiated the treaty, and said that it had
+never been shown them by the Amban. It had not been sealed or confirmed
+by any Tibetan representative, and they had no intention of observing
+it.
+
+Once more the 'solemn farce' was enacted of an appeal to China to use
+her influence with the Lhasa authorities. And it was only after repeated
+representations had been made by the Indian Government to the Secretary
+of State that the Home Government realized the seriousness of the
+situation, and the hopelessness of making any progress through the
+agency of China. 'We seem,' said Lord Curzon, 'in respect to our policy
+in Tibet, to be moving in a vicious circle. If we apply to Tibet we
+either receive no reply or are referred to the Chinese Resident; if we
+apply to the latter, he excuses his failure by his inability to put any
+pressure upon Tibet.' In the famous despatch of January 8, 1903, the
+Viceroy described the Chinese suzerainty as 'a political fiction,' only
+maintained because of its convenience to both parties. China no doubt is
+capable of sending sufficient troops to Lhasa to coerce the Tibetans.
+But it has suited her book to maintain the present elusive and anomalous
+relations with Tibet, which are a securer buttress to her western
+dependencies against encroachment than the strongest army corps. For
+many years we have been the butt of the Tibetans, and China their
+stalking-horse.
+
+The Tibetan attitude was clearly expressed by the Shigatze officials at
+Khamba Jong in September last year, when they openly boasted that 'where
+Chinese policy was in accordance with their own views they were ready
+enough to accept the Amban's advice; but if this advice ran counter in
+any respect to their national prejudices, the Chinese Emperor himself
+would be powerless to influence them.' China has on several occasions
+confessed her inability to coerce the Tibetans. She has proved herself
+unable to enforce the observance of treaties or even to restrain her
+subjects from invading our territory, and during the recent attempts at
+negociations she had to admit that her representative in Lhasa was
+officially ignored, and not even allowed transport to travel in the
+country. In the face of these facts her exceedingly shadowy suzerainty
+may be said to have entirely evaporated, and it is unreasonable to
+expect us to continue our relations with Tibet through the medium of
+Peking.
+
+It was not until nine years after the signing of the convention that we
+made any attempt to open direct communications with the Tibetans
+themselves. It is astonishing that we allowed ourselves to be hoodwinked
+so long. But this policy of drift and waiting is characteristic of our
+foreign relations all over the world. British Cabinets seem to believe
+that cure is better than prevention, and when faced by a dilemma have
+seldom been known to act on the initiative, or take any decided course
+until the very existence of their dependency is imperilled.
+
+In 1901 Lord Curzon was permitted to send a despatch to the Dalai Lama
+in which it was pointed out that his Government had consistently defied
+and ignored treaty rights; and in view of the continued occupation of
+British territory, the destruction of frontier pillars, and the
+restrictions imposed on Indian trade, we should be compelled to resort
+to more practical measures to enforce the observance of the treaty,
+should he remain obstinate in his refusal to enter into friendly
+relations. The letter was returned unopened, with the verbal excuse that
+the Chinese did not permit him to receive communications from any
+foreign Power. Yet so great was our reluctance to resort to military
+coercion that we might even at this point have let things drift, and
+submitted to the rebuffs of these impossible Tibetans, had not the
+Dalai Lama chosen this moment for publicly flaunting his relations with
+Russia.
+
+The second[5] Tibetan Mission reached St. Petersburg in June, 1901,
+carrying autograph letters and presents to the Czar from the Dalai Lama.
+Count Lamsdorff declared that the mission had no political significance
+whatever. We were asked to believe that these Lamas travelled many
+thousand miles to convey a letter that expressed the hope that the
+Russian Foreign Minister was in good health and prosperous, and informed
+him that the Dalai Lama was happy to be able to say that he himself
+enjoyed excellent health.
+
+ [5] A previous mission had been received by the Czar at Livadia in
+ October, 1900.
+
+It is possible that the mission to St. Petersburg was of a purely
+religious character, and that there was no secret understanding at the
+time between the Lhasa authorities and Russia. Yet the fact that the
+mission was despatched in direct contradiction to the national policy of
+isolation that had been respected for over a century, and at a time when
+the Tibetans were aware of impending British activity to exact
+fulfilment of the treaty obligations so long ignored by them, points to
+some secret influence working in Lhasa in favour of Russia, and opposed
+to British interests. The process of Russification that has been carried
+on with such marked success in Persia and Turkestan, Merv and Bokhara,
+was being applied in Tibet. It has long been known to our Intelligence
+Department that certain Buriat Lamas, subjects of the Czar, and educated
+in Russia, have been acting as intermediaries between Lhasa and St.
+Petersburg. The chief of these, one Dorjieff, headed the so-called
+religious mission of 1901, and has been employed more than once as the
+Dalai Lama's ambassador to St. Petersburg. Dorjieff is a man of
+fifty-eight, who has spent some twenty years of his life in Lhasa, and
+is known to be the right-hand adviser of the Dalai Lama. No doubt
+Dorjieff played on the fears of the Buddhist Pope until he really
+believed that Tibet was in danger of an invasion from India, in which
+eventuality the Czar, the great Pan-Buddhist Protector, would descend on
+the British and drive them back over the frontier. The Lamas of Tibet
+imagine that Russia is a Buddhist country, and this belief has been
+fostered by adventurers like Dorjieff, Tsibikoff, and others, who have
+inspired dreams of a consolidated Buddhist church under the spiritual
+control of the Dalai Lama and the military aegis of the Czar of All the
+Russias.
+
+These dreams, full of political menace to ourselves, have, I think, been
+dispelled by Lord Curzon's timely expedition to Lhasa. The presence of
+the British in the capital and the helplessness of Russia to lend any
+aid in such a crisis are facts convincing enough to stultify the effects
+of Russian intrigue in Buddhist Central Asia during the last
+half-century.
+
+The fact that the first Dalai Lama who has been allowed to reach
+maturity has plunged his country into war by intrigue with a foreign
+Power proves the astuteness of the cold-blooded policy of removing the
+infant Pope, and the investiture of power in the hands of a Regent
+inspired by Peking. It is believed that the present Dalai Lama was
+permitted to come of age in order to throw off the Chinese yoke. This
+aim has been secured, but it has involved other issues that the Lamas
+could not foresee.
+
+And here it must be observed that the Dalai Lama's inclination towards
+Russia does not represent any considerable national movement. The desire
+for a rapprochement was largely a matter of personal ambition inspired
+by that arch-intriguer Dorjieff, whose ascendancy over the Dalai Lama
+was proved beyond a doubt when the latter joined him in his flight to
+Mongolia on hearing the news of the British advance on Lhasa. Dorjieff
+had a certain amount of popularity with the priest population of the
+capital, and the monks of the three great monasteries, amongst whom he
+is known to have distributed largess royally. But the traditional policy
+of isolation is so inveterately ingrained in the Tibetan character that
+it is doubtful if he could have organized a popular party of any
+strength.
+
+It may be asked, then, What is, or was, the nature of the Russian menace
+in Tibet? It is true that a Russian invasion on the North-East frontier
+is out of the question. For to reach the Indian passes the Russians
+would have to traverse nearly 1,500 miles of almost uninhabited country,
+presenting difficulties as great as any we had to contend with during
+the recent campaign. But the establishment of Russian influence in Lhasa
+might mean military danger of another kind. It would be easy for her to
+stir up the Tibetans, spread disaffection among the Bhutanese, send
+secret agents into Nepal, and generally undermine our prestige. Her aim
+would be to create a diversion on the Tibet frontier at any time she
+might have designs on the North-West. The pioneers of the movement had
+begun their work. They were men of the usual type--astute, insidious, to
+be disavowed in case of premature discovery, or publicly flaunted when
+they had prepared any ground on which to stand.
+
+Our countermove--the Tibet Expedition--must have been a crushing and
+unexpected blow to Russia. For the first time in modern history Great
+Britain had taken a decisive, almost high-handed, step to obviate a
+danger that was far from imminent. We had all the best cards in our
+hands. Russia's designs in Lhasa became obvious at a time when we could
+point to open defiance on the part of the Tibetans, and provocation such
+as would have goaded any other European nation to a punitive expedition
+years before. We could go to Lhasa, apparently without a thought of
+Russia, and yet undo all the effects of her scheming there, and deal
+her prestige a blow that would be felt throughout the whole of Central
+Asia. Such was Lord Curzon's policy. It was adopted in a half-hearted
+way by the Home Government, and eventually forced on them by the conduct
+of the Tibetans themselves. Needless to say, the discovery of Russian
+designs was the real and prime cause of the despatch of the mission,
+while Tibet's violation of treaty rights and refusal to enter into any
+relations with us were convenient as ostensible motives. It cannot be
+denied that these grievances were valid enough to justify the strongest
+measures.
+
+In June, 1903, came the announcement of Colonel Younghusband's mission
+to Khamba Jong. I do not think that the Indian Government ever expected
+that the Tibetans would come to any agreement with us at Khamba Jong. It
+is to their credit that they waited patiently several months in order to
+give them every chance of settling things amicably. However, as might
+have been expected, the Commission was boycotted. Irresponsible
+delegates of inferior rank were sent by the Tibetans and Chinese, and
+the Lhasa delegates, after some fruitless parleyings, shut themselves up
+in the fort, and declined all intercourse, official or social, with the
+Commissioners.[6]
+
+ [6] Their attitude was thus summed up by Captain O'Connor, secretary
+ to the mission: 'We cannot accept letters; we cannot write
+ letters; we cannot let you into our zone; we cannot let you
+ travel; we cannot discuss matters, because this is not the proper
+ place; go back to Giogong and send away all your soldiers, and we
+ will come to an agreement' (Tibetan Blue-Book).
+
+At the end of August news came that the Tibetans were arming. Colonel
+Younghusband learnt that they had made up their minds to have no
+negociations with us _inside_ Tibet. They had decided to leave us alone
+at Khamba Jong, and to oppose us by force if we attempted to advance
+further. They believed themselves fully equal to the English, and far
+from our getting anything out of them, they thought that they would be
+able to force something out of us. This is not surprising when we
+consider the spirit of concession in which we had met them on previous
+occasions.
+
+At Khamba Jong the Commissioners were informed by Colonel Chao, the
+Chinese delegate, that the Tibetans were relying on Russian assistance.
+This was confirmed later at Guru by the Tibetan officials, who boasted
+that if they were defeated they would fall back on another Power.
+
+In September the Tibetans aggravated the situation by seizing and
+beating at Shigatze two British subjects of the Lachung Valley in
+Sikkim. These men were not restored to liberty until we had forced our
+way to Lhasa and demanded their liberation, twelve months afterwards.
+
+The mission remained in its ignominious position at Khamba Jong until
+its recall in November. Almost at the same time the expedition to
+Gyantse was announced.[7]
+
+ [7] The situation was thus eloquently summarized by the Government of
+ India in a despatch to Mr. Brodrick, November 5, 1903: 'It is not
+ possible that the Tibet Government should be allowed to ignore
+ its treaty obligations, thwart trade, encroach upon our
+ territory, destroy our boundary pillars, and refuse even to
+ receive our communications. Still less do we think that when an
+ amicable conference has been arranged for the settlement of these
+ difficulties we should acquiesce in our mission being boycotted
+ by the very persons who have been deputed to meet it, our
+ officers insulted, our subjects arrested and ill-used, and our
+ authority despised by a petty Power which only mistakes our
+ forbearance for weakness, and which thinks that by an attitude of
+ obstinate inertia it can once again compel us, as it has done in
+ the past, to desist from our intentions.'
+
+In the face of the gross and deliberate affront to which we had been
+subjected at Khamba Jong it was now, of course, impossible to withdraw
+from Tibetan territory until we had impressed on the Lamas the necessity
+of meeting us in a reasonable spirit. It was clear that the Tibetans
+meant fighting, and the escort had to be increased to 2,500 men. The
+patience of Government was at last exhausted, and it was decided that
+the mission was to proceed into Tibet, dictate terms to the Lamas, and,
+if necessary, enforce compliance. The advance to Gyantse was sanctioned
+in the first place. But it was quite expected that the obstinacy of the
+Tibetans would make it necessary to push on to Lhasa.
+
+Colonel Younghusband crossed the Jelap la into Tibet on December 13,
+meeting with no opposition. Phari Jong was reached on the 20th, and the
+fort surrendered without a shot being fired. Thence the mission
+proceeded on January 7 across the Tang Pass, and took up its quarters on
+the cold, wind-swept plateau of Tuna, at an elevation of 15,300 feet.
+Here it remained for three months, while preparations were being made
+for an advance in the spring. Four companies of the 23rd Pioneers, a
+machine-gun section of the Norfolk Regiment, and twenty Madras sappers,
+were left to garrison the place, and General Macdonald, with the
+remainder of the force, returned to Chumbi for winter quarters. Chumbi
+(10,060 feet) is well within the wood belt, but even here the
+thermometer falls to 15 deg. below zero.
+
+A more miserable place to winter in than Tuna cannot be imagined. But
+for political reasons, it was inadvisable that the mission should spend
+the winter in the Chumbi Valley, which is not geographically a part of
+Tibet proper. A retrograde movement from Khamba Jong to Chumbi would be
+interpreted by the Tibetans as a sign of yielding, and strengthen them
+in their opinion that we had no serious intention of penetrating to
+Gyantse.
+
+With this brief account of the facts that led to the expedition I
+abandon politics for the present, and in the succeeding chapters will
+attempt to give a description of the Chumbi Valley, which, I believe,
+was untrodden by any European before Colonel Younghusband's arrival in
+December, 1903.
+
+I was in India when I received permission to join the force. I took the
+train to Darjeeling without losing a day, and rode into Chumbi in less
+than forty-eight hours, reaching the British camp on January 10.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER II
+
+OVER THE FRONTIER
+
+
+ CHUMBI,
+ _January 13._
+
+From Darjeeling to Lhasa is 380 miles. These, as in the dominions of
+Namgay Doola's Raja, are mostly on end. The road crosses the Tibetan
+frontier at the Jelap la (14,350 feet) eighty miles to the north-east.
+From Observatory Hill in Darjeeling one looks over the bleak hog-backed
+ranges of Sikkim to the snows. To the north and north-west lie
+Kinchenjunga and the tremendous chain of mountains that embraces
+Everest. To the north-east stretches a lower line of dazzling rifts and
+spires, in which one can see a thin gray wedge, like a slice in a
+Christmas cake. That is the Jelap. Beyond it lies Tibet.
+
+There is a good military road from Siliguri, the base station in the
+plains to Rungpo, forty-eight miles along the Teesta Valley. By
+following the river-bed it avoids the two steep ascents to Kalimpong and
+Ari. The new route saves at least a day, and conveys one to Rungli,
+nearly seventy miles from the base, without compassing a single tedious
+incline. It has also the advantage of being practicable for
+bullock-carts and ekkas as far as Rungpo. After that the path is a
+6-foot mule-track, at its best a rough, dusty incline, at its worst a
+succession of broken rocks and frozen puddles, which give no foothold to
+transport animals. From Rungpo the road skirts the stream for sixteen
+miles to Rungli, along a fertile valley of some 2,000 feet, through
+rice-fields and orange-groves and peaceful villages, now the scene of
+military bustle and preparation. From Rungli it follows a winding
+mountain torrent, whose banks are sometimes sheer precipitous crags.
+Then it strikes up the mountain side, and becomes a ladder of stone
+steps over which no animal in the world can make more than a mile and a
+half an hour. From the valley to Gnatong is a climb of some 10,000 feet
+without a break. The scenery is most magnificent, and I doubt if it is
+possible to find anywhere in the same compass the characteristics of the
+different zones of vegetation--from tropical to temperate, from
+temperate to alpine--so beautifully exhibited.
+
+At ordinary seasons transport is easy, and one can take the road in
+comfort; but now every mule and pony in Sikkim and the Terai is employed
+on the lines of communication, and one has to pay 300 rupees for an
+animal of the most modest pretensions. It is reckoned eight days from
+Darjeeling to Chumbi, but, riding all day and most of the night, I
+completed the journey in two. Newspaper correspondents are proverbially
+in a hurry. To send the first wire from Chumbi I had to leave my kit
+behind, and ride with poshteen[8] and sleeping-bag tied to my saddle. I
+was racing another correspondent. At Rungpo I found that he was five
+hours ahead of me, but he rested on the road, and I had gained three
+hours on him before he left the next stage at Rora Thang. Here I learnt
+that he intended to camp at Lingtam, twelve miles further on, in a tent
+lent him by a transport officer. I made up my mind to wait outside
+Lingtam until it was dark, and then to steal a march on him unobserved.
+But I believed no one. Wayside reports were probably intended to deceive
+me, and no doubt my informant was his unconscious confederate.
+
+ [8] Sheepskin.
+
+Outside Rungli, six miles further on, I stopped at a little Bhutia's
+hut, where he had been resting. They told me he had gone on only half an
+hour before me. I loitered on the road, and passed Lingtam in the dark.
+The moon did not rise till three, and riding in the dark was exciting.
+At first the white dusty road showed clearly enough a few yards ahead,
+but after passing Lingtam it became a narrow path cut out of a
+thickly-wooded cliff above a torrent, a wall of rock on one side, a
+precipice on the other. Here the darkness was intense. A white stone a
+few yards ahead looked like the branch of a tree overhead. A dim
+shapeless object to the left might be a house, a rock, a
+bear--anything. Uphill and downhill could only be distinguished by the
+angle of the saddle. Every now and then a firefly lit up the white
+precipice an arm's-length to the right. Once when my pony stopped
+panting with exhaustion I struck a match and found that we had come to a
+sharp zigzag. Part of the revetment had fallen; there was a yard of
+broken path covered with fern and bracken, then a drop of some hundred
+feet to the torrent below. After that I led my beast for a mile until we
+came to a charcoal-burner's hut. Two or three Bhutias were sitting round
+a log fire, and I persuaded one to go in front of me with a lighted
+brand. So we came to Sedongchen, where I left my beast dead beat, rested
+a few hours, bought a good mule, and pressed on in the early morning by
+moonlight. The road to Gnatong lies through a magnificent forest of oak
+and chestnut. For five miles it is nothing but the ascent of stone steps
+I have described. Then the rhododendron zone is reached, and one passes
+through a forest of gnarled and twisted trunks, writhing and contorted
+as if they had been thrust there for some penance. The place suggested a
+scene from Dante's 'Inferno.' As I reached the saddle of Lingtu the moon
+was paling, and the eastern sky-line became a faint violet screen. In a
+few minutes Kinchenjunga and Kabru on the north-west caught the first
+rays of the sun, and were suffused with the delicate rosy glow of dawn.
+
+I reached Gnatong in time to breakfast with the 8th Gurkhas. The camp
+lies in a little cleft in the hills at an elevation of 12,200 feet. When
+I last visited the place I thought it one of the most desolate spots I
+had seen. My first impressions were a wilderness of gray stones and
+gray, uninhabited houses, felled tree-trunks denuded of bark, white and
+spectral on the hillside. There was no life, no children's voices or
+chattering women, no bazaar apparently, no dogs barking, not even a
+pariah to greet you. If there was a sound of life it was the bray of
+some discontented mule searching for stray blades of grass among the
+stones. There were some fifty houses nearly all smokeless and vacant.
+Some had been barracks at the time of the last Sikkim War, and of the
+soldiers who inhabited them fifteen still lay in Gnatong in a little
+gray cemetery, which was the first indication of the nearness of human
+life. The inscriptions over the graves were all dated 1888, 1889, or
+1890, and though but fourteen years had passed, many of them were barely
+decipherable. The houses were scattered about promiscuously, with no
+thought of neighbourliness or convenience, as though the people were
+living there under protest, which was very probably the case. But the
+place had its picturesque feature. You might mistake some of the houses
+for tumbledown Swiss chalets of the poorer sort were it not for the
+miniature fir-trees planted on the roofs, with their burdens of prayers
+hanging from the branches like parcels on a Christmas-tree.
+
+These were my impressions a year or two ago, but now Gnatong is all life
+and bustle. In the bazaar a convoy of 300 mules was being loaded. The
+place was crowded with Nepalese coolies and Tibetan drivers, picturesque
+in their woollen knee-boots of red and green patterns, with a white star
+at the foot, long russet cloaks bound tightly at the waist and bulging
+out with cooking-utensils and changes of dress, embroidered caps of
+every variety and description, as often as not tied to the head by a
+wisp of hair. In Rotten Row--the inscription of 1889 still remains--I
+met a subaltern with a pair of skates. He showed me to the mess-room,
+where I enjoyed a warm breakfast and a good deal of chaff about
+correspondents who 'were in such a devil of a hurry to get to a
+God-forsaken hole where there wasn't going to be the ghost of a show.'
+
+I left Gnatong early on a borrowed pony. A mile and a half from the camp
+the road crosses the Tuko Pass, and one descends again for another two
+miles to Kapup, a temporary transport stage. The path lies to the west
+of the Bidang Tso, a beautiful lake with a moraine at the north-west
+side. The mountains were strangely silent, and the only sound of wild
+life was the whistling of the red-billed choughs, the commonest of the
+_Corvidae_ at these heights. They were flying round and round the lake in
+an unsettled manner, whistling querulously, as though in complaint at
+the intrusion of their solitude.
+
+I reached the Jelap soon after noon. No snow had fallen. The approach
+was over broken rock and shale. At the summit was a row of cairns, from
+which fluttered praying-flags and tattered bits of votive raiment.
+Behind us and on both sides was a thin mist, but in front my eyes
+explored a deep narrow valley bathed in sunshine. Here, then, was Tibet,
+the forbidden, the mysterious. In the distance all the land was that
+yellow and brick-dust colour I had often seen in pictures and thought
+exaggerated and unreal. Far to the north-east Chumulari (23,930 feet),
+with its magnificent white spire rising from the roof-like mass behind,
+looked like an immense cathedral of snow. Far below on a yellow hillside
+hung the Kanjut Lamasery above Rinchengong. In the valley beneath lay
+Chumbi and the road to Lhasa.
+
+There is a descent of over 4,000 feet in six miles from the summit of
+the Jelap. The valley is perfectly straight, without a bend, so that one
+can look down from the pass upon the Kanjut monastery on the hillside
+immediately above Yatung. The pass would afford an impregnable military
+position to a people with the rudiments of science and martial spirit. A
+few riflemen on the cliffs that command it might annihilate a column
+with perfect safety, and escape into Bhutan before any flanking movement
+could be made. Yet miles of straggling convoy are allowed to pass daily
+with the supplies that are necessary for the existence of the force
+ahead. The road to Phari Jong passes through two military walls. The
+first at Yatung, six miles below the pass, is a senseless obstruction,
+and any able-bodied Tommy with hobnailed boots might very easily kick it
+down. It has no block-houses, and would be useless against a flank
+attack. Before our advance to Chumbi the wall was inhabited by three
+Chinese officials, a dingpon, or Tibetan sergeant, and twenty Tibetan
+soldiers. It served as a barrier beyond which no British subject was
+allowed to pass. The second wall lies across the valley at Gob-sorg,
+four miles beyond our camp at Chumbi. It is roofed and loop-holed like
+the Yatung barrier, and is defended by block-houses. This fortification
+and every mile of valley between the Jelap and Gautsa might be held by a
+single company against an invading force. Yet there are not half a dozen
+Chinese or Tibetan soldiers in the valley. No opposition is expected
+this side of the Tang la, but nondescript troops armed with matchlocks
+and bows hover round the mission on the open plateau beyond. Our
+evacuation of Khamba Jong and occupation of Chumbi were so rapid and
+unexpected that it is thought the Tibetans had no time to bring troops
+into the valley; but to anyone who knows their strategical incompetence,
+no explanation is necessary.
+
+Yatung is reached by one of the worst sections of road on the march; one
+comes across a dead transport mule at almost every zigzag of the
+descent. For ten years the village has enjoyed the distinction of being
+the only place in Southern Tibet accessible to Europeans. Not that many
+Europeans avail themselves of its accessibility, for it is a dreary
+enough place to live in, shrouded as it is in cloud more than half the
+year round, and embedded in a valley so deep and narrow that in
+winter-time the sun has hardly risen above one cliff when it sinks
+behind another. The privilege of access to Yatung was the result of the
+agreement between Great Britain and China with regard to trade
+communications between India and Tibet drawn up in Darjeeling in 1893,
+subsequently to the Sikkim Convention. It was then stipulated that there
+should be a trade mart at Yatung to which British subjects should have
+free access, and that there should be special trade facilities between
+Sikkim and Tibet. It is reported that the Chinese Amban took good care
+that Great Britain should not benefit by these new regulations, for
+after signing the agreement which was to give the Indian tea-merchants a
+market in Tibet, he introduced new regulations the other side of the
+frontier, which prohibited the purchase of Indian tea. Whether the story
+is true or not, it is certainly characteristic of the evasion and
+duplicity which have brought about the present armed mission into Tibet.
+
+To-day, as one rides through the cobbled street of Yatung, the only
+visible effects of the Convention are the Chinese Customs House with its
+single European officer, and the residence of a lady missionary, or
+trader, as the exigencies of international diplomacy oblige her to term
+herself. The Customs House, which was opened on May 1, 1894, was first
+established with the object of estimating the trade between India and
+Tibet--traffic is not permitted by any other route than the Jelap--and
+with a view to taxation when the trade should make it worth while. It
+was stipulated that no duties should be levied for the period of five
+years. Up to the present no tariff has been imposed, and the only
+apparent use the Customs House serves is to collect statistics, and
+perhaps to remind Tibet of the shadowy suzerainty of China. The natives
+have boycotted the place, and refuse to trade there, and no European or
+native of India has thought it worth while to open a market. Phari is
+the real trade mart on the frontier, and Kalimpong, in British Bhutan,
+is the foreign trade mart. But the whole trade between India and Tibet
+is on such a small scale that it might be in the hands of a single
+merchant.
+
+The Customs House, the missionary house, and the houses of the clerks
+and servants of the Customs and of the headman, form a little block.
+Beyond it there is a quarter of a mile of barren stony ground, and then
+the wall with military pretensions. I rode through the gate
+unchallenged.
+
+At Rinchengong, a mile beyond the barrier, the Yatung stream flows into
+the Ammo Chu. The road follows the eastern bank of the river, passing
+through Cheuma and Old Chumbi, where it crosses the stream. After
+crossing the bridge, a mile of almost level ground takes one into Chumbi
+camp. I reached Chumbi on the evening of January 12, and was able to
+send the _Daily Mail_ the first cable from Tibet, having completed the
+journey from Darjeeling in two days' hard riding.
+
+The camp lies in a shallow basin in the hills, and is flanked by brown
+fir-clad hills which rise some 1,500 feet above the river-bed, and
+preclude a view of the mountains on all sides. The situation is by no
+means the best from the view of comfort, but strategic reasons make it
+necessary, for if the camp were pitched half a mile further up the
+valley, the gorge of the stream which debouches into the Ammo River to
+the north of Chumbi would give the Tibetans an opportunity of attacking
+us in the rear. Despite the protection of almost Arctic clothing, one
+shivers until the sun rises over the eastern hill at ten o'clock, and
+shivers again when it sinks behind the opposite one at three. Icy winds
+sweep the valley, and hurricanes of dust invade one's tent. Against this
+cold one clothes one's self in flannel vest and shirt, sweater,
+flannel-lined coat, poshteen or Cashmere sheepskin, wool-lined Gilgit
+boots, and fur or woollen cap with flaps meeting under the chin. The
+general effect is barbaric and picturesque. In after-days the trimness
+of a military club may recall the scene--officers clad in
+gold-embroidered poshteen, yellow boots, and fur caps, bearded like
+wild Kerghizes, and huddling round the camp fire in this black
+cauldron-like valley under the stars.
+
+Officers are settling down in Chumbi as comfortably as possible for
+winter quarters. Primitive dens have been dug out of the ground, walled
+up with boulders, and roofed in with green fir-branches. In some cases a
+natural rock affords a whole wall. The den where I am now writing is
+warmed by a cheerful pinewood blaze, a luxury after the _angeiti_ in
+one's tent. I write at an operating-table after a dinner of minal
+(pheasant) and yak's heart. A gramophone is dinning in my ears. It is
+destined, I hope, to resound in the palace of Potala, where the Dalai
+Lama and his suite may wonder what heathen ritual is accompanied by 'A
+jovial monk am I,' and 'Her golden hair was hanging down her back.'
+
+Both at home and in India one hears the Tibet Mission spoken of
+enviously as a picnic. There is an idea of an encampment in a smiling
+valley, and easy marches towards the mysterious city. In reality, there
+is plenty of hard and uninteresting work. The expedition is attended
+with all the discomforts of a campaign, and very little of the
+excitement. Colonel Younghusband is now at Tuna, a desolate hamlet on
+the Tibetan plateau, exposed to the coldest winds of Asia, where the
+thermometer falls to 25 deg. below zero. Detachments of the escort are
+scattered along the line of communications in places of varying cold
+and discomfort, where they must wait until the necessary supplies have
+been carried through to Phari. It is not likely that Colonel
+Younghusband will be able to proceed to Gyantse before March. In the
+meanwhile, imagine the Pioneers and Gurkhas, too cold to wash or shave,
+shivering in a dirty Tibetan fort, half suffocated with smoke from a
+yak-dung fire. Then there is the transport officer shut up in some
+narrow valley of Sikkim, trying to make half a dozen out of three with
+his camp of sick beasts and sheaf of urgent telegrams calling for
+supplies. He hopes there will be 'a show,' and that he may be in it.
+Certainly if anyone deserves to go to Lhasa and get a medal for it, it
+is the supply and transport man. But he will be left behind.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER III
+
+THE CHUMBI VALLEY
+
+
+ CHUMBI,
+ _February, 1904._
+
+The Chumbi Valley is inhabited by the Tomos, who are said to be
+descendants of ancient cross-marriages between the Bhutanese and
+Lepchas. They only intermarry among themselves, and speak a language
+which would not be understood in other parts of Tibet. As no Tibetan
+proper is allowed to pass the Yatung barrier, the Tomos have the
+monopoly of the carrying trade between Phari and Kalimpong. They are
+voluntarily under the protection of the Tibetans, who treat them
+liberally, as the Lamas realize the danger of their geographical
+position as a buffer state, and are shrewd enough to recognise that any
+ill treatment or oppression would drive them to seek protection from the
+Bhutanese or British.
+
+The Tomos are merry people, hearty, and good-natured. They are
+wonderfully hardy and enduring. In the coldest winter months, when the
+thermometer is 20 deg. below zero, they will camp out at night in the snow,
+forming a circle of their loads, and sleep contentedly inside with no
+tent or roofing. The women would be comely if it were not for the cutch
+that they smear over their faces. The practice is common to the Tibetans
+and Bhutanese, but no satisfactory reason has been found for it. The
+Jesuit Father, Johann Grueber, who visited Tibet in 1661, attributed the
+custom to a religious whim:--'The women, out of a religious whim, never
+wash, but daub themselves with a nasty kind of oil, which not only
+causes them to stink intolerably, but renders them extremely ugly and
+deformed.' A hundred and eighty years afterwards Huc noticed the same
+habit, and attributed it to an edict issued by the Dalai Lama early in
+the seventeenth century. 'The women of Tibet in those days were much
+given to dress, and libertinage, and corrupted the Lamas to a degree to
+bring their holy order into a bad repute.' The then Nome Khan (deputy of
+the Dalai Lama), accordingly issued an order that the women should never
+appear in public without smearing their faces with a black disfiguring
+paste. Huc recorded that though the order was still obeyed, the practice
+was observed without much benefit to morals. If you ask a Tomo or
+Tibetan to-day why their women smear and daub themselves in this
+unbecoming manner, they invariably reply, like the Mussulman or Hindu,
+that it is custom. Mongolians do not bother themselves about causes.
+
+The Tomo women wear a flat green distinctive cap, with a red badge in
+the front, which harmonizes with their complexion--a coarse, brick red,
+of which the primal ingredients are dirt and cutch, erroneously called
+pig's blood, and the natural ruddiness of a healthy outdoor life in a
+cold climate. A procession of these sirens is comely and picturesque--at
+a hundred yards. They wrap themselves round and round with a thick
+woollen blanket of pleasing colour and pattern, and wear on their feet
+high woollen boots with leather or rope soles. If it was not for their
+disfiguring toilet many of them would be handsome. The children are
+generally pretty, and I have seen one or two that were really beautiful.
+When we left a camp the villagers would generally get wind of it, and
+come down for loot. Old newspapers, tins, bottles, string, and cardboard
+boxes were treasured prizes. We threw these out of our cave, and the
+children scrambled for them, and even the women made dives at anything
+particularly tempting. My last impression of Lingmathang was a group of
+women giggling and gesticulating over the fashion plates and
+advertisements in a number of the _Lady_, which somebody's _memsahib_
+had used for the packing of a ham.
+
+The Tomos, though not naturally given to cleanliness, realize the
+hygienic value of their hot springs. There are resorts in the
+neighbourhood of Chumbi as fashionable as Homburg or Salsomaggiore;
+mixed bathing is the rule, without costumes. These healthy folk are not
+morbidly conscious of sex. The springs contain sulphur and iron, and
+are undoubtedly efficacious. Where they are not hot enough, the Tomos
+bake large boulders in the ashes of a log fire, and roll them into the
+water to increase the temperature.
+
+Tomos and Tibetans are fond of smoking. They dry the leaves of the wild
+rhubarb, and mix them with tobacco leaves. The mixture is called
+_dopta_, and was the favourite blend of the country. Now hundreds of
+thousands of cheap American cigarettes are being introduced, and a
+lucrative tobacco-trade has sprung up. Boxes of ten, which are sold at a
+pice in Darjeeling, fetch an anna at Chumbi, and two annas at Phari.
+Sahibs smoke them, sepoys smoke them, drivers and followers smoke them,
+and the Tomo coolies smoke nothing else. Tibetan children of three
+appreciate them hugely, and the road from Phari to Rungpo is literally
+strewn with the empty boxes.
+
+There is a considerable Chinese element in the Chumbi Valley--a frontier
+officer, with the local rank of the Fourth Button, a colonel, clerks of
+the Customs House, and troops numbering from one to two hundred. These,
+of course, were not in evidence when we occupied the valley in December.
+The Chinese are not accompanied by their wives, but take to themselves
+women of the country, whose offspring people the so-called Chinese
+villages. The pure Chinaman does not remain in the country after his
+term of office. Life at Chumbi is the most tedious exile to him, and he
+looks down on the Tomos as barbarous savages. He is as unhappy as a
+Frenchman in Tonquin, cut off from all the diversions of social and
+intellectual life. The frontier officer at Bibi-thang told me that he
+had brought his wife with him, and the poor lady had never left the
+house, but cried incessantly for China and civilization. Yet to the
+uninitiated the Chinese villages of Gob-sorg and Bibi-thang might have
+been taken from the far East and plumped down on the Indian frontier.
+There is the same far-Eastern smell, the same doss-house, the same
+hanging lamps, the same red lucky paper over the lintels of the doors,
+and the same red and green abortions on the walls.
+
+Much has been written and duly contradicted about the fertility of the
+Chumbi Valley. If one does not expect orange-groves and rice-fields at
+12,000 feet, it must be admitted that the valley is, relatively
+speaking, fertile--that is to say, its produce is sufficient to support
+its three or four thousand inhabitants.
+
+The lower valley produces buckwheat, turnips, potatoes, radishes, and
+barley. The latter, the staple food of the Tibetans, has, when ground,
+an appetizing smell very like oatmeal. The upper valley is quite
+sterile, and produces nothing but barley, which does not ripen; it is
+gathered for fodder when green, and the straw is sold at high prices to
+the merchants who visit Phari from Tibet and Bhutan. This year the
+Tibetan merchants are afraid to come, and the commissariat benefits by
+a very large supply of fodder which ought to see them through the
+summer.
+
+The idea that the valley is unusually fertile probably arose from the
+well-to-do appearance of the natives of Rinchengong and Chumbi, and
+their almost palatial houses, which give evidence of a prosperity due to
+trade rather than agriculture.
+
+The hillsides around Chumbi produce wild strawberries, raspberries,
+currants, and cherries; but these are quite insipid in this sunless
+climate.
+
+The Chinese Custom's officer at Yatung tells me that the summer months,
+though not hot, are relaxing and enervating. The thermometer never rises
+above 70 deg.. The rainfall does not average quite 50 inches; but almost
+daily at noon a mist creeps up from Bhutan, and a constant drizzle
+falls. In June, July, and August, 1901, there were only three days
+without rain.
+
+At Phari I met a venerable old gentleman who gave me some statistics.
+The old man, Katsak Kasi by name, was a Tibetan from the Kham province,
+acting at Phari as trade agent for the Bhutanese Government. His face
+was seared and parchment-like from long exposure to cold winds and rough
+weather. His features were comparatively aquiline--that is to say, they
+did not look as if they had been flattened out in youth. He wore a very
+large pair of green spectacles, with a gold bulb at each end and a red
+tassel in the middle, which gave him an air of wisdom and distinction.
+He answered my rather inquisitive questions with courtesy and
+decision, and yet with such a serious care for details that I felt quite
+sure his figures must be accurate.
+
+[Illustration: ROCK SCULPTURES.]
+
+If statistics were any gauge of the benefits Indian trade would derive
+from an open market with Tibet, the present mission, as far as
+commercial interests are concerned, would be wasted. According to Kasi's
+statistics, the cost of two dozen or thirty mules would balance the
+whole of the annual revenue on Indian imports into the country. The idea
+that duties are levied at the Yatung and Gob-sorg barriers is a mistake.
+The only Customs House is at Phari, where the Indian and Bhutanese
+trade-routes meet. The Customs are under the supervision of the two
+jongpens, who send the revenue to Lhasa twice a year.
+
+The annual income on imports from India, Kasi assured me, is only 6,000
+rupees, whereas the income on exports amounts to 20,000. Tibetan trade
+with India consists almost entirely of wool, yaks'-tails, and ponies.
+There is a tax of 2 rupees 8 annas on ponies, 1 rupee a maund on wool,
+and 1 rupee 8 annas a maund on yaks'-tails. Our imports into Tibet,
+according to Kasi's statistics, are practically nil. Some piece goods,
+iron vessels, and tobacco leaves find their way over the Jelap, but it
+is a common sight to see mules returning into Tibet with nothing but
+their drivers' cooking utensils and warm clothing.[9]
+
+ [9] The only articles imported to the value of L1,000 are cotton
+ goods, woollen cloths, metals, chinaware, coral, indigo, maize,
+ silk, fur, and tobacco.
+
+ The only exports to the value of L1,000 are musk, ponies, skins,
+ wool, and yaks'-tails.
+
+ Appended are the returns for the years 1895-1902:
+
+ Year. Value of Articles Value of Articles Total Value of
+ Imported into Exported from Imports and
+ Tibet. Tibet. Exports.
+ Rs. Rs. Rs.
+ 1895 416,218 634,086 1,050,304
+ 1896 561,395 781,269 1,342,664
+ 1897 674,139 820,300 1,494,436
+ 1898 718,475 817,851 1,536,326
+ 1899 962,637 822,760 1,785,397
+ 1900 730,502 710,012 1,440,514
+ 1901 734,075 783,480 1,517,555
+ 1902 761,837 805,338 1,567,075
+
+ _Customs House Returns, Yatung._
+
+At present no Indian tea passes Yatung. That none is sold at Phari
+confirms the rumour I mentioned that the Chinese Amban, after signing
+the trade regulations between India and Tibet in Darjeeling, 1893,
+crossed the frontier to introduce new laws, virtually annulling the
+regulations. Indian tea might be carried into Tibet, but not sold there.
+Tibet has consistently broken all her promises and treaty obligations.
+She has placed every obstacle in the way of Indian trade, and insulted
+our Commissioners; yet the despatch of the present mission with its
+armed escort has been called an act of aggression.
+
+When I asked Kasi if the Tibetans would be angry with him for helping
+us, he said they would certainly cut off his head if he remained in the
+fort after we had left. There is some foundation in travellers' stories
+about the punishment inflicted on the guards of the passes and other
+officials who fail to prevent Europeans entering Tibet or pushing on
+towards Lhasa.
+
+Some Chumbi traders who were in Lhasa when we entered the valley are
+still detained there, as far as I can gather, as hostages for the good
+behaviour of their neighbours. In Tibet the punishment does not fit the
+crime. The guards of a pass are punished for letting white men through,
+quite irrespective of the opposing odds.
+
+The commonest punishment in Tibet is flogging, but the ordeal is so
+severe that it often proves fatal. I asked Kasi some questions about the
+magisterial powers of the two jongpens, or district officers, who
+remained in the fort some days after we occupied it. He told me that
+they could not pass capital sentence, but they might flog the prisoners,
+and if they died, nothing was said. Several victims have died of
+flogging at Phari.
+
+The natives in Darjeeling have a story of Tibetan methods, which have
+always seemed to me the refinement of cruelty. At Gyantse, they say, the
+criminal is flung into a dark pit, where he cannot tell whether it is
+night or day. Cobras and scorpions and reptiles of various degrees of
+venom are his companions; these he may hear in the darkness, for it is
+still enough, and seek or avoid as he has courage. Food is sometimes
+thrown in to tempt any faint-hearted wretch to prolong his agony. I
+asked Kasi if there were any truth in the tale. He told me that there
+were no venomous snakes in Tibet, but he had heard that there was a dark
+prison in Gyantse, where criminals sometimes died of scorpion bites; he
+added that only the worst offenders were punished in this way. The
+modified version of the story is gruesome enough.
+
+It is usual for Tibetan and Bhutanese officials to receive their pay in
+grain, it being understood that their position puts them in the way of
+obtaining the other necessaries of life, and perhaps a few of its
+luxuries. Kasi, being an important official, receives from the Bhutan
+Government forty maunds of barley and forty maunds of rice annually. He
+receives, in addition, a commission on the trade disputes that he
+decides in proportion to their importance. He is now an invaluable
+servant of the British Government. At his nod the barren solitudes round
+Phari are wakening into life. From the fort bastions one sees sometimes
+on the hills opposite an indistinct black line, like a caterpillar
+gradually assuming shape. They are Kasi's yaks coming from some blind
+valley which no one but a hunter or mountaineer would have imagined to
+exist. Ponies, grain, and fodder are also imported from Bhutan and sold
+to the mutual gratification of the Bhutanese and ourselves. The yaks are
+hired and employed on the line of communications.
+
+It is to be hoped that the Bhutanese, when they hear of our good prices,
+will send supplies over the frontier to hasten our advance. But we must
+take care than no harm befalls Kasi for his good services. When I asked
+him how he stood with the Tibetan Government, he laid his hand in a
+significant manner across his throat.
+
+
+ LINGMATHANG,
+ _February._
+
+Before entering the bare, unsheltered plateau of Tibet, the road to
+Lhasa winds through seven miles of pine forest, which recalls some of
+the most beautiful valleys of Switzerland.
+
+The wood-line ends abruptly. After that there is nothing but barrenness
+and desolation. The country round Chumbi is not very thickly forested.
+There are long strips of arable land on each side of the road, and
+villages every two or three miles. The fields are terraced and enclosed
+within stone walls. Scattered on the hillside are stone-built houses,
+with low, over-hanging eaves, and long wooden tiles, each weighed down
+with a gray boulder. One might imagine one's self in Kandersteg or
+Lauterbrunnen; only lofty praying flags and _mani_-walls brightly
+painted with Buddhistic pictures and inscriptions dispel the illusion.
+
+There is no lack of colour. In the winter months a brier with large red
+berries and a low, foxy-brown thornbush, like a young osier in March,
+lend a russet hue to the landscape. Higher on the hills the withered
+grass is yellow, and the blending of these quiet tints, russet, brown,
+and yellow, gives the valley a restful beauty; but in cloud it is
+sombre enough.
+
+Three years ago I visited Yatung in May. In springtime there is a
+profusion of colour. The valley is beautiful, beyond the beauty of the
+grandest Alpine scenery, carpeted underfoot with spring flowers, and
+ablaze overhead with flowering rhododendrons. To try to describe
+mountains and forests is a most unprofitable task; all the adjectives of
+scenic description are exhausted; the coinage has been too long debased.
+For my own part, it has been almost a pain to visit the most beautiful
+parts of the earth and to know that one's sensations are incommunicable,
+that it is impossible to make people believe and understand. To those
+who have not seen, scenery is either good, bad, or indifferent; there
+are no degrees. Ruskin, the greatest master of description, is most
+entertaining when he is telling us about the domestic circle at Herne
+Hill. But mountain scenery is of all the most difficult to describe. The
+sense of the Himalayas is intangible. There are elusive lights and
+shades, and sounds and whispers, and unfamiliar scents, and a thousand
+fleeting manifestations of the genius of the place that are impossible
+to arrest. Magnificent, majestic, splendid, are weak, colourless words
+that depict nothing. It is the poets who have described what they have
+not seen who have been most successful. Milton's hell is as real as any
+landscape of Byron's, and the country through which Childe Roland rode
+to the Dark Tower is more vivid and present to us than any of
+Wordsworth's Westmoreland tarns and valleys. So it is a poem of the
+imagination--'Kubla Khan'--that seems to me to breathe something of the
+spirit of the Yatung and Chumbi Valleys, only there is a little less of
+mystery and gloom here, and a little more of sunshine and brightness
+than in the dream poem. Instead of attempting to describe the
+valley--Paradise would be easier to describe--I will try to explain as
+logically as possible why it fascinated me more than any scenery I have
+seen.
+
+I had often wondered if there were any place in the East where flowers
+grow in the same profusion as in Europe--in England, or in Switzerland.
+The nearest approach I had seen was in the plateau of the Southern Shan
+States, at about 4,000 feet, where the flora is very homelike. But the
+ground is not _carpeted_; one could tread without crushing a blossom.
+Flowers are plentiful, too, on the southern slopes of the Himalayas, and
+on the hills on the Siamese side of the Tennasserim frontier, but I had
+seen nothing like a field of marsh-marigolds and cuckoo-flowers in May,
+or a meadow of buttercups and daisies, or a bank of primroses, or a wood
+carpeted with bluebells, or a hillside with heather, or an Alpine slope
+with gentians and ranunculus. I had been told that in Persia in
+springtime the valleys of the Shapur River and the Karun are covered
+profusely with lilies, also the forests of Manchuria in the
+neighbourhood of the Great White Mountain; but until I crossed the
+Jelapla and struck down the valley to Yatung I thought I would have to
+go West to see such things again. Never was such profusion. Besides the
+primulas[10]--I counted eight different kinds of them--and gentians and
+anemones and celandines and wood sorrel and wild strawberries and
+irises, there were the rhododendrons glowing like coals through the pine
+forest. As one descended the scenery became more fascinating; the valley
+narrowed, and the stream was more boisterous. Often the cliffs hung
+sheer over the water's edge; the rocks were coated with green and yellow
+moss, which formed a bed for the dwarf rhododendron bushes, now in full
+flower, white and crimson and cream, and every hue between a dark
+reddish brown and a light sulphury yellow--not here and there, but
+everywhere, jostling one another for nooks and crannies in the rock.[11]
+
+ [10] Between Gnatong and Gautsa, thirteen different species of
+ primulas are found. They are: _Primula Petiolaris_, _P. glabra_,
+ _P. Sapphirina_, _P. pusilia_, _P. Kingii_, _P. Elwesiana_, _P.
+ Capitata_, _P. Sikkimensis_, _P. Involucra_, _P. Denticulata_,
+ _P. Stuartii_, _P. Soldanelloides_, _P. Stirtonia_.
+
+ [11] The species are: _Rhododendron campanulatum_, purple flowers;
+ _R. Fulgens_, scarlet; _R. Hodgsonii_, rose-coloured; _R.
+ Anthopogon_, white; _R. Virgatum_, purple; _R. Nivale_, rose-red;
+ _R. Wightii_, yellow; _R. Falconeri_, cream-coloured; _R.
+ cinndbarinum_, brick-red ('The Gates of Tibet,' Appendix I., J.
+ A. H. Louis).
+
+These delicate flowers are very different from their dowdy cousin, the
+coarse red rhododendron of the English shrubbery. At a little distance
+they resemble more hothouse azaleas, and equal them in wealth of
+blossom.
+
+The great moss-grown rocks in the bed of the stream were covered with
+equal profusion. Looking behind, the snows crowned the pine-trees, and
+over them rested the blue sky. And here is the second reason--as I am
+determined to be logical in my preference--why I found the valley so
+fascinating. In contrasting the Himalayas with the Alps, there is always
+something that the former is without. Never the snows, and the water,
+and the greenery at the same time; if the greenery is at your feet, the
+snows are far distant; where the Himalayas gain in grandeur they lose in
+beauty. So I thought the wild valley of Lauterbrunnen, lying at the foot
+of the Jungfrau, the perfection of Alpine scenery until I saw the valley
+of Yatung, a pine-clad mountain glen, green as a hawthorn hedge in May,
+as brilliantly variegated as a beechwood copse in autumn, and
+culminating in the snowy peak that overhangs the Jelapla. The valley has
+besides an intangible fascination, indescribable because it is
+illogical. Certainly the light that played upon all these colours seemed
+to me softer than everyday sunshine; and the opening spring foliage of
+larch and birch and mountain ash seemed more delicate and varied than on
+common ground. Perhaps it was that I was approaching the forbidden land.
+But what irony, that this seductive valley should be the approach to
+the most bare and unsheltered country in Asia!
+
+Even now, in February, I can detect a few salmon-coloured leaf-buds,
+which remind me that the month of May will be a revelation to the
+mission force, when their veins are quickened by the unfamiliar warmth,
+and their eyes dazzled by this unexpected treasure which is now
+germinating in the brown earth.
+
+Four miles beyond Chumbi the road passes through the second military
+wall at the Chinese village of Gob-sorg. Riding through the quiet
+gateway beneath the grim, hideous figure of the goddess Dolma carved on
+the rock above, one feels a silent menace. One is part of more than a
+material invasion; one has passed the gate that has been closed against
+the profane for centuries; one has committed an irretrievable step.
+Goddess and barrier are symbols of Tibet's spiritual and material
+agencies of opposition. We have challenged and defied both. We have
+entered the arena now, and are to be drawn into the vortex of all that
+is most sacred and hidden, to struggle there with an implacable foe, who
+is protected by the elemental forces of nature.
+
+Inside the wall, above the road, stands the Chinese village of Gob-sorg.
+The Chinamen come out of their houses and stand on the revetment to
+watch us pass. They are as quiet and ugly as their gods. They gaze down
+on our convoys and modern contrivances with a silent contempt that
+implies a consciousness of immemorial superiority. Who can tell what
+they think or what they wish, these undivinable creatures? They love
+money, we know, and they love something else that we cannot know. It is
+not country, or race, or religion, but an inscrutable something that may
+be allied to these things, that induces a mental obstinacy, an
+unfathomable reserve which may conceal a wisdom beyond our philosophy or
+mere callousness and indifference. The thing is there, though it has no
+European name or definition. It has caused many curious and unexplained
+outbreaks in different parts of the world, and it is no doubt symbolized
+in their inexpressibly hideous flag. The element is non-conductive, and
+receives no current from progress, and it is therefore incommunicable to
+us who are wrapped in the pride of evolution. The question here and
+elsewhere is whether the Chinese love money more or this inscrutable
+dragon element. If it is money, their masks must have concealed a
+satisfaction at the prospect of the increased trade that follows our
+flag; if the dragon element, a grim hope that we might be cut off in the
+wilderness and annihilated by Asiatic hordes.
+
+Unlike the Chinese, the Tomos are unaffectedly glad to see us in the
+valley. The humblest peasant is the richer by our presence, and the
+landowners and traders are more prosperous than they have been for many
+years. Their uncompromising reception of us makes a withdrawal from the
+Chumbi Valley impossible, for the Tibetans would punish them
+relentlessly for the assistance they have given their enemies.
+
+A mile beyond Gob-sorg is the Tibetan village of Galing-ka, where the
+praying-flags are as thick as masts in a dockyard, and streams of paper
+prayers are hung across the valley to prevent the entrance of evil
+spirits. Chubby little children run out and salute one with a cry of
+'Backsheesh!' the first alien word in their infant vocabulary.
+
+A mile further a sudden turn in the valley brings one to a level
+plain--a phenomenally flat piece of ground where one can race two miles
+along the straight. No one passes it without remarking that it is the
+best site for a hill-station in Northern India. Where else can one find
+a racecourse, polo-ground, fishing, and shooting, and a rainfall that is
+little more than a third of that of Darjeeling? Three hundred feet above
+the stream on the west bank is a plateau, apparently intended for
+building sites. The plain in the valley was naturally designed for the
+training of mounted infantry, and is now, probably for the first time,
+being turned to its proper use.
+
+
+ LINGMATHANG,
+ _March 18._
+
+I have left the discomforts of Phari, and am camping now on the
+Lingmathang Plain. I am writing in a natural cave in the rock. The
+opening is walled in by a sangar of stones 5 feet high, from which
+pine-branches support a projecting roof. On fine days the space between
+the roof and wall is left open, and called the window; but when it
+snows, gunny-bags are let down as purdahs, and the den becomes very warm
+and comfortable. There is a natural hearth, a natural chimney-piece, and
+a natural chimney that draws excellently. The place is sheltered by high
+cliffs, and it is very pleasant to look out from this snugness on a
+wintry landscape, and ground covered deep with snow.
+
+Outside, seventy shaggy Tibetan ponies, rough and unshod, averaging 12.2
+hands, are tethered under the shelter of a rocky cliff. They are being
+trained according to the most approved methods of modern warfare. The
+Mounted Infantry Corps, mostly volunteers from the 23rd and 32nd
+Pioneers and 8th Gurkhas, are under the command of Captain Ottley of the
+23rd. The corps was raised at Gnatong in December, and though many of
+the men had not ridden before, after two months' training they cut a
+very respectable figure in the saddle. A few years ago a proposal was
+made to the military authorities that the Pioneers, like other
+regiments, should go in for a course of mounted infantry training. The
+reply caused much amusement at the time. The suggestion was not adopted,
+but orders were issued that 'every available opportunity should be taken
+of teaching the Pioneers to ride in carts.' A wag in the force naturally
+suggests that the new Ekka Corps, now running between Phari and Tuna,
+should be utilized to carry out the spirit of this order. Certainly on
+the road beyond the Tangla the ekkas would require some sitting.
+
+The present mission is the third 'show' on which the 23rd and 32nd have
+been together during the last nine years. In Chitral and Waziristan they
+fought side by side. It is no exaggeration to say that these regiments
+have been on active service three years out of five since they were
+raised in 1857. The original draft of the 32nd, it will be remembered,
+was the unarmed volunteer corps of Mazbi Sikhs, who offered themselves
+as an escort to the convoy from Lahore to Delhi during the siege. The
+Mazbis were the most lawless and refractory folk in the Punjab, and had
+long been the despair of Government. On arrival at Delhi they were
+employed in the trenches, rushing in to fill up the places of the killed
+and wounded as fast as they fell. It will be remembered that they formed
+the fatigue party who carried the powder-bags to blow up the Cashmere
+Gate. A hundred and fifty-seven of them were killed during the siege.
+With this brilliant opening it is no wonder that they have been on
+active service almost continually since.
+
+A frontier campaign would be incomplete without the 32nd or 23rd. It was
+the 32nd who cut their way through 5 feet of snow, and carried the
+battery guns to the relief of Chitral. The 23rd Pioneers were also
+raised from the Mazbi Sikhs in the same year of the Mutiny, 1857. The
+history of the two regiments is very similar. The 23rd distinguished
+themselves in China, Abyssinia, Afghanistan, and numerous frontier
+campaigns. One of the most brilliant exploits was when, with the Gordon
+Highlanders under Major (now Sir George) White, they captured the Afghan
+guns at Kandahar. To-day the men of the two regiments meet again as
+members of the same corps on the Lingmathang Plain. Naturally the most
+cordial relations exist between the men, and one can hear them
+discussing old campaigns as they sit round their pinewood fires in the
+evenings. They and the twenty men of the 8th Gurkhas (of Manipur fame)
+turn out together every morning for exercise on their diminutive steeds.
+They ride without saddle or stirrups, and though they have only been
+horsemen for two months, they seldom fall off at the jumps. The other
+day, when a Mazbi Sikh took a voluntary into the hedge, a genial Gurkha
+reminded him of the eccentric order 'to practise riding in carts.'
+
+At Lingmathang we have had a fair amount of sport of a desultory kind.
+The neighbouring forests are the home of that very rare and little-known
+animal, the shao, or Sikkim stag. The first animal of the species to
+fall to a European gun was shot by Major Wallace Dunlop on the
+Lingmathang Hills in January. A month later Captain Ottley wounded a
+buck which he was not able to follow up on account of a heavy fall of
+snow. Lately one or two shao--does in all cases--have come down to visit
+the plain. While we were breakfasting on the morning of the 16th, we
+heard a great deal of shouting and halloaing, and a Gurkha jemadar ran
+up to tell us that a female shao, pursued by village dogs, had broken
+through the jungle on the hillside and emerged on the plain a hundred
+yards from our camp. We mounted at once, and Ottley deployed the mounted
+infantry, who were ready for parade, to head the beast from the hills.
+The shao jinked like a hare, and crossed and recrossed the stream
+several times, but the poor beast was exhausted, and, after twenty
+minutes' exciting chase, we surrounded it. Captain Ottley threw himself
+on the animal's neck and held it down until a sepoy arrived with ropes
+to bind its hind-legs. The chase was certainly a unique incident in the
+history of sport--a field of seventy in the Himalayas, a clear spurt in
+the open, no dogs, and the quarry the rarest zoological specimen in the
+world. The beast stood nearly 14 hands, and was remarkable for its long
+ears and elongated jaw. The sequel was sad. Besides the fright and
+exhaustion, the captured shao sustained an injury in the loin; it pined,
+barely nibbled at its food, and, after ten days, died.
+
+Sikkim stags are sometimes shot by native shikaris, and there is great
+rivalry among members of the mission force in buying their heads. They
+are shy, inaccessible beasts, and they are not met with beyond the wood
+limit.
+
+The shooting in the Chumbi Valley is interesting to anyone fond of
+natural history, though it is a little disappointing from the
+sportsman's point of view. When officers go out for a day's shooting,
+they think they have done well if they bring home a brace of pheasants.
+When the sappers and miners began to work on the road below Gautsa, the
+blood-pheasants used to come down to the stream to watch the operations,
+but now one sees very few game-birds in the valley. The minal is
+occasionally shot. The cock-bird, as all sportsmen know, is, with the
+exception of the Argus-eye, the most beautiful pheasant in the world.
+There is a lamasery in the neighbourhood, where the birds are almost
+tame. The monks who feed them think that they are inhabited by the
+spirits of the blest. Where the snow melts in the pine-forests and
+leaves soft patches and moist earth, you will find the blood-pheasant.
+When you disturb them they will run up the hillside and call
+vociferously from their new hiding-place, so that you may get another
+shot. Pheasant-shooting here is not sport; the birds seldom rise, and
+when they do it is almost impossible to get a shot at them in the thick
+jungle. One must shoot them running for the pot. Ten or a dozen is not a
+bad bag for one gun later in the year, when more snow has fallen.
+
+At a distance the blood-pheasant appears a dowdy bird. The hen is quite
+insignificant, but, on a closer acquaintance, the cock shows a delicate
+colour-scheme of mauve, pink, and green, which is quite different from
+the plumage of any other bird I have seen. The skins fetch a good price
+at home, as fishermen find them useful for making flies. A sportsman
+who has shot in the Yatung Valley regularly for four years tells me that
+the cock-bird of this species is very much more numerous than the hen.
+Another Chumbi pheasant is the tracopan, a smaller bird than the minal,
+and very beautifully marked. I have not heard of a tracopan being shot
+this season; the bird is not at all common anywhere on this side of the
+Himalayas.
+
+Snow-partridge sometimes come down to the Lingmathang hills; in the
+adjacent Kongbu Valley they are plentiful. These birds are gregarious,
+and are found among the large, loose boulders on the hill-tops. In
+appearance they are a cross between the British grouse and the
+red-legged partridge, having red feet and legs uncovered with feathers,
+and a red bill and chocolate breast. The feathers of the back and rump
+are white, with broad, defined bars of rich black.
+
+Another common bird is the snow-pigeon. Large flocks of them may be seen
+circling about the valley anywhere between Phari and Chumbi. Sometimes,
+when we are sitting in our cave after dinner, we hear the tweek of
+solitary snipe flying overhead, but we have never flushed any. Every
+morning before breakfast I stroll along the river bank with a gun, and
+often put up a stray duck. I have frequently seen goosanders on the
+river, but not more than two or three in a party. They never leave the
+Himalayas. The only migratory duck I have observed are the common teal
+and Brahminy or ruddy sheldrake, and these only in pairs. The latter,
+though despised on the plains, are quite edible up here. I discredit the
+statement that they feed on carrion, as I have never seen one near the
+carcasses of the dead transport animals that are only too plentiful in
+the valley just now. After comparing notes with other sportsmen, I
+conclude that the Ammo Chu Valley is not a regular route for migratory
+duck. The odd teal that I shot in February were probably loiterers that
+were not strong enough to join in the flight southwards.
+
+Near Lingmathang I shot the ibis bill (_Ibidorhynchus Struthersi_), a
+bird which is allied to the oyster catchers. This was the first Central
+Asian species I met.
+
+
+ GAUTSA,
+ _February._
+
+Gautsa, which lies five miles north of Lingmathang, nearly half-way
+between Chumbi and Phari, must be added to the map. A week or two ago
+the place was deserted and unnamed; it did not boast a single cowherd's
+hut. Now it is a busy camp, and likely to be a permanent halting-place
+on the road to Phari. The camp lies in a deep, moss-carpeted hollow,
+with no apparent egress. On three sides it is flanked by rocky cliffs,
+densely forested with pine and silver birch; on the fourth rises an
+abrupt wall of rock, which is suffused with a glow of amber light an
+hour before sunset. The Ammo Chu, which is here nothing but a 20-foot
+stream frozen over at night, bisects the camp. The valley is warm and
+sheltered, and escapes much of the bitter wind that never spares Chumbi.
+After dinner one prefers the open-air and a camp fire. Officers who have
+been up the line before turn into their tents regretfully, for they know
+that they are saying good-bye to comfort, and will not enjoy the genial
+warmth of a good fire again until they have crossed the bleak Tibetan
+tablelands and reached the sparsely-wooded Valley of Gyantse.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER IV
+
+PHARI JONG
+
+
+ _February 15._
+
+Icy winds and suffocating smoke are not conducive to a literary style,
+though they sometimes inspire a rude eloquence that is quite unfit for
+publication. As I write we are huddling over the mess-room brazier--our
+youngest optimist would not call it a fire. Men drop in now and then
+from fatigue duty, and utter an incisive phrase that expresses the
+general feeling, while we who write for an enlightened public must
+sacrifice force for euphemism. A week at Phari dispels all illusions;
+only a bargee could adequately describe the place. Yet the elements,
+which 'feelingly persuade us' what we are, sometimes inspire us with the
+eloquence of discomfort.
+
+At Gautsa the air was scented with the fragrance of warm pine-trees, and
+there was no indication of winter save the ice on the Ammo Chu. The
+torrent roared boisterously beneath its frozen surface, and threw up
+little tentacles of frozen spray, which glistened fantastically in the
+sun. Three miles further up the stream the wood-belt ends abruptly;
+then, after another three miles, one passes the last stunted bush; after
+that there is nothing but brown earth and yellow withered grass.
+
+Five miles above Gautsa is Dotah, the most cheerless camp on the march.
+The wind blows through the gorge unceasingly, and penetrates to the
+bone. On the left bank of the stream is the frozen waterfall, which
+might be worshipped by the fanciful and superstitious as embodying the
+genius of the place, hard and resistless, a crystallized monument of the
+implacable spirit of Nature in these high places.
+
+At Kamparab, where we camped, two miles higher up the stream, the
+thermometer fell to 14 deg. below zero. Close by is the meeting-place of the
+sources of the Ammo Chu. All the plain is undermined with the warrens of
+the long-haired marmots and voles, who sit on their thresholds like a
+thousand little spies, and curiously watch our approach, then dive down
+into their burrows to tell their wives of the strange bearded invaders.
+They are the despair of their rivals, the sappers and miners, who are
+trying to make a level road for the new light ekkas. One envies them
+their warmth and snugness as one rides against the bitter penetrating
+winds.
+
+Twelve miles from Gautsa a turn in the valley brings one into view of
+Phari Jong. At first sight it might be a huge isolated rock, but as one
+approaches the bastions and battlements become more distinct. Distances
+are deceptive in this rarefied air, and objects that one imagines to be
+quite close are sometimes found to be several miles distant.
+
+The fort is built on a natural mound in the plain. It is a huge rambling
+building six stories high, surrounded by a courtyard, where mules and
+ponies are stabled. As a military fortification Phari Jong is by no
+means contemptible. The walls are of massive stonework which would take
+heavy guns to demolish. The angles are protected from attacking parties
+by machicolated galleries, and three enormous bastions project from each
+flank. These are crumbling in places, and the Pioneers might destroy the
+bastion and breach the wall with a bag or two of guncotton. On the
+eastern side there is a square courtyard like an Arab caravanserai,
+where cattle are penned. The fortress would hold the whole Tibetan army,
+with provisions for a year. It was evacuated the night before we
+reconnoitred the valley.
+
+The interior of the Jong is a warren of stairs, landings, and dark
+cavernous rooms, which would take a whole day to explore. The walls are
+built of stone and mud, and coated with century-old smoke. There are no
+chimneys or adequate windows, and the filth is indescribable. When Phari
+was first occupied, eighty coolies were employed a whole week clearing
+away refuse. Judging by the accretion of dirt, a new-comer might class
+the building as medieval; but filth is no criterion of age, for
+everything left in the same place becomes quickly coated with grime an
+inch thick. The dust that invades one's tent at Chumbi is clean and
+wholesome compared to the Phari dirt, which is the filth of human
+habitation, the secretion of centuries of foul living. It falls from the
+roof on one's head, sticks to one's clothes as one brushes against the
+wall, and is blown up into one's eyes and throat from the floor.
+
+The fort is most insanitary, but a military occupation is necessary. The
+hacking coughs which are prevalent among officers and men are due to
+impurities of the air which affect the lungs. Cartloads of dirt are
+being scraped away every day, but gusts of wind from the lower stories
+blow up more dust, which penetrates every nook and cranny of the
+draughty rooms, so that there is a fresh layer by nightfall. To clear
+the lower stories and cellars would be a hopeless task; even now rooms
+are found in unexpected places which emit clouds of dust whenever the
+wind eddies round the basement.
+
+I explored the ground-floor with a lantern, and was completely lost in
+the maze of passages and dark chambers. When we first occupied the fort,
+they were filled with straw, gunpowder, and old arms. A hundred and
+forty maunds of inferior gunpowder was destroyed, and the arms now
+litter the courtyard. These the Tibetans themselves abandoned as
+rubbish. The rusty helmets, shields, and breastplates are made of the
+thinnest iron plates interlaced with leathern thongs, and would not
+stop an arrow. The old bell-mouthed matchlocks, with their wooden
+ground-rests, would be more dangerous to the Tibetan marksmen than the
+enemy. The slings and bows and arrows are reckoned obsolete even by
+these primitive warriors. Perhaps they attribute more efficacy to the
+praying-wheels which one encounters at every corner of the fort. The
+largest are in niches in the wall to left and right of the gateway; rows
+of smaller ones are attached to the banisters on the landings and to the
+battlements of the roof. The wheels are covered with grime--the grime of
+Lamas' hands. Dirt and religion are inseparable in Tibet. The Lamas
+themselves are the most filthy and malodorous folk I have met in the
+country. From this it must not be inferred that one class is more
+cleanly in its habits than another, for nobody ever thinks of washing.
+Soap is not included in the list of sundries that pass the Customs House
+at Yatung. If the Lamas are dirtier than the yak-herds and itinerant
+merchants it is because they lead an indoor life, whereas the pastoral
+folk are continually exposed to the purifying winds of the tablelands,
+which are the nearest equivalent in Tibet to a cold bath.
+
+I once read of a Tibetan saint, one of the pupils of Naropa, who was
+credited with a hundred miraculous gifts, one of which was that he could
+dive into the water like a fish. Wherein the miracle lay had often
+puzzled me, but when I met the Lamas of the Kanjut Gompa I understood
+at once that it was the holy man's contact with the water.
+
+Phari is eloquent of piety, as it is understood in Tibet. The better
+rooms are frescoed with Buddhistic paintings, and on the third floor is
+a library, now used as a hospital, where xylograph editions of the
+Lamaist scriptures and lives of the saints are pigeon-holed in lockers
+in the wall. The books are printed on thin oblong sheets of Chinese
+paper, enclosed in boards, and illuminated with quaint coloured
+tailpieces of holy men in devotional attitudes. Phari fort, with its
+casual blending of East and West, is full of incongruous effects, but
+the oddest and most pathetic incongruity is the chorten on the roof,
+from which, amidst praying-flags and pious offerings of coloured
+raiment, flutters the Union Jack.
+
+
+ _February 18._
+
+The troops are so busy making roads that they have very little time for
+amusements. The 8th Gurkhas have already constructed some eight miles of
+road on each side of Phari for the ekka transport. Companies of the 23rd
+Pioneers are repairing the road at Dotah, Chumbi, and Rinchengong. The
+32nd are working at Rinchengong, and the sappers and miners on the
+Nathula and at Gautsa.
+
+We have started football, and the Gurkhas have a very good idea of the
+game. One loses one's wind completely at this elevation after every
+spurt of twenty yards, but recovers it again in a wonderfully short
+time. Other amusements are sliding and tobogganing, which are a little
+disappointing to enthusiasts. The ice is lumpy and broken, and the
+streamlets that run down to the plain are so tortuous that fifty yards
+without a spill is considered a good run for a toboggan. The funniest
+sight is to see the Gurkha soldiers trying to drag the toboggan uphill,
+slipping and tumbling and sprawling on the ice, and immensely enjoying
+one another's discomfiture.
+
+To clear the dust from one's throat and shake off the depression caused
+by weeks of waiting in the same place, there is nothing like a day's
+shooting or exploring in the neighbourhood of Phari. I get up sometimes
+before daybreak, and spend the whole day reconnoitring with a small
+party of mounted infantry. Yesterday we crossed a pass which looked down
+into the Kongbu Valley--a likely camping-ground for the Tibetan troops.
+The valley is connected to the north with the Tuna plateau, and is
+almost as fertile in its lower stretches as Chumbi. A gray fortress
+hangs over the cliff on the western side of the valley, and above it
+tower the glaciers of Shudu-Tsenpa and the Gora Pass into Sikkim. On the
+eastern side, at a creditable distance from the fort, we could see the
+Kongbu nunnery, which looked from where we stood like an old Roman
+viaduct. The nuns, I was told, are rarely celibate; they shave the head
+and wear no ornaments.
+
+Riding back we saw some burrhel on the opposite hills, too far off to
+make a successful stalk possible. The valley is full of them, and a week
+later some officers from Phari on a yak-collecting expedition got
+several good heads. The Tibetan gazelle, or goa (_Gazella
+hirticaudata_), is very common on the Phari plateau, and we bagged two
+that afternoon. When the force first occupied the Jong, they were so
+tame that a sportsman could walk up to within 100 yards of a herd, and
+it was not an uncommon thing for three buck to fall to the same gun in a
+morning. Now one has to manoeuvre a great deal to get within 300 yards
+of them.
+
+Sportsmen who have travelled in other parts of Tibet say the goa are
+very shy and inaccessible. Perhaps their comparative tameness near Phari
+may be accounted for by the fact that the old trade route crosses the
+plateau, and they have never been molested by the itinerant merchants
+and carriers. Gazelle meat is excellent. It has been a great resource
+for the garrison. No epicure could wish for anything better.
+
+Another unfamiliar beast that one meets in the neighbourhood of Phari is
+the kyang, or Tibetan wild ass (_Equus hemionus_), one or two of which
+have been shot for specimens. The kyang is more like a zebra than a
+horse or donkey. Its flesh, I believe, is scorned even by
+camp-followers. Hare are fairly plentiful, but they are quite
+flavourless. A huge solitary gray wolf (_Canis laniger_) was shot the
+other day, the only one of its kind I have seen. Occasionally one puts
+up a fox. The Tibetan species has a very fine brush that fetches a fancy
+price in the bazaar. At present there is too much ice on the plain to
+hunt them, but they ought to give good sport in the spring.
+
+It was dark when we rode into the Jong. After a long day in the saddle,
+dinner is good, even though it is of yak's flesh, and it is good to sit
+in front of a fire even though the smoke chokes you. I went so far as to
+pity the cave-dwellers at Chumbi. Phari is certainly very much colder,
+but it has its diversions and interests. There is still some shooting to
+be had, and the place has a quaint old-world individuality of its own,
+which seasons the monotony of life to a contemplative man. One is on the
+borderland, and one has a Micawber-like feeling that something may turn
+up. After dinner there is bridge, which fleets the time considerably,
+but at Chumbi there were no diversions of any kind--nothing but dull,
+blank, uninterrupted monotony.
+
+
+ _February 20._
+
+For two days half a blizzard has been blowing, and expeditions have been
+impossible. Everything one eats and drinks has the same taste of argol
+smoke. At breakfast this morning we had to put our _chapatties_ in our
+pockets to keep them clean, and kept our meat covered with a soup-plate,
+making surreptitious dives at it with a fork. After a few seconds'
+exposure it was covered with grime. Sausages and bully beef, which had
+just been boiled, were found to be frozen inside. The smoke in the
+mess-room was suffocating. So to bed, wrapped in sheepskins and a
+sleeping-bag. Under these depressing conditions I have been reading the
+narratives of Bogle and Manning, old English worthies who have left on
+record the most vivid impressions of the dirt and cold and misery of
+Phari.
+
+It is ninety years since Thomas Manning passed through Phari on his way
+to Lhasa. Previously to his visit we only know of two Englishmen who
+have set foot in Phari--Bogle in 1774, and Turner in 1783, both
+emissaries of Warren Hastings. Manning's journal is mostly taken up with
+complaints of his Chinese servant, who seems to have gained some
+mysterious ascendancy over him, and to have exercised it most
+unhandsomely. As a traveller Manning had a genius for missing effects;
+it is characteristic of him that he spent sixteen days at Phari, yet
+except for a casual footnote, evidently inserted in his journal after
+his return, he makes no mention of the Jong. Were it not for Bogle's
+account of thirty years before, we might conclude that the building was
+not then in existence.
+
+On October 21, 1811, Manning writes in his diary: 'We arrived at Phari
+Jong. Frost. Frost also two days before. I was lodged in a strange
+place, but so were the natives.' On the 27th he summarized his
+impressions of Phari:--'Dirt, dirt, grease, smoke, misery, but good
+mutton.'
+
+Manning's journal is expressive, if monosyllabic. He was of the class
+of subjective travellers, who visit the ends of the earth to record
+their own personal discomforts. Sensitive, neurotic, ever on the
+look-out for slights, he could not have been a happy vagabond. A dozen
+lines record the impressions of his first week at Phari. He was cheated;
+he was treated civilly; he slighted the magistrates, mistaking them for
+idle fellows; he was turned out of his room to make way for Chinese
+soldiers; he quarrelled with his servant. A single extract portrays the
+man to the life, as if he were sitting dejectedly by his yak-dung fire
+at this hour brooding over his wrongs:--
+
+"The Chinaman was cross again." Says I, "Was that a bird at the
+magistrate's that flapped so loud?" Answer: "What signifies whether it
+was a bird or not?" Where he sat I thought he might see; and I was
+curious to know if such large birds frequented the _building_. These are
+the answers I get. He is always discontented and grumbling, and takes no
+trouble off my hands. Being younger, and, like all Asiatics, able to
+stoop and crouch without pain or difficulty, he might assist me in many
+things without trouble to himself. A younger brother or any English
+young gentleman would in his place of course lay the cloth, and do other
+little services when I am tired; but he does not seem to have much of
+the generous about him, nor does he in any way serve me, or behave to me
+with any show of affection or goodwill: consequently I grow no more
+attached to him than the first day I saw him. I could not have thought
+it possible for me to have lived so long with anyone without either
+disliking him or caring sixpence for him. He has good qualities, too.
+The strangeness of his situation may partly excuse him. (I am more
+attached to my guide, with all his faults, who has been with me but a
+few days.) My guide has behaved so damnably ill since I wrote that, that
+I wish it had not come into my mind.'
+
+I give the extract at length, not only as an illuminating portrait of
+Manning, but as an incidental proof that he visited the Jong, and that
+it was very much the same building then as it is to-day. But had it not
+been for the flapping of the bird which occasioned the quarrel with his
+Chinese servant, Manning would have left Phari without a reference to
+the wonderful old fortress which is the most romantic feature on the
+road from India to Gyantse. Appended to the journal is this footnote to
+the word _building_, which I have italicized in the extract: 'The
+building is immensely large, six or more stories high, a sort of
+fortress. At a distance it appears to be all Phari Jong. Indeed, most of
+it consists of miserable galleries and holes.'
+
+Members of the mission force who have visited Phari will no doubt
+attribute Manning's evident ill-humour and depression during his stay
+there to the environments of the place, which have not changed much in
+the last ninety years. But his spirits improved as he continued his
+journey to Gyantse and Lhasa, and he reveals himself the kindly,
+eccentric, and affectionate soul who was the friend and intimate of
+Charles Lamb.
+
+Bogle arrived at Phari on October 23, 1774. He and Turner and Manning
+all entered Tibet through Bhutan. 'As we advanced,' he wrote in his
+journal, 'we came in sight of the castle of Phari Jong, which cuts a
+good figure from without. It rises into several towers with the
+balconies, and, having few windows, has the look of strength; it is
+surrounded by the town.' The only other reference he makes to the Jong
+shows us that the fortress was in bad repair so long ago as 1774. 'The
+two Lhasa officers who have the government of Phari Jong sent me some
+butter, tea, etc., the day after my arrival; and letting me know that
+they expected a visit from me, I went. The inside of the castle did not
+answer the notion I had formed of it. The stairs are ladders worn to the
+bone, and the rooms are little better than garrets.'
+
+The origin of the fort is unknown. Some of the inhabitants of Phari say
+that it was built more than a hundred years ago, when the Nepalese were
+overrunning Sikkim. But this is obviously incorrect, as the
+Tibetan-Nepalese War, in which the Chinese drove the Gurkhas out of
+Tibet, and defeated their army within a day's march of Khatmandu, took
+place in 1788-1792, whereas Bogle's description of the Jong was written
+fourteen years earlier. A more general impression is that centuries ago
+orders came from Lhasa to collect stones on the hillsides, and the
+building was constructed by forced labour in a few months. That is a
+tale of endurance and suffering that might very likely be passed from
+father to son for generations.
+
+Bogle's description of the town might have been written by an officer of
+the garrison to-day, only he wrote from the inmate's point of view. He
+noticed the houses 'so huddled together that one may chance to overlook
+them,' and the flat roofs covered with bundles of straw. He knocked his
+head against the low ceilings, and ran against the pillars that
+supported the beams. 'In the middle of the roof,' he wrote, 'is a hole
+to let out smoke, which, however, departs not without making the whole
+room as black as a chimney. The opening serves also to let in the light;
+the doors are full of holes and crevices, through which the women and
+children keep peeping.' Needless to say nothing has changed in the last
+hundred and thirty years, unless it is that the women are bolder. I
+looked down from the roof this morning on Phari town, lying like a
+rabbit-warren beneath the fort. All one can see from the battlement are
+the flat roofs of low black houses, from which smoke issues in dense
+fumes. The roofs are stacked with straw, and connected by a web of
+coloured praying-flags running from house to house, and sometimes over
+the narrow alleys that serve as streets. Enormous fat ravens perch on
+the wall, and innumerable flocks of twittering sparrows. For warmth's
+sake most of the rooms are underground, and in these subterranean dens
+Tibetans, black as coal-heavers, huddle together with yaks and mules.
+Tibetan women, equally dirty, go about, their faces smeared and blotched
+with caoutchouc, wearing a red, hoop-like head-dress, ornamented with
+alternate turquoises and ruby-coloured stones.
+
+In the fort the first thing one meets of a morning is a troop of these
+grimy sirens, climbing the stairs, burdened with buckets of chopped ice
+and sacks of yak-dung, the two necessaries of life. The Tibetan coolie
+women are merry folk; they laugh and chatter over their work all day
+long, and do not in the least resist the familiarities of the Gurkha
+soldiers. Sometimes as they pass one they giggle coyly, and put out the
+tongue, which is their way of showing respect to those in high places;
+but when one hears their laughter echoing down the stairs it is
+difficult to believe that it is not intended for saucy impudence. Their
+merriment sounds unnatural in all this filth and cold and discomfort.
+Certainly if Bogle returned to Phari he would find the women very much
+bolder, though, I am afraid, not any cleaner. Could he see the
+Englishmen in Phari to-day, he might not recognise his compatriots.
+
+Often in civilized places I shall think of the group at Phari in the
+mess-room after dinner--a group of ruffianly-looking bandits in a
+blackened, smut-begrimed room, clad in wool and fur from head to foot,
+bearded like wild men of the woods, and sitting round a yak-dung fire,
+drinking rum. After a week at Phari the best-groomed man might qualify
+for a caricature of Bill Sikes. Perhaps one day in Piccadilly one may
+encounter a half-remembered face, and something familiar in walk or gait
+may reveal an old friend of the Jong. Then in 'Jimmy's,' memories of
+argol-smoke and frozen moustaches will give a zest to a bottle of beaune
+or chablis, which one had almost forgotten was once dreamed of among the
+unattainable luxuries of life.
+
+
+ _March 26-28._
+
+Orders have come to advance from Phari Jong. It seems impossible,
+unnatural, that we are going on. After a week or two the place becomes
+part of one's existence; one feels incarcerated there. It is difficult
+to imagine life anywhere else. One feels as if one could never again be
+cold or dirty, or miserably uncomfortable, without thinking of that gray
+fortress with its strange unknown history, standing alone in the
+desolate plain. For my own part, speaking figuratively--and unfigurative
+language is impotent on an occasion like this--the place will leave an
+indelible black streak--very black indeed--on a kaleidoscopic past.
+There can be no faint impressions in one's memories of Phari Jong. The
+dirt and smoke and dust are elemental, and the cold is the cold of the
+Lamas' frigid hell.
+
+All the while I was in Phari I forgot the mystery of Tibet. I have felt
+it elsewhere, but in the Jong I only wondered that the inscrutable folk
+who had lived in the rooms where we slept, and fled in the night, were
+content with their smut-begrimed walls, blackened ceilings, and
+chimneyless roofs, and still more how amidst these murky environments
+any spiritual instincts could survive to inspire the religious
+frescoings on the wall. Yet every figure in this intricate blending of
+designs is significant and symbolical. One's first impression is that
+these allegories and metaphysical abstractions must have been
+meaningless to the inmates of the Jong; for we in Europe cannot
+dissociate the artistic expression of religious feeling from cleanliness
+and refinement, or at least pious care. One feels that they must be the
+relics of a decayed spirituality, preserved not insincerely, but in
+ignorant superstition, like other fetishes all over the world. Yet this
+feeling of scepticism is not so strong after a month or two in Tibet. At
+first one is apt to think of these dirty people as merely animal and
+sensual, and to attribute their religious observances to the fear of
+demons who will punish the most trivial omission in ritual.
+
+Next one begins to wonder if they really believe in the efficacy of
+mechanical prayer, if they take the trouble to square their conscience
+with their inclinations, and if they have any sincere desire to be
+absorbed in the universal spirit. Then there may come a suspicion that
+the better classes, though not given to inquiry, have a settled dogma
+and definite convictions about things spiritual and natural that are
+not easily upset. Perhaps before we turn our backs on the mystery of
+Tibet we will realize that the Lamas despise us as gross materialists
+and philistines--we who are always groping and grasping after the
+particular, while they are absorbed in the sublime and universal.
+
+After all, devious and unscrupulous as their policy may have been, the
+Tibetans have had one definite aim in view for centuries--the
+preservation of their Church and State by the exclusion of all foreign
+and heretical influences. When we know that the Mongol cannot conceive
+of the separation of the spiritual and temporal Government, it is only
+natural to infer that the first mission, spiritual or otherwise, to a
+foreign Court should introduce the first elements of dissolution in a
+system of Government that has held the country intact for centuries. And
+let it be remarked that Great Britain is not responsible for this
+deviation in a hitherto inveterate policy.
+
+But to return to Phari. My last impression of the place as I passed out
+of its narrow alleys was a very dirty old man, seated on a heap of
+yak-dung over the gutter. He was turning his prayer-wheel, and muttering
+the sacred formula that was to release him from all rebirth in this
+suffering world. The wish seemed natural enough.
+
+It was a bright, clear morning when we turned our backs on the old fort
+and started once more on the road to Lhasa. Five miles from Phari we
+passed the miserable little village of Chuggya, which is apparently
+inhabited by ravens and sparrows, and a diminutive mountain-finch that
+looks like a half-starved robin. A mile to the right before entering the
+village is the monastery of the Red Lamas, which was the lodging-place
+of the Bhutanese Envoy during his stay at Phari. The building, which is
+a landmark for miles, is stone-built, and coated over with red earth,
+which gives it the appearance of brick. Its overhanging gables,
+mullioned windows without glass, that look like dominoes in the
+distance, the pendent bells, and the gay decorations of Chinese paper,
+look quaint and mystical, and are in keeping with the sacred character
+of the place. Bogle stopped here on October 27, 1774, and drank tea with
+the Abbot. It is very improbable that any other white man has set foot
+in the monastery since, until the other day, when some of the garrison
+paid it a visit and took photographs of the interior. The Lamas were a
+little deprecatory, but evidently amused. I did not expect them to be so
+tolerant of intrusion, and their clamour for backsheesh on our departure
+dispelled one more illusion.
+
+At Chuggya we were at the very foot of Chumulari (23,930 feet), which
+seems to rise sheer from the plain. The western flank is an abrupt wall
+of rock, but, as far as one can see, the eastern side is a gradual
+ascent of snow, which would present no difficulties to the trained
+mountaineer. One could ride up to 17,000 feet, and start the climb from
+a base 2,000 feet higher than Mont Blanc. Chumulari is the most sacred
+mountain in Tibet, and it is usual for devout Buddhists to stop and
+offer a sacrifice as they pass. Bogle gives a detailed account of the
+service, the rites of which are very similar to some I witnessed at
+Galingka on the Tibetan New Year, February 16.
+
+'Here we halted,' he wrote in his journal, 'and the servants gathering
+together a parcel of dried cow-dung, one of them struck fire with his
+tinder-box and lighted it. When the fire was well kindled, Parma took
+out a book of prayers, one brought a copper cup, another filled it with
+a kind of fermented liquor out of a new-killed sheep's paunch, mixing in
+some rice and flour; and after throwing some dried herbs and flour into
+the flame, they began their rites. Parma acted as chaplain. He chanted
+the prayers in a loud voice, the others accompanying him, and every now
+and then the little cup was emptied towards the rock, about eight or ten
+of these libations being poured forth. The ceremony was finished by
+placing upon the heap of stones the little ensign which my fond
+imagination had before offered up to my own vanity.'
+
+Most of the flags and banners one sees to-day on the chortens and roofs
+of houses, and cairns on the mountain-tops, must be planted with some
+such inaugural ceremony.
+
+Facing Chumulari on the west, and apparently only a few miles distant,
+are the two Sikkim peaks of Powhunri (23,210 feet) and Shudu-Tsenpa
+(22,960 feet). From Chuggya the Tangla is reached by a succession of
+gradual rises and depressions. The pass is not impressive, like the
+Jelap, as a passage won through a great natural barrier. One might cross
+it without noticing the summit, were it not for the customary cairns and
+praying-flags which the Lamas raise in all high places.
+
+From a slight rise on the east of the pass one can look down across the
+plateau on Tuna, an irregular black line like a caterpillar, dotted with
+white spots, which glasses reveal to be tents. The Bamtso lake lies
+shimmering to the east beneath brown and yellow hills. At noon objects
+dance elusively in the mirage. Distances are deceptive. Yaks grazing are
+like black Bedouin tents. Here, then, is the forbidden land. The
+approach is as it should be. One's eyes explore the road to Lhasa dimly
+through a haze. One would not have it laid out with the precision of a
+diagram.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER V
+
+THE ROAD AND TRANSPORT
+
+
+To write of any completed phase of the expedition at this stage, when I
+have carried my readers only as far as Tuna, is a lapse in continuity
+that requires an apology. My excuse is that to all transport officers,
+and everyone who was in touch with them, the Tuna and Phari plains will
+be remembered as the very backbone of resistance, the most implacable
+barriers to our advance.
+
+The expedition was essentially a transport 'show.' It is true that the
+Tibetans proved themselves brave enemies, but their acquired military
+resources are insignificant when compared with the obstacles Nature has
+planted in the path of their enemies. The difficulty of the passes, the
+severity of the climate, the sterility of the mountains and tablelands,
+make the interior of the country almost inaccessible to an invading
+army. That we went through these obstacles and reached Lhasa itself was
+a matter of surprise not only to the Tibetans, but to many members of
+the expeditionary force.
+
+To appreciate the difficulties the mission force had to contend with,
+one must first realize the extraordinary changes of climate that are
+experienced in the journey from Siliguri to Tuna. Choose the coldest day
+in the year at Kew Gardens, expose yourself freely to the wind, and then
+spend five minutes in the tropical house, and you may gather some idea
+of the sensation of sleeping in the Rungpo Valley the night after
+crossing the Jelapla.
+
+When I first made the journey in early January, even the Rungpo Valley
+was chilly, and the vicissitudes were not so marked; but I felt the
+change very keenly in March, when I made a hurried rush into Darjeeling
+for equipment and supplies. Our camp at Lingmathang was in the
+pine-forest at an elevation of 10,500 feet. It was warm and sunny in the
+daytime, in places where there was shelter from the wind. Leaf-buds were
+beginning to open, frozen waterfalls to thaw, migratory duck were coming
+up the valley in twos and threes from the plains of India--even a few
+vultures had arrived to fatten on the carcasses of the dead transport
+animals. The morning after leaving Lingmathang I left the pine-forest at
+13,000 feet, and entered a treeless waste of shale and rock. When I
+crossed the Jelapla half a hurricane was blowing. The path was a sheet
+of ice, and I had to use hands and knees, and take advantage of every
+protuberance in the rock to prevent myself from being blown over the
+_khud_. The road was impassable for mules and ponies. The cold was
+numbing. The next evening, in a valley 13,000 feet beneath, I was
+suffering from the extreme of heat. The change in scenery and vegetation
+is equally striking--from glaciers and moraines to tropical forests
+brilliant with the scarlet cotton-flower and purple Baleria. In Tibet I
+had not seen an insect of any kind for two months, but in the Sikkim
+valleys the most gorgeous butterflies were abundant, and the rest-house
+at Rungpo was invested by a plague of flies. In the hot weather the
+climate of the Sikkim valleys is more trying than that of most stations
+in the plains of India. The valleys are close and shut in, and the heat
+is intensified by the radiation from the rocks, cliffs, and boulders. In
+the rains the climate is relaxing and malarious. The Supply and
+Transport Corps, who were left behind at stages like Rungpo through the
+hot weather, had, to my mind, a much harder time on the whole than the
+half-frozen troops at the front, and they were left out of all the fun.
+
+Besides the natural difficulties of the road, the severity of climate,
+and the scarcity of fodder and fuel, the Transport Corps had to contend
+with every description of disease and misfortune--anthrax, rinderpest,
+foot and mouth disease, aconite and rhododendron poisoning, falling over
+precipices, exhaustion from overwork and underfeeding. The worst
+fatalities occurred on the Khamba Jong side in 1903. The experiments
+with the transport were singularly unsuccessful. Out of two hundred
+buffaloes employed at low elevations, only three survived, and the seven
+camels that were tried on the road between Siliguri and Gantok all died
+by way of protest. Later on in the year the yak corps raised in Nepal
+was practically exterminated. From four to five thousand were originally
+purchased, of which more than a thousand died from anthrax before they
+reached the frontier. All the drinking-water on the route was infected;
+the Nepalese did not believe the disease was contagious, and took no
+precautions. The disease spread almost universally among the cattle, and
+at the worst time twenty or thirty died a day. The beasts were massed on
+the Nepal frontier. Segregation camps were formed, and ultimately, after
+much patient care, the disease was stamped out.
+
+Then began the historic march through Sikkim, which, as a protracted
+struggle against natural calamities, might be compared to the retreat of
+the Ten Thousand, or the flight of the Kalmuck Tartars. Superstitious
+natives might well think that a curse had fallen on us and our cattle.
+As soon as they were immune from anthrax, the reduced corps were
+attacked by rinderpest, which carried off seventy. When the herds left
+the Singli-la range and descended into the valley, the sudden change in
+climate overwhelmed hundreds. No real yak survived the heat of the
+Sikkim valleys. All that were now left were the zooms, or halfbreeds
+from the bull-yaks and the cow, and the cross from the bull and female
+yaks. In Sikkim, which is always a hotbed of contagious cattle diseases,
+the wretched survivors were infected with foot and mouth disease. The
+epidemic is not often fatal, but visiting an exhausted herd,
+fever-stricken, and weakened by every vicissitude of climate, it carried
+off scores. Then, to avoid spreading contagion, the yaks were driven
+through trackless, unfrequented country, up and down precipitous
+mountain-sides, and through dense forests. Again segregation camps were
+formed, and the dead cattle were burnt, twenty and thirty at a time.
+Every day there was a holocaust. Then followed the ascent into high
+altitudes, where a more insidious evil awaited the luckless corps. The
+few survivors were exterminated by pleuro-pneumonia. When, on January
+23, the 3rd Yak Corps reached Chumbi, it numbered 437; two months
+afterwards all but 70 had died. On March 21, 80 exhausted beasts
+straggled into Chumbi; they were the remainder of the 1st and 2nd Yak
+Corps, which originally numbered 2,300 heads. The officers, who, bearded
+and weather-beaten, deserted by many of their followers, after months of
+wandering, reached our camp with the remnants of the corps, told a story
+of hardship and endurance that would provide a theme for an epic.
+
+The epic of the yaks does not comprise the whole tale of disaster.
+Rinderpest carried off 77 pack-bullocks out of 500, and a whole corps
+was segregated for two months with foot and mouth disease. Amongst other
+casualties there were heavy losses among the Cashmere pony corps, and
+the Tibet pony corps raised locally. The animals were hastily mobilized
+and incompletely equipped, overworked and underfed. Cheap and inferior
+saddlery was issued, which gave the animals sore backs within a week.
+The transport officer was in a constant dilemma. He had to overwork his
+animals or delay the provisions, fodder, and warm clothing so urgently
+needed at the front. Ponies and mules had no rest, but worked till they
+dropped. Of the original draft of mules that were employed on the line
+to Khamba Jong, fully 50 per cent. died. It is no good trying to blink
+the fact that the expedition was unpopular, and that at the start many
+economical shifts were attempted which proved much more expensive in the
+end. Our party system is to blame. The Opposition must be appeased,
+expenses kept down, and the business is entered into half-heartedly. In
+the usual case a few companies are grudgingly sent to the front, and
+then, when something like a disaster falls or threatens, John Bull jumps
+at the sting, scenting a national insult. A brigade follows, and
+Government wakes to the necessity of grappling with the situation
+seriously.
+
+But to return to the spot where the evil effects of the system were
+felt, and not merely girded at. To replace and supplement the local
+drafts of animals that were dying, trained Government mule corps were
+sent up from the plains, properly equipped and under experienced
+officers. These did excellent work, and 2,600 mules arrived in Lhasa on
+August 3 in as good condition as one could wish. Of all transport
+animals, the mule is the hardiest and most enduring. He does not
+complain when he is overloaded, but will go on all day, and when he
+drops there is no doubt that he has had enough. Nine times out of ten
+when he gives up he dies. No beast is more indifferent to extremes of
+heat and cold. On the road from Kamparab to Phari one day, three mules
+fell over a cliff into a snowdrift, and were almost totally submerged.
+Their drivers could not pull them out, and, to solve the dilemma, went
+on and reported them dead. The next day an officer found them and
+extricated them alive. They had been exposed to 46 deg. of frost. They still
+survive.
+
+Nothing can beat the Sircar mule when he is in good condition, unless it
+is the Balti and Ladaki coolie. Several hundred of these hardy
+mountaineers were imported from the North-West frontier to work on the
+most dangerous and difficult sections of the road. They can bear cold
+and fatigue and exposure better than any transport animal on the line,
+and they are surer-footed. Mules were first employed over the Jelap, but
+were afterwards abandoned for coolies. The Baltis are excellent workers
+at high altitudes, and sing cheerily as they toil up the mountains with
+their loads. I have seen them throw down their packs when they reached
+the summit of a pass, make a rush for the shelter of a rock, and cheer
+lustily like school-boys. But the coolies were not all equally
+satisfactory. Those indented from the Nepal durbar were practically an
+impressed gang. Twelve rupees a month with rations and warm clothing did
+not seem to reconcile them to hard work, and after a month or two they
+became discontented and refractory. Their officers, however, were men of
+tact and decision, and they were able to prevent what might have been a
+serious mutiny. The discontented ones were gradually replaced by Baltis,
+Ladakis, and Garwhalis, and the coolies became the most reliable
+transport corps on the line.
+
+Thus, the whole menagerie, to use the expression current at the time,
+was got into working order, and a system was gradually developed by
+which the right animal, man, or conveyance was working in the right
+place, and supplies were sent through at a pace that was very creditable
+considering the country traversed.
+
+From the railway base at Siliguri to Gantok, a distance of sixty miles,
+the ascent in the road is scarcely perceptible. With the exception of a
+few contractors' ponies, the entire carrying along this section of the
+line was worked by bullock-carts. Government carts are built to carry 11
+maunds (880 pounds), but contractors often load theirs with 15 or 16
+maunds. As the carrying power of mules, ponies, and pack-bullocks is
+only 2 maunds, it will be seen at once that transport in a mountainous
+country, where there can be no road for vehicles, is nearly five times
+as difficult and complicated as in the plains. And this is without
+making any allowance for the inevitable mortality among transport
+animals at high elevations, or taking into account the inevitable
+congestion on mountain-paths, often blocked by snow, carried away by the
+rains, and always too narrow to admit of any large volume of traffic.
+
+In the beginning of March, when the line was in its best working order,
+from 1,500 to 2,000 maunds were poured into Rungpo daily. Of these, only
+400 or 500 maunds reached Phari; the rest was stored at Gantok or
+consumed on the road. Later, when the line was extended to Gyantse, not
+more than 100 maunds a day reached the front.
+
+In the first advance on Gyantse, our column was practically launched
+into the unknown. As far as we knew, no local food or forage could be
+obtained. It was too early in the season for the spring pasturage. We
+could not live on the country. The ever-lengthening line of
+communication behind us was an artery, the severing of which would be
+fatal to our advance.
+
+One can best realize the difficulties grappled with by imagining the
+extreme case of an army entering an entirely desert country. A mule, it
+must be remembered, can only carry its own food for ten days. That is
+to say, in a country where there is no grain or fodder, a convoy can
+make at the most nine marches. On the ninth day beasts and drivers will
+have consumed all the supplies taken with them. Supposing on the tenth
+day no supply-base has been reached, the convoy is stranded, and can
+neither advance nor retire. Nor must we forget that our imaginary
+convoy, which has perished in the desert, has contributed nothing to the
+advance of the army. Food and clothing for the troops, tents, bedding,
+guns, ammunition, field-hospital, treasury, still await transport at the
+base.
+
+Fortunately, the country between our frontier and Lhasa is not all
+desert. Yet it is barren enough to make it a matter of wonder that, with
+such short preparation, we were able to push through troops to Gyantse
+in April, when there was no grazing on the road, and to arrive in Lhasa
+in August with a force of more than 4,000 fighting men and followers.
+
+Before the second advance to Gyantse the spring crops had begun to
+appear. Without them we could not have advanced. All other local produce
+on the road was exhausted. That is to say, for 160 miles, with the
+important exception of wayside fodder, we subsisted entirely on our own
+supplies. The mules carried their own grain, and no more. Gyantse once
+reached, the Tibetan Government granaries and stores from the
+monasteries produced enough to carry us on. But besides the transport
+mules, there were 100 Maxim and battery mules, as well as some 200
+mounted infantry ponies, and at least 100 officers' mounts, to be fed,
+and these carried nothing--contributed nothing to the stomach of the
+army.
+
+How were these beasts to be fed, and how was the whole apparatus of an
+army to be carried along, when every additional transport animal
+was a tax on the resources of the transport? There were two
+possible solutions, each at first sight equally absurd and
+impracticable:--wheeled transport in Tibet, or animals that did not
+require feeding. The Supply and Transport men were resourceful and
+fortunate enough to provide both. It was due to the light ekka and that
+providentially ascetic beast, the yak, that we were able to reach Lhasa.
+
+The ekkas were constructed in the plains, and carried by coolies from
+the cart-road at Rungpo eighty miles over the snow passes to Kamparab on
+the Phari Plain. The carrying capacity of these light carts is 400
+pounds, two and a half times that of a mule, and there is only one mouth
+to feed. They were the first vehicles ever seen in Tibet, and they saved
+the situation.
+
+The ekkas worked over the Phari and Tuna plains, and down the Nyang Chu
+Valley as far as Kangma. They were supplemented by the yaks.
+
+The yak is the most extraordinary animal Nature has provided the
+transport officer in his need. He carries 160 pounds, and consumes
+nothing. He subsists solely on stray blades of grass, tamarisk, and
+tufts of lichen, that he picks up on the road. He moves slowly, and
+wears a look of ineffable resignation. He is the most melancholy
+disillusioned beast I have seen, and dies on the slightest provocation.
+The red and white tassels and favours of cowrie-shells the Tibetans hang
+about his neck are as incongruous on the poor beast as gauds and
+frippery on the heroine of a tragedy.
+
+If only he were dependable, our transport difficulties would be reduced
+to a minimum. But he is not. We have seen how the four thousand died in
+their passage across Sikkim without doing a day's work. Local drafts did
+better. Yet I have often passed the Lieutenant in command of the corps
+lamenting their lack of grit. 'Two more of my cows died this morning.
+Look, there goes another! D--n the beasts! I believe they do it out of
+spite!' And the chief Supply and Transport officer, always a humorist in
+adversity, when asked why they were dying off every day, said: 'I think
+it must be due to overfeeding.' But we owe much to the yak.
+
+The final advance from Gyantse to Lhasa was a comparatively easy matter.
+Crops were plentiful, and large supplies of grain were obtained from the
+monasteries and jongs on the road. We found, contrary to anticipation,
+that the produce in this part of Tibet was much greater than the
+consumption. In many places we found stores that would last a village
+three or four years. Our transport animals lived on the country. We
+arrived at Lhasa with 2,600 mules and 400 coolies. The yak and donkey
+corps were left at the river for convoy work. It would have been
+impossible to have pushed through in the winter.
+
+All the produce we consumed on the road was paid for. In this way the
+expense of the army's keep fell on the Lhasa Government, who had to pay
+the indemnity, and our presence in the country was not directly, at any
+rate, a burden on the agricultural population of the villages through
+which we passed.
+
+Looking back on the splendid work accomplished by the transport, it is
+difficult to select any special phase more memorable than another. The
+complete success of the organization and the endurance and grit
+displayed by officers and men are equally admirable. I could cite the
+coolness of a single officer in a mob of armed and mutinous coolies,
+when the compelling will of one man and a few blows straight from the
+shoulder kept the discontented harnessed to their work and quelled a
+revolt; or the case of another who drove his diseased yaks over the snow
+passes into Chumbi, and after two days' rest started with a fresh corps
+on ten months of the most tedious labour the mind of man can imagine,
+rising every day before daybreak in an almost Arctic cold, traversing
+the same featureless tablelands, and camping out at night cheerfully in
+the open plain with his escort of thirty rifles. There was always the
+chance of a night attack, but no other excitement to break the eternal
+monotony. But it was all in the day's work, and the subaltern took it
+like a picnic. Another supreme test of endurance in man and beast were
+the convoys between Chumbi and Tuna in the early part of the year, which
+for hardships endured remind me of Skobeleff's dash through the Balkans
+on Adrianople. Only our labours were protracted, Skobeleff's the
+struggle of a few days. Even in mid-March a convoy of the 12th Mule
+Corps, escorted by two companies of the 23rd Pioneers, were overtaken by
+a blizzard on their march between Phari and Tuna, and camped in two feet
+of snow with the thermometer 18 deg. below zero. A driving hurricane made it
+impossible to light a fire or cook food. The officers were reduced to
+frozen bully beef and neat spirits, while the sepoys went without food
+for thirty-six hours. The fodder for the mules was buried deep in snow.
+The frozen flakes blowing through the tents cut like a knife. While the
+detachment was crossing a stream, the mules fell through the ice, and
+were only extricated with great difficulty. The drivers arrived at Tuna
+frozen to the waist. Twenty men of the 12th Mule Corps were frostbitten,
+and thirty men of the 23rd Pioneers were so incapacitated that they had
+to be carried in on mules. On the same day there were seventy cases of
+snow-blindness among the 8th Gurkhas.
+
+Until late in April all the plain was intersected by frozen streams.
+Blankets were stripped from the mules to make a pathway for them over
+the ice. Often they went without water at night, and at mid-day, when
+the surface of the ice was melted, their thirst was so great that many
+died from overdrinking.
+
+Had the Tibetans attacked us in January, they would have taken us at a
+great disadvantage. The bolts of our rifles jammed with frozen oil. Oil
+froze in the Maxims, and threw them out of gear. More often than not the
+mounted infantry found the butts of their rifles frozen in the buckets,
+and had to dismount and use both hands to extricate them.
+
+I think these men who took the convoys through to Tuna; the 23rd, who
+wintered there and supplied most of the escort; and the 8th Gurkhas, who
+cut a road in the frost-bound plain, may be said to have broken the back
+of the resistance to our advance. They were the pioneers, and the troops
+who followed in spring and summer little realized what they owed to
+them.
+
+The great difficulties we experienced in pushing through supplies to
+Tuna, which is less than 150 miles from our base railway-station at
+Siliguri, show the absurdity of the idea of a Russian advance on Lhasa.
+The nearest Russian outpost is over 1,000 miles distant, and the country
+to be traversed is even more barren and inhospitable than on our
+frontier.
+
+Up to the present the route to Chumbi has been via Siliguri and the
+Jelap and Nathu Passes, but the natural outlet of the valley is by the
+Ammo Chu, which flows through Bhutan into the Dooars, where it becomes
+the Torsa. The Bengal-Dooars Railway now extends to Madhari Hat, fifteen
+miles from the point where the Torsa crosses the frontier, whence it is
+only forty-eight miles as the crow flies to Rinchengong in the Chumbi
+Valley. When the projected Ammo Chu cart-road is completed, all the
+difficulty of carrying stores into Chumbi will be obviated. Engineers
+are already engaged on the first trace, and the road will be in working
+order within a few months. It avoids all snow passes, and nowhere
+reaches an elevation of more than 9,000 feet. The direct route will
+shorten the journey to Chumbi by several days, bring Lhasa within a
+month's journey of Calcutta, and considerably improve trade facilities
+between Tibet and India.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VI
+
+THE ACTION AT THE HOT SPRINGS
+
+
+The village of Tuna, which lies at the foot of bare yellow hills,
+consists of a few deserted houses. The place is used mainly as a
+halting-stage by the Tibetans. The country around is sterile and
+unproductive, and wood is a luxury that must be carried from a distance
+of nearly fifty miles.
+
+It was in these dismal surroundings that Colonel Younghusband's mission
+spent the months of January, February, and March. The small garrison
+suffered all the discomforts of Phari. The dirt and grime of the squalid
+little houses became so depressing that they pitched their tents in an
+open courtyard, preferring the numbing cold to the filth of the Tibetan
+hovels. Many of the sepoys fell victims to frost-bite and pneumonia, and
+nearly every case of pneumonia proved fatal, the patient dying of
+suffocation owing to the rarefied air.
+
+Colonel Younghusband had not been at Tuna many days before it became
+clear that there could be no hope of a peaceful solution. The Tibetans
+began to gather in large numbers at Guru, eight miles to the east, on
+the road to Lhasa. The Depon, or Lhasa General, whom Colonel
+Younghusband met on two occasions, repeated that he was only empowered
+to treat on condition that we withdrew to Yatung. Messages were sent
+from the Tibetan camp to Tuna almost daily asking us to retire, and
+negociations again came to a deadlock. After a month the tone of the
+Tibetans became minatory. They threatened to invest our camp, and an
+attack was expected on March 1, the Tibetan New Year. The Lamas,
+however, thought better of it. They held a Commination Service instead,
+and cursed us solemnly for five days, hoping, no doubt, that the British
+force would dwindle away by the act of God. Nobody was 'one penny the
+worse.'
+
+Though we made no progress with the Tibetans during this time, Colonel
+Younghusband utilized the halt at Tuna in cementing a friendship with
+Bhutan. The neutrality of the Bhutanese in the case of a war with Tibet
+was a matter of the utmost importance. Were these people unfriendly or
+disposed to throw in their lot with their co-religionists, the Tibetans,
+our line of communications would be exposed to a flank attack along the
+whole of the Tuna Plain, which is conterminous with the Bhutan frontier,
+as well as a rear attack anywhere in the Chumbi Valley as far south as
+Rinchengong. The Bhutanese are men of splendid physique, brave, warlike,
+and given to pillage. Their hostility would have involved the despatch
+of a second force, as large as that sent to Tibet, and might have
+landed us, if unprepared, in a serious reverse. The complete success of
+Colonel Younghusband's diplomacy was a great relief to the Indian
+Government, who were waiting with some anxiety to see what attitude the
+Bhutanese would adopt. Having secured from them assurances of their good
+will, Colonel Younghusband put their friendship to immediate test by
+broaching the subject of the Ammo Chu route to Chumbi through Bhutanese
+territory. Very little time was lost before the concession was obtained
+from the Tongsa Penlop, ruler of Bhutan, who himself accompanied the
+mission as far as Lhasa in the character of mediator between the Dalai
+Lama and the British Government. The importance of the Ammo Chu route in
+our future relations with Tibet I have emphasized elsewhere.
+
+I doubt if ever an advance was more welcome to waiting troops than that
+which led to the engagement at the Hot Springs.
+
+For months, let it be remembered, we had been marking time. When a move
+had to be made to escort a convoy, it was along narrow mountain-paths,
+where the troops had to march in single file. There was no possibility
+of an attack this side of Phari. The ground covered was familiar and
+monotonous. One felt cooped in, and was thoroughly bored and tired of
+the delay, so that when General Macdonald marched out of Phari with his
+little army in three columns, a feeling of exhilaration communicated
+itself to the troops.
+
+Here was elbow-room at last, and an open plain, where all the army corps
+of Europe might manoeuvre. At Tuna, on the evening of the 29th, it was
+given out in orders that a reconnaissance in force was to be made the
+next morning, and two companies of the 32nd Pioneers would be left at
+Guru. The Tibetan camp at the Hot Springs lay right across our line of
+march, and the hill that flanked it was lined with their sangars. They
+must either fight or retire. Most of us thought that the Tibetans would
+fade away in the mysterious manner they have, and build another futile
+wall further on. The extraordinary affair that followed must be a unique
+event in military history.
+
+The morning of the 30th was bitterly cold. An icy wind was blowing, and
+snow was lying on the ground. I put on my thick sheepskin for the first
+time for two months, and I owe my life to it.
+
+About an hour after leaving Tuna, two or three Tibetan messengers rode
+out from their camp to interview Colonel Younghusband. They got down
+from their ponies and began chattering in a very excited manner, like a
+flock of frightened parrots. It was evident to us, not understanding the
+language, that they were entreating us to go back, and the constant
+reference to Yatung told us that they were repeating the message that
+had been sent into the Tuna camp almost daily during the past few
+months--that if we retired to Yatung the Dalai Lama would send an
+accredited envoy to treat with us. Being met with the usual answer,
+they mounted dejectedly and rode off at a gallop to their camp.
+
+Soon after they had disappeared another group of horsemen were seen
+riding towards us. These proved to be the Lhasa Depon, accompanied by an
+influential Lama and a small escort armed with modern rifles. The rifles
+were naturally inspected with great interest. They were of different
+patterns--Martini-Henri, Lee-Metford, Snider--but the clumsily-painted
+stocks alone were enough to show that they were shoddy weapons of native
+manufacture. They left no mark on our troops.
+
+According to Tibetan custom, a rug was spread on the ground for the
+interview between Colonel Younghusband and the Lhasa Depon, who
+conferred sitting down. Captain O'Connor, the secretary of the mission,
+interpreted. The Lhasa Depon repeated the entreaty of the messengers,
+and said that there would be trouble if we proceeded. Colonel
+Younghusband's reply was terse and to the point.
+
+'Tell him,' he said to Captain O'Connor, 'that we have been negociating
+with Tibet for fifteen years; that I myself have been waiting for eight
+months to meet responsible representatives from Lhasa, and that the
+mission is now going on to Gyantse. Tell him that we have no wish to
+fight, and that he would be well advised if he ordered his soldiers to
+retire. Should they remain blocking our path, I will ask General
+Macdonald to remove them.'
+
+The Lhasa Depon was greatly perturbed. He said that he had no wish to
+fight, and would try and stop his men firing upon us. But before he left
+he again tried to induce Colonel Younghusband to turn back. Then he rode
+away to join his men. What orders he gave them will never be known.
+
+I do not think the Tibetans ever believed in our serious intention to
+advance. No doubt they attributed our evacuation of Khamba Jong and our
+long delay in Chumbi to weakness and vacillation. And our forbearance
+since the negociations of 1890 must have lent itself to the same
+interpretation.
+
+As we advanced we could see the Tibetans running up the hill to the left
+to occupy the sangars. To turn their position, General Macdonald
+deployed the 8th Gurkhas to the crest of the ridge; at the same time the
+Pioneers, the Maxim detachment of the Norfolks, and Mountain Battery
+were deployed on the right until the Tibetan position was surrounded.
+
+The manoeuvre was completely successful. The Tibetans on the hill,
+finding themselves outflanked by the Gurkhas, ran down to the cover of
+the wall by the main camp, and the whole mob was encircled by our
+troops.
+
+It was on this occasion that the Sikhs and Gurkhas displayed that
+coolness and discipline which won them a European reputation. They had
+orders not to fire unless they were fired upon, and they walked right
+up to the walls of the sangars until the muzzles and prongs of the
+Tibetan matchlocks were almost touching their chests. The Tibetans
+stared at our men for a moment across the wall, and then turned and
+shambled down sulkily to join their comrades in the redan.
+
+No one dreamed of the sanguinary action that was impending. I
+dismounted, and hastily scribbled a despatch on my saddle to the effect
+that the Tibetan position had been taken without a shot being fired. The
+mounted orderly who carried the despatch bore a similar message from the
+mission to the Foreign Office. Then the disarming began. The Tibetans
+were told that if they gave up their arms they would be allowed to go
+off unmolested. But they did not wish to give up their arms. It was a
+ridiculous position, Sikh and Mongol swaying backwards and forwards as
+they wrestled for the possession of swords and matchlocks. Perhaps the
+humour of it made one careless of the underlying danger. Accounts differ
+as to how this wrestling match developed into war, how, to the delight
+of the troops, the toy show became the 'real thing.' Of one thing I am
+certain, that a rush was made in the south-east corner before a shot was
+fired. If there had been any firing, I would not have been wandering
+about by the Tibetan flank without a revolver in my hand. As it was, my
+revolver was buried in the breast pocket of my Norfolk jacket under my
+poshteen.
+
+I have no excuse for this folly except a misplaced contempt for Tibetan
+arms and courage--a contempt which accounted for our only serious
+casualty in the affair of 1888.[12] Also I think there was in the margin
+of my consciousness a feeling that one individual by an act of rashness
+might make himself responsible for the lives of hundreds. Hemmed in as
+the Tibetans were, no one gave them credit for the spirit they showed,
+or imagined that they would have the folly to resist. But we had to deal
+with the most ignorant and benighted people on earth, most of whom must
+have thought our magazine rifles and Maxims as harmless as their own
+obsolete matchlocks, and believed that they bore charms by which they
+were immune from death.
+
+ [12] When Colonel Bromhead pursued a Tibetan unarmed. Called upon to
+ surrender, the Tibetan turned on Colonel Bromhead, cut off his
+ right arm, and badly mutilated the left.
+
+The attack on the south-east corner was so sudden that the first man was
+on me before I had time to draw my revolver.[13] He came at me with his
+sword lifted in both hands over his head. He had a clear run of ten
+yards, and if I had not ducked and caught him by the knees he must have
+smashed my skull open. I threw him, and he dragged me to the ground.
+Trying to rise, I was struck on the temple by a second swordsman, and
+the blade glanced off my skull. I received the rest of my wounds, save
+one or two, on my hands--as I lay on my face I used them to protect my
+head. After a time the blows ceased; my assailants were all shot down or
+had fled. I lay absolutely still for a while until I thought it safe to
+raise my head. Then I looked round, and, seeing no Tibetans near in an
+erect position, I got up and walked out of the ring between the rifles
+of the Sikhs. The firing line had been formed in the meantime on a mound
+about thirty yards behind me, and I had been exposed to the bullets of
+our own men from two sides, as well as the promiscuous fire of the
+Tibetans.
+
+ [13] The reports sent home at the time of the Hot Springs affair were
+ inaccurate as to the manner in which I was wounded, and also
+ Major Wallace Dunlop, who was the only European anywhere near me
+ at the time. Major Dunlop shot his own man, but at such close
+ quarters that the Tibetan's sword slipped down the barrel of his
+ rifle and cut off two fingers of his left hand. General Macdonald
+ and Captain Bignell, who shot several men with their revolvers,
+ were standing at the corner where the wall joined the ruined
+ house, and did not see the attack on myself and Dunlop.
+
+The Tibetans could not have chosen a spot more fatal for their stand--a
+bluff hill to the north, a marsh and stream on the east, and to the west
+a stone wall built across the path, which they had to scale in their
+attempted assault on General Macdonald and his escort. Only one man got
+over. Inside there was barely an acre of ground, packed so thickly with
+seething humanity that the cross-fire which the Pioneers poured in
+offered little danger to their own men.
+
+The Lhasa General must have fired off his revolver after I was struck
+down. I cannot credit the rumour that his action was a signal for a
+general attack, and that the Tibetans allowed themselves to be herded
+together as a ruse to get us at close quarters. To begin with, the
+demand that they should give up their arms, and the assurance that they
+might go off unmolested, must have been quite unexpected by them, and I
+doubt if they realized the advantage of an attack at close quarters.
+
+My own impression is that the shot was the act of a desperate man,
+ignorant and regardless of what might ensue. To return to Lhasa with his
+army disarmed and disbanded, and without a shot having been fired, must
+have meant ruin to him, and probably death. When we reached Gyantse we
+heard that his property had been confiscated from his family on account
+of his failure to prevent our advance.
+
+The Depon was a man of fine presence and bearing. I only saw him once,
+in his last interview with Colonel Younghusband, but I cannot dissociate
+from him a personal courage and a pride that must have rankled at the
+indignity of his position. Probably he knew that his shot was suicidal.
+
+The action has been described as one of extreme folly. But what was left
+him if he lived except shame and humiliation? And what Englishman with
+the same prospect to face, caught in this dark eddy of circumstance,
+would not have done the same thing? He could only fire, and let his men
+take their chance, God help them!
+
+And the rabble? They have been called treacherous. Why, I don't know.
+They were mostly impressed peasants. They did not wish to give up their
+arms. Why should they? They knew nothing of the awful odds against them.
+They were being hustled by white men who did not draw knives or fire
+guns. Amid that babel of 1,500 men, many of them may not have heard the
+command; they may not have believed that their lives would have been
+spared.
+
+Looking back on the affair with all the sanity of experience, nothing is
+more natural than what happened. It was folly and suicide, no doubt; but
+it was human nature. They were not going to give in without having a
+fling. I hope I shall not be considered a pro-Tibetan when I say that I
+admire their gallantry and dash.
+
+As my wounds were being dressed I peered over the mound at the rout.
+They were walking away! Why, in the name of all their Bodhisats and
+Munis, did they not run? There was cover behind a bend in the hill a few
+hundred yards distant, and they were exposed to a devastating hail of
+bullets from the Maxims and rifles, that seemed to mow down every third
+or fourth man. Yet they walked!
+
+It was the most extraordinary procession I have ever seen. My friends
+have tried to explain the phenomenon as due to obstinacy or ignorance,
+or Spartan contempt for life. But I think I have the solution. They
+were bewildered. The impossible had happened.
+
+Prayers, and charms, and mantras, and the holiest of their holy men, had
+failed them. I believe they were obsessed with that one thought. They
+walked with bowed heads, as if they had been disillusioned in their
+gods.
+
+After the last of the retiring Tibetans had disappeared round the corner
+of the Guru road, the 8th Gurkhas descended from the low range of hills
+on the right of the position, and crossed the Guru Plain in extended
+order with the 2nd Mounted Infantry on their extreme left. Orders were
+then received by Major Row, commanding the detachment, to take the left
+of the two houses which were situated under the hills at the further
+side of the plain. This movement was carried out in conjunction with the
+mounted infantry. The advance was covered by the 7-pounder guns of the
+Gurkhas under Captain Luke, R.A. The attacking force advanced in
+extended order by a series of small rushes. Cover was scanty, but the
+Tibetans, though firing vigorously, fired high, and there were no
+casualties. At last the force reached the outer wall of the house, and
+regained breath under cover of it. A few men of the Gurkhas then climbed
+on to the roof and descended into the house, making prisoners of the
+inmates, who numbered forty or fifty. Shortly afterwards the door, which
+was strongly barricaded, was broken in, and the remainder of the force
+entered the house.
+
+During the advance a number of the Tibetans attempted to escape on mules
+and ponies, but the greater number of these were followed up and killed.
+The Tibetan casualties were at least 700.
+
+Perhaps no British victory has been greeted with less enthusiasm than
+the action at the Hot Springs. Certainly the officers, who did their
+duty so thoroughly, had no heart in the business at all. After the first
+futile rush the Tibetans made no further resistance. There was no more
+fighting, only the slaughter of helpless men.
+
+It is easy to criticise after the event, but it seems to me that the
+only way to have avoided the lamentable affair at the Hot Springs would
+have been to have drawn up more troops round the redan, and, when the
+Tibetans were hemmed in with the cliff in their rear, to have given them
+at least twenty minutes to lay down their arms. In the interval the
+situation might have been made clear to everyone. If after the
+time-limit they still hesitated, two shots might have brought them to
+reason. Then, if they were mad enough to decide on resistance, their
+suicide would be on their own heads. But to send two dozen sepoys into
+that sullen mob to take away their arms was to invite disaster. Given
+the same circumstances, and any mob in the world of men, women, or
+children, civilized or savage, and there would be found at least one
+rash spirit to explode the mine and set a spark to a general
+conflagration.
+
+It was thought at the time that the lesson would save much future
+bloodshed. But the Tibetan is so stubborn and convinced of his
+self-sufficiency that it took many lessons to teach him the disparity
+between his armed rabble and the resources of the British Raj. In the
+light of after-events it is clear that we could have made no progress
+without inflicting terrible punishment. The slaughter at Guru only
+forestalled the inevitable. We were drawn into the vortex of war by the
+Tibetans' own folly. There was no hope of their regarding the British as
+a formidable Power, and a force to be reckoned with, until we had killed
+several thousand of their men.
+
+After the action the Tibetan wounded were brought into Tuna, and an
+abandoned dwelling-house was fitted up as a hospital. An empty cowshed
+outside served as an operating-theatre. The patients showed
+extraordinary hardihood and stoicism. After the Dzama Tang engagement
+many of the wounded came in riding on yaks from a distance of fifty or
+sixty miles. They were consistently cheerful, and always ready to
+appreciate a joke. One man, who lost both legs, said: 'In my next battle
+I must be a hero, as I cannot run away.' Some of the wounded were
+terribly mutilated by shell. Two men who were shot through the brain,
+and two who were shot through the lungs, survived. For two days
+Lieutenant Davys, Indian Medical Service, was operating nearly all day.
+I think the Tibetans were really impressed with our humanity, and looked
+upon Davys as some incarnation of a medicine Buddha. They never
+hesitated to undergo operations, did not flinch at pain, and took
+chloroform without fear. Their recuperative power was marvellous. Of the
+168 who were received in hospital, only 20 died; 148 were sent to their
+homes on hired yaks cured. Everyone who visited the hospital at Tuna
+left it with an increased respect for the Tibetans.
+
+ * * * * *
+
+Three months after the action I found the Tibetans still lying where
+they fell. One shot through the shoulder in retreat had spun as he fell
+facing our rifles. Another tore at the grass with futile fingers through
+which a delicate pink primula was now blossoming. Shrunk arms and shanks
+looked hideously dwarfish. By the stream the bodies lay in heaps with
+parched skin, like mummies, rusty brown. A knot of coarse black hair,
+detached from a skull, was circling round in an eddy of wind. Everything
+had been stripped from the corpses save here and there a wisp of cloth,
+looking more grim than the nakedness it covered, or round the neck some
+inexpensive charm, which no one had thought worth taking for its occult
+powers. Nature, more kindly, had strewn round them beautiful spring
+flowers--primulas, buttercups, potentils. The stream 'bubbled oilily,'
+and in the ruined house bees were swarming.
+
+Ten miles beyond the Springs an officer was watering his horse in the
+Bamtso Lake. The beast swung round trembling, with eyes astare. Among
+the weeds lay the last victim.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VII
+
+A HUMAN MISCELLANY
+
+
+The Tibetans stood on the roofs of their houses like a row of
+cormorants, and watched the doolie pass underneath. At a little distance
+it was hard to distinguish the children, so motionless were they, from
+the squat praying-flags wrapped in black skin and projecting from the
+parapets of the roof. The very babes were impassive and inscrutable.
+Beside them perched ravens of an ebony blackness, sleek and well
+groomed, and so consequential that they seemed the most human element of
+the group.
+
+My Tibetan bearers stopped to converse with a woman on the roof who wore
+a huge red hoop in her hair, which was matted and touzled like a
+negress's. A child behind was searching it, with apparent success. The
+woman asked a question, and the bearers jerked out a few guttural
+monosyllables, which she received with indifference. She was not visibly
+elated when she heard that the doolie contained the first victim of the
+Tibetan arms. I should like to have heard her views on the political
+situation and the question of a settlement. Some of her relatives,
+perhaps, were killed in the melee at the Hot Springs. Others who had
+been taken prisoners might be enlisted in the new doolie corps, and
+receiving an unexpected wage; others, perhaps, were wounded and being
+treated in our hospitals with all the skill and resources of modern
+science; or they were bringing in food-stuffs for our troops, or setting
+booby-traps for them, and lying in wait behind sangars to snipe them in
+the Red Idol Gorge.
+
+The bearers started again; the hot sun and the continued exertion made
+them stink intolerably. Every now and then they put down the doolie, and
+began discussing their loot--ear-rings and charms, rough turquoises and
+ruby-coloured stones, torn from the bodies of the dead and wounded. For
+the moment I was tired of Tibet.
+
+I remembered another exodus when I was disgusted with the country. I had
+been allured across the Himalayas by the dazzling purity of the snows. I
+had escaped the Avernus of the plains, and I might have been content,
+but there was the seduction of the snows. I had gained an upper story,
+but I must climb on to the roof. Every morning the Sun-god threw open
+the magnificent portals of his domain, dazzling rifts and spires, black
+cliffs glacier-bitten, the flawless vaulted roof of Kinchenjunga--
+
+ 'Myriads of topaz lights and jacinth work
+ Of subtlest jewellery.'
+
+One morning the roof of the Sun-god's palace was clear and cloudless,
+but about its base hung little clouds of snow-dust, as though the
+Olympians had been holding tourney, and the dust had risen in the tracks
+of their chariots. All this was seen over galvanized iron roofs. The
+Sun-god had thrown open his palace, and we were playing pitch and toss
+on the steps. While I was so engrossed I looked up. Columns of white
+cloud were rising to obscure the entrance. Then a sudden shaft of
+sunlight broke the fumes. There was a vivid flash, a dazzle of
+jewel-work, and the portals closed. I was covered with bashfulness and
+shame. It was a direct invitation. I made some excuse to my companion,
+said I had an engagement, went straight to my rooms, and packed.
+
+But while the aroma of my carriers insulted the pure air, and their
+chatter over their tawdry spoil profaned the silent precincts of
+Chumulari, their mountain goddess, I thought more of the disenchantment
+of that earlier visit. I remembered sitting on a hillside near a
+lamasery, which was surrounded by a small village of Lamas' houses.
+Outside the temple a priest was operating on a yak for vaccine. He had
+bored a large hole in the shoulder, into which he alternately buried his
+forearm and squirted hot water copiously. A hideous yellow trickle
+beneath indicated that the poor beast was entirely perforated. A crowd
+of admiring little boys and girls looked on with relish. The smell of
+the poor yak was distressing, but the smell of the Lama was worse. I
+turned away in disgust--turned my back contentedly and without regret on
+the mysterious land and the road to the Forbidden City. At that moment,
+if the Dalai Lama himself had sent me a chaise with a dozen outriders
+and implored me to come, I would not have visited him, not for a
+thousand yaks. The scales of vagabondage fell from my eyes; the spirit
+of unrest died within me. I had a longing for fragrant soap, snowy white
+linen, fresh-complexioned ladies and clean-shaven, well-groomed men.
+
+And here again I was returning very slowly to civilization; but I was
+coming back with half an army corps to shake the Dalai Lama on his
+throne--or if there were no throne or Dalai Lama, to do what? I wondered
+if the gentlemen sitting snugly in Downing Street had any idea.
+
+At Phari I was snow-bound for a week, and there were no doolie-bearers.
+The Darjeeling dandy-wallahs were no doubt at the front, where they were
+most wanted, as the trained army doolie corps are plainsmen, who can
+barely breathe, much less work, at these high elevations. At last we
+secured some Bhutias who were returning to the front.
+
+The Bhutia is a type I have long known, though not in the capacity of
+bearer. These men regarded the doolie with the invalid inside as a piece
+of baggage that had to be conveyed from one camp to another, no matter
+how. Of the art of their craft they knew nothing, but they battled with
+the elements so stoutly that one forgave them their awkwardness. They
+carried me along mountain-paths so slippery that a mule could find no
+foothold, through snow so deep and clogging that with all their toil
+they could make barely half a mile an hour; and they took shelter once
+from a hailstorm in which exposure without thick head-covering might
+have been fatal. Often they dropped the doolie, sometimes on the edge of
+a precipice, in places where one perspired with fright; they collided
+quite unnecessarily with stones and rocks; but they got through, and
+that was the main point. Men who have carried a doolie over a difficult
+mountain-pass (14,350 feet), slipping and stumbling through snow and ice
+in the face of a hurricane of wind, deserve well of the great Raj which
+they serve.
+
+On the road into Darjeeling, owing to the absence of trained
+doolie-bearers, I met a human miscellany that I am not likely to forget.
+Eight miles beyond the Jelap lies the fort of Gnatong, whence there is a
+continual descent to the plains of India. The neighbouring hills and
+valleys had been searched for men; high wages were offered, and at last
+from some remote village in Sikkim came a dozen weedy Lepchas, simian in
+appearance, and of uncouth speech, who understood no civilized tongue.
+They had never seen a doolie, but in default of better they were
+employed. It was nobody's fault; bearers must be had, and the
+profession was unpopular. I was their 'first job.' I settled myself
+comfortably, all unconscious of my impending fate. They started off with
+a wild whoop, threw the doolie up in the air, caught it on their
+shoulders, and played cup and ball with the contents until they were
+tired. I swore at them in Spanish, English, and Hindustani, but it was
+small relief, as they didn't take the slightest notice, and I had
+neither hands to beat them nor feet to kick them over the _khud_. My
+orderly followed and told them in a mild North-Country accent that they
+would be punished if they did it again; there is some absurd army
+regulation about British soldiers striking followers. For all they knew,
+he was addressing the stars. They dropped the thing a dozen times in ten
+miles, and thought it the hugest joke in the world. I shall shy at a
+hospital doolie for the rest of my natural life.
+
+There is a certain Mongol smell which is the most unpleasant human odour
+I know. It is common to Lepchas, Bhutanese, and Tibetans, but it is
+found in its purest essence in these low-country, cross-bred Lepchas,
+who were my close companions for two days. When we reached the heat of
+the valley, they jumped into the stream and bathed, but they emerged
+more unsavoury than ever. It was a relief to pass a dead mule. At the
+next village they got drunk, after which they developed an amazing
+surefootedness, and carried me in without mishap.
+
+After two days with my Lepchas we reached Rungli (2,000 feet), whence
+the road to the plains is almost level. Here a friend introduced me to a
+Jemadar in a Gurkha regiment.
+
+'He writes all about our soldiers and the fighting in Tibet,' he said.
+'It all goes home to England on the telegraph-wire, and people at home
+are reading what he says an hour or two after he has given _khubber_ to
+the office here.'
+
+'Oh yes,' said the Jemadar in Hindustani, 'and if things are well the
+people in England will be very glad; and if we are ill and die, and
+there is too much cold, they will be very sorry.'
+
+The Jemadar smiled. He was most sincere and sympathetic. If an
+Englishman had said the same thing, he would have been thought
+half-witted, but Orientals have a way of talking platitudes as if they
+were epigrams.
+
+The Jemadar's speech was so much to the point that it called up a little
+picture in my mind of the London Underground and a liveried official
+dealing out _Daily Mails_ to crowds of inquirers anxious for news of
+Tibet. Only the sun blazed overhead and the stream made music at our
+feet.
+
+I left the little rest-hut in the morning, resigned to the inevitable
+jolting, and expecting another promiscuous collection of humanity to do
+duty as _kahars_. But, to my great joy, I found twelve Lucknow
+doolie-wallahs waiting by the veranda, lithe and erect, and part of a
+drilled corps. Drill discipline is good, but in the art of their trade
+these men needed no teaching. For centuries their ancestors had carried
+palanquins in the plains, bearing Rajas and ladies of high estate,
+perhaps even the Great Mogul himself. The running step to their strange
+rhythmic chants must be an instinct to them. That morning I knew my
+troubles were at an end. They started off with steps of velvet,
+improvising as they went a kind of plaintive song like an intoned
+litany.
+
+The leading man chanted a dimeter line, generally with an iambus in the
+first foot; but when the road was difficult or the ascent toilsome, the
+metre became trochaic, in accordance with the best traditions of
+classical poetry. The hind-men responded with a sing-song trochaic
+dimeter which sounded like a long-drawn-out monosyllable. They never
+initiated anything. It was not custom; it had never been done. The laws
+of Nature are not so immutable as the ritual of a Hindu guild.
+
+We sped on smoothly for eight miles, and when I asked the _kahars_ if
+they were tired, they said they would not rest, as relays were waiting
+on the road. All the way they chanted their hymn of the obvious:--
+
+ 'Mountains are steep;
+ _Chorus_: Yes, they are.
+ The road is narrow;
+ Yes, it is.
+ The sahib is wounded;
+ That is so.
+ With many wounds;
+ They are many.
+ The road goes down;
+ Yes, it does.
+ Now we are hurrying;
+ Yes, we are.'
+
+Here they ran swiftly till the next rise in the hill.
+
+Waiting in the shade for relays, I heard two Englishmen meet on the
+road. One had evidently been attached, and was going down to join his
+regiment; the other was coming up on special service. I caught fragments
+of our crisp expressive argot.
+
+_Officer going down_ (_apparently disillusioned_): 'Oh, it's the same
+old bald-headed maidan we usually muddle into.'
+
+_Officer coming up_: '... Up above Phari ideal country for native
+cavalry, isn't it?... A few men with lances prodding those fellows in
+the back would soon put the fear of God into them. Why don't they send
+up the --th Light Cavalry?'
+
+_Officer going down_: 'They've Walers, and you can't feed 'em, and the
+--th are all Jats. They're no good; can't do without a devil of a lot of
+milk. They want bucketsful of it. Well, bye-bye; you'll soon get fed up
+with it.'
+
+The doolie was hitched up, and the _kahars_ resumed their chant:
+
+ 'A sahib goes up;
+ Yes, he does.
+ A sahib goes down;
+ That is so.'
+
+The heat and the monotonous cadence induced drowsiness, and one fell to
+thinking of this odd motley of men, all of one genus, descended from the
+anthropoid ape, and exhibiting various phases of evolution--the
+primitive Lepcha, advanced little further than his domestic dog; the
+Tibetan _kahar_ caught in the wheel of civilization, and forming part of
+the mechanism used to bring his own people into line; the Lucknow
+doolie-bearer and the Jemadar Sahib, products of a hoary civilization
+that have escaped complexity and nerves; and lord of all these, by
+virtue of his race, the most evolved, the English subaltern. All these
+folk are brought together because the people on the other side of the
+hills will insist on being obsolete anachronisms, who have been asleep
+for hundreds of years while we have been developing the sense of our
+duty towards our neighbour. They must come into line; it is the will of
+the most evolved.
+
+The next day I was carried for miles through a tropical forest. The damp
+earth sweated in the sun after last night's thunder-storm, and the
+vegetation seemed to grow visibly in the steaming moisture. Gorgeous
+butterflies, the epicures of a season, came out to indulge a love of
+sunshine and suck nectar from all this profusion. Overhead, birds
+shrieked and whistled and beat metal, and did everything but sing. The
+cicadas raised a deafening din in praise of their Maker, seeming to
+think, in their natural egoism, that He had made the forest, oak, and
+gossamer for their sakes. We were not a thousand feet above the sea.
+Thousands of feet above us, where we were camping a day or two ago, our
+troops were marching through snow.
+
+The next morning we crossed the Tista River, and the road led up through
+sal forests to a tea-garden at 3,500 feet. Here we entered the most
+perfect climate in the world, and I enjoyed genial hospitality and a
+foretaste of civilization: a bed, sheets, a warm bath, clean linen,
+fruit, sparkling soda, a roomy veranda with easy-chairs, and outside
+roses and trellis-work, and a garden bright with orchids and
+wild-turmeric and a profusion of semi-tropical and English flowers--all
+the things which the spoilt children of civilization take as a matter of
+course, because they have never slept under the stars, or known what it
+is to be hungry and cold, or exhausted by struggling against the forces
+of untamed Nature.
+
+At noon next day, in the cantonments at Jelapahar, an officer saw a
+strange sight--a field-hospital doolie with the red cross, and twelve
+_kahars_, Lucknow men, whose plaintive chant must have recalled old days
+on the North-West frontier. Behind on a mule rode a British orderly of
+the King's Own Scottish Borderers, bearded and weather-stained, and
+without a trace of the spick-and-spanness of cantonments. I saw the
+officer's face lighten; he became visibly excited; he could not restrain
+himself--he swung round, rode after my orderly, and began to question
+him without shame. Here was civilization longing for the wilderness, and
+over there, beyond the mist, under that snow-clad peak, were men in the
+wilderness longing for civilization.
+
+A cloud swept down and obscured the Jelap, as if the chapter were
+closed. But it is not. That implacable barrier must be crossed again,
+and then, when we have won the most secret places of the earth, we may
+cry with Burton and his Arabs, 'Voyaging is victory!'
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VIII
+
+THE ADVANCE OF THE MISSION OPPOSED
+
+
+The intention of the Tibetans at the Hot Springs has not been made
+clear. They say that their orders were to oppose our advance, but to
+avoid a battle, just as our orders were to take away their arms, if
+possible, without firing a shot. The muddle that ensued lends itself to
+several interpretations, and the Tibetans ascribe their loss to British
+treachery. They say that we ordered them to destroy the fuses of their
+matchlocks, and then fired on them. This story was taken to Lhasa, with
+the result that the new levies from the capital were not deterred by the
+terrible punishment inflicted on their comrades. Orders were given to
+oppose us on the road to Gyantse, and an armed force, which included
+many of the fugitives from Guru, gathered about Kangma.
+
+The peace delegates always averred that we fired the first shot at Guru.
+But even if we give the Tibetans the benefit of the doubt, and admit
+that the action grew out of the natural excitement of two forces
+struggling for arms, both of whom were originally anxious to avoid a
+conflict, there is still no doubt that the responsibility of continuing
+the hostilities lies with the Tibetans.
+
+On the morning of April 7 ten scouts of the 2nd Mounted Infantry, under
+Captain Peterson, found the Tibetans occupying the village of Samando,
+seventeen miles beyond Kalatso. As our men had orders not to fire or
+provoke an attack, they sent a messenger up to the walls to ask one of
+the Tibetans to come out and parley. They said they would send for a
+man, and invited us to come nearer. When we had ridden up to within a
+hundred yards of the village, they opened a heavy fire on us with their
+matchlocks. Our scouts spread out, rode back a few hundred yards, and
+took cover behind stones. Not a man or pony was hit. Before retiring,
+the mounted infantry fired a few volleys at the Tibetans who were lining
+the roofs of two large houses and a wall that connected them, their
+heads only appearing above the low turf parapets. Twice the Tibetans
+sent off a mounted man for reinforcements, but our shooting was so good
+that each time the horse returned riderless. The next morning we found
+the village unoccupied, and discovered six dead left on the roofs, most
+of whom were wounded about the chest. Our bullets had penetrated the two
+feet of turf and killed the man behind. Putting aside the question of
+Guru, the Samando affair was the first overt act of hostility directed
+against the mission.
+
+After Samando there was no longer any doubt that the Tibetans intended
+to oppose our advance. On the 8th the mounted infantry discovered a wall
+built across the valley and up the hills just this side of Kangma, which
+they reported as occupied by about 1,000 men. As it was too late to
+attack that night, we formed camp. The next morning we found the wall
+evacuated, and the villagers reported that the Tibetans had retired to
+the gorge below. This habit of building formidable barriers across a
+valley, stretching from crest to crest of the flanking hills, is a
+well-known trait of Tibetan warfare. The wall is often built in the
+night and abandoned the next morning. One would imagine that, after
+toiling all night to make a strong position, the Tibetans would hold
+their wall if they intended to make a stand anywhere. But they do not
+grudge the labour. Wall-building is an instinct with them. When a
+Tibetan sees two stones by the roadside, he cannot resist placing one on
+the top of the other. So wherever one goes the whole countryside is
+studded with these monuments of wasted labour, erected to propitiate the
+genii of the place, or from mere force of habit to while away an idle
+hour. During the campaign of 1888 it was this practice of strengthening
+and abandoning positions more than anything else which gained the
+Tibetans the reputation of cowardice, which they have since shown to be
+totally undeserved.
+
+On April 8, owing to the delay in reconnoitring the wall, we made only
+about eight miles, and camped. The next morning we had marched about
+two miles, when we found the high ridge on the left flank occupied by
+the enemy, and the mounted infantry reported them in the gorge beyond.
+Two companies of the 8th Gurkhas under Major Row were sent up to the
+hill on the left to turn the enemy's right flank, and the mountain
+battery (No. 7) came into action on the right at over 3,000 yards. The
+enemy kept up a continuous but ineffectual fire from the ridge, none of
+their jingal bullets falling anywhere near us. The Gurkhas had a very
+difficult climb. The hill was quite 2,000 feet above the valley; the
+lower and a good deal of the other slopes were of coarse sand mixed with
+shale, and the rest nothing but slippery rock. The summit of the hill
+was approached by a number of step-like shale terraces covered with
+snow. When only a short way up, a snowstorm came on and obscured the
+Gurkhas from view. The cold was intense, and the troops in the valley
+began to collect the sparse brushwood, and made fires to keep themselves
+warm.
+
+On account of the nature of the hillside and the high altitude, the
+progress of the Gurkhas was very slow, and it took them nearly three
+hours to reach the ridge held by the enemy. When about two-thirds of the
+way up, they came under fire from the ridge, but all the shots went
+high. The jingals carried well over them at about 1,200 yards. The enemy
+also sent a detachment to meet them on the top, but these did not fire
+long, and retired as the Gurkhas advanced. When the 8th reached the
+summit, the Tibetans were in full flight down the opposite slope, which
+was also snow-covered. Thirty were shot down in the rout, and fifty-four
+who were hiding in the caves were made prisoners.
+
+In the meanwhile the battery had been making very good practice at 3,000
+yards. Seven men were found dead on the summit, and four wounded,
+evidently by their fire.
+
+But to return to the main action in the gorge. The Tibetans held a very
+strong position among some loose boulders on the right, two miles beyond
+the gully which the Gurkhas had ascended to make their flank attack. The
+rocks extended from the bluff cliff to the path which skirted the
+stream. No one could ask for better cover; it was most difficult to
+distinguish the drab-coated Tibetans who lay concealed there. To attack
+this strong position General Macdonald sent Captain Bethune with one
+company of the 32nd Pioneers, placing Lieutenant Cook with his Maxim on
+a mound at 500 yards to cover Bethune's advance. Bethune led a frontal
+attack. The Tibetans fired wildly until the Sikhs were within eighty
+yards, and then fled up the valley. Not a single man of the 32nd was hit
+during the attack, though one sepoy was wounded in the pursuit by a
+bullet in the hand from a man who lay concealed behind a rock within a
+few yards of him. While the 32nd were dislodging the Tibetans from the
+path and the rocks above it, the mounted infantry galloped through them
+to reconnoitre ahead and cut off the fugitives in the valley. They also
+came through the enemy's fire at very close quarters without a casualty.
+On emerging from the gorge the mounted infantry discovered that the
+ridge the Tibetans had held was shaped like the letter S, so that by
+doubling back along an almost parallel valley they were able to
+intercept the enemy whom the Gurkhas had driven down the cliffs. The
+unfortunate Tibetans were now hemmed in between two fires, and hardly a
+man of them escaped.
+
+The Tibetan casualties, as returned at the time, were much exaggerated.
+The killed amounted to 100, and, on the principle that the proportion of
+wounded must be at least two to one, it was estimated that their losses
+were 300. But, as a matter of fact, the wounded could not have numbered
+more than two dozen.
+
+The prisoners taken by the Gurkhas on the top of the ridge turned out to
+be impressed peasants, who had been compelled to fight us by the Lamas.
+They were not soldiers by inclination or instinct, and I believe their
+greatest fear was that they might be released and driven on to fight us
+again.
+
+The action at the Red Idol Gorge may be regarded as the end of the first
+phase of the Tibetan opposition. We reached Gyantse on April 11, and the
+fort was surrendered without resistance. Nothing had occurred on the
+march up to disturb our estimate of the enemy. Since the campaign of
+1888 no one had given the Tibetans any credit for martial instincts, and
+until the Karo la action and the attack on Gyantse they certainly
+displayed none. It would be hard to exaggerate the strategical
+difficulties of the country through which we had to pass. The progress
+of the mission and its escort under similar conditions would have been
+impossible on the North-West frontier or in any country inhabited by a
+people with the rudiments of sense or spirit. The difficulties of
+transport were so great that the escort had to be cut down to the finest
+possible figure. There were barely enough men for pickets, and many of
+the ordinary precautions of field manoeuvres were out of the question.
+But the Tibetan failed to realize his opportunities. He avoided the
+narrow forest-clad ravines of Sikkim and Chumbi, and made his first
+stand on the open plateau at Guru. Fortunately for us, he never learnt
+what transport means to a civilized army. A bag of barley-meal, some
+weighty degchies, and a massive copper teapot slung over the saddle are
+all he needs; evening may produce a sheep or a yak. His movements are
+not hampered by supplies. If the importance of the transport question
+had ever entered his head, he would have avoided the Tuna camp, with its
+Maxims and mounted infantry, and made a dash upon the line of
+communications. A band of hardy mountaineers in their own country might
+very easily surprise and annihilate an ill-guarded convoy in a narrow
+valley thickly forested and flanked by steep hills. To furtively cut an
+artery in your enemy's arm and let out the blood is just as effective as
+to knock him on the head from in front. But in this first phase of the
+operations the Tibetans showed no strategy; they were badly led, badly
+armed, and apparently devoid of all soldier-like qualities. Only on one
+or two occasions they displayed a desperate and fatal courage, and this
+new aspect of their character was the first indication that we might
+have to revise the views we had formed sixteen years ago of an enemy who
+has seemed to us since a unique exception to the rule that a hardy
+mountain people are never deficient in courage and the instinct of
+self-defence.
+
+The most extraordinary aspect of the fighting up to our arrival at
+Gyantse was that we had only one casualty from a gunshot wound--the Sikh
+who was shot in the hand at the Dzama Tang affair by a Tibetan whose
+jezail was almost touching him. Yet at the Hot Springs the Tibetans
+fired off their matchlocks and rifles into the thick of us, and at Guru
+an hour afterwards the Gurkhas walked right up to a house held by the
+enemy, under heavy fire, and took it without a casualty. The mounted
+infantry were exposed to a volley at Samando at 100 yards, and again in
+the Red Idol Gorge they rode through the enemy's fire at an even
+shorter range. In the same action the 32nd made a frontal attack on a
+strong position which was held until they were within eighty yards, and
+not a man was hit. No wonder we had a contempt for the Tibetan arms.
+Their matchlocks, weapons of the rudest description, must have been as
+dangerous to their own marksmen as to the enemy; their artillery fire,
+to judge by our one experience of it at Dzama Tang, was harmless and
+erratic; and their modern Lhasa-made rifles had not left a mark on our
+men. The Tibetans' only chance seemed to be a rush at close quarters,
+but they had not proved themselves competent swordsmen. My own
+individual case was sufficient to show that they were bunglers. Besides
+the twelve wounds I received at the Hot Springs, I found seven
+sword-cuts on my poshteen, none of which were driven home. During the
+whole campaign we had only one death from sword-wounds.
+
+Arrived at Gyantse, we settled down with some sense of security. A
+bazaar was held outside the camp. The people seemed friendly, and
+brought in large quantities of supplies. Colonel Younghusband, in a
+despatch to the Foreign Office, reported that with the surrender of
+Gyantse Fort on April 12 resistance in that part of Tibet was ended. A
+letter was received from the Amban stating that he would certainly reach
+Gyantse within the next three weeks, and that competent and trustworthy
+Tibetan representatives would accompany him. The Lhasa officials, it
+was said, were in a state of panic, and had begged the Amban to visit
+the British camp and effect a settlement.
+
+On April 20 General Macdonald's staff, with the 10-pounder guns, three
+companies of the 23rd Pioneers, and one and a half companies of the 8th
+Gurkhas, returned to Chumbi to relieve the strain on the transport and
+strengthen the line of communications. Gyantse Jong was evacuated, and
+we occupied a position in a group of houses, as we thought, well out of
+range of fire from the fort.
+
+Everything was quiet until the end of April, when we heard that the
+Tibetans were occupying a wall in some strength near the Karo la,
+forty-two miles from Gyantse, on the road to Lhasa. Colonel Brander, of
+the 32nd Pioneers, who was left in command at Gyantse, sent a small
+party of mounted infantry and pioneers to reconnoitre the position. They
+discovered 2,000 of the enemy behind a strong loopholed wall stretching
+across the valley, a distance of nearly 600 yards. As the party explored
+the ravine they had a narrow escape from a booby-trap, a formidable
+device of Tibetan warfare, which was only employed against our troops on
+this occasion. An artificial avalanche of rocks and stones is so
+cunningly contrived that the removal of one stone sends the whole engine
+of destruction thundering down the hillside. Luckily, the Tibetans did
+not wait for our main body, but loosed the machine on an advance guard
+of mounted infantry, who were in extended order and able to take shelter
+behind rocks.
+
+On the return of the reconnaissance Colonel Brander decided to attack,
+as he considered the gathering threatened the safety of the mission. The
+Karo Pass is an important strategical position, lying as it does at the
+junction of the two roads to India, one of which leads to Kangma, the
+other to Gyantse. A strong force holding the pass might at any moment
+pour troops down the valley to Kangma, cut us off in the rear, and
+destroy our line of communications. When Colonel Brander led his small
+force to take the pass, it was not with the object of clearing the road
+to Lhasa. The measure was purely defensive: the action was undertaken to
+keep the road open for convoys and reinforcements, and to protect
+isolated posts on the line. The force with the mission was still an
+'escort,' and so far its operations had been confined to dispersing the
+armed levies that blocked the road.
+
+On May 3 Colonel Brander left Gyantse with his column of 400 rifles,
+comprising three companies of the 32nd Pioneers, under Captains Bethune
+and Cullen and Lieutenant Hodgson; one company of the 8th, under Major
+Row and Lieutenant Coleridge, with two 7-pounder guns; the Maxim
+detachment of the Norfolks, under Lieutenant Hadow; and forty-five of
+the 1st Mounted Infantry, under Captain Ottley. On the first day the
+column marched eighteen miles, and halted at Gobshi. On the second day
+they reached Ralung, eleven miles further, and on the third marched up
+the pass and encamped on an open spot about two miles from where the
+Tibetans had built their wall. A reconnaissance that afternoon estimated
+the enemy at 2,000, and they were holding the strongest position on the
+road to Lhasa. They had built a wall the whole length of a narrow spur
+and up the hill on the other side of the stream, and in addition held
+detached sangars high up the steep hills, and well thrown forward. Their
+flanks rested on very high and nearly precipitous rocks. It was only
+possible to climb the ridge on our right from a mile behind, and on the
+left from nearly three-quarters of a mile. Colonel Brander at first
+considered the practicability of delaying the attack on the main wall
+until the Gurkhas had completed their flanking movements, cleared the
+Tibetans out of the sangars that enfiladed our advance in the valley,
+and reached a position on the hills beyond the wall, whence they could
+fire into the enemy's rear. But the cliffs were so sheer that the ascent
+was deemed impracticable, and the next morning it was decided to make a
+frontal attack without waiting for the Gurkhas to turn the flank. No one
+for a moment thought it could be done.
+
+The troops marched out of camp at ten o'clock. One company of the 32nd
+Pioneers, under Captain Cullen, was detailed to attack on the right,
+and a second company, under Captain Bethune, to follow the river-bed,
+where they were under cover of the high bank until within 400 yards of
+the wall, and then rush the centre of the position. The 1st Mounted
+Infantry, under Captain Ottley, were to follow this company along the
+valley. The guns, Maxims, and one company of the 32nd in reserve,
+occupied a small plateau in the centre. Half a company of the 8th
+Gurkhas were left behind to guard the camp. A second half-company, under
+Major Row, were sent along the hillside on the left to attack the
+enemy's extreme right sangar, but their progress over the shifting shale
+slopes and jagged rocks was so slow that the front attack did not wait
+for them.
+
+The fire from the wall was very heavy, and the advance of Cullen's and
+Bethune's companies was checked. Bethune sent half a company back, and
+signalled to the mounted infantry to retire. Then, compelled by some
+fatal impulse, he changed his mind, and with half a company left the
+cover of the river-bed and rushed out into the open within forty yards
+of the main wall, exposed to a withering fire from three sides. His
+half-company held back, and Bethune fell shot through the head with only
+four men by his side--a bugler, a store-office babu, and two devoted
+Sikhs. What the clerk was doing there no one knows, but evidently the
+soldier in the man had smouldered in suppression among the office files
+and triumphed splendidly. It was a gallant reckless charge against
+uncounted odds. Poor Bethune had learnt to despise the Tibetans' fire,
+and his contempt was not unnatural. On the march to Gyantse the enemy
+might have been firing blank cartridges for all the effect they had left
+on our men. At Dzama Tang Bethune had made a frontal attack on a strong
+position, and carried it without losing a man. Against a similar rabble
+it might have been possible to rush the wall with his handful of Sikhs,
+but these new Kham levies who held the Karo la were a very different
+type of soldier.
+
+The frontal attack was a terrible mistake, as was shown four hours
+afterwards, when the enemy were driven from their position without
+further loss to ourselves by a flanking movement on the right.
+
+At twelve o'clock Major Row, after a laborious climb, reached a point on
+a hillside level with the sangars, which were strongly held on a narrow
+ledge 200 yards in front of him. Here he sent up a section of his men
+under cover of projecting rocks to get above the sangars and fire down
+into them. In the meanwhile some of the enemy scrambled on to the rocks
+above, and began throwing down boulders at the Gurkhas, but these either
+broke up or fell harmless on the shale slopes above. After waiting an
+hour, Major Row went back himself and found his section checked half-way
+by the stone-throwing and shots from above; they had tried another way,
+but found it impracticable.
+
+Keeping a few men back to fire on any stone-throwers who showed
+themselves, Row dribbled his men across the difficult place, and in half
+an hour reached the rocky ledge above the sangars and looked right down
+on the enemy. At the first few shots from the Gurkhas they began to
+bolt, and, coming into the fire of the men below, who now rushed
+forward, nearly every man--forty in all--was killed. One or two who
+escaped the fire found their flight cut off by a precipice, and in an
+abandonment of terror hurled themselves down on the rocks below. After
+clearing the sangar, the Gurkhas had only to surmount the natural
+difficulties of the rocky and steep hill; for though the enemy fired on
+them from the wall, their shooting was most erratic. When at last they
+reached a small spur that overlooked the Tibetan main position, they
+found, to their disgust, that each man was protected from their fire by
+a high stone traverse, on the right-hand of which he lay secure, and
+fired through loopholes barely a foot from the ground.
+
+The Gurkhas had accomplished a most difficult mountaineering feat under
+a heavy fire; they had turned the enemy out of their sangars, and after
+four hours' climbing they had scaled the heights everyone thought
+inaccessible. But their further progress was barred by a sheer cliff;
+they had reached a cul-de-sac. Looking up from the valley, it appeared
+that the spot where they stood commanded the enemy's position, but we
+had not reckoned on the traverses. This amazing advance in the enemy's
+defensive tactics had rendered their position unassailable from the
+left, and made the Gurkhas' flanking movement a splendid failure.
+
+It was now two o'clock, and, except for the capture of the enemy's right
+sangars, we had done nothing to weaken their opposition. The frontal and
+flanking attacks had failed. Bethune was killed, and seventeen men. Our
+guns had made no impression on their wall. Looking down from the spur
+which overlooked the Tibetan camp and the valley beyond, the Gurkhas
+could see a large reinforcement of at least 500 men coming up to join
+the enemy. The situation was critical. In four hours we had done
+nothing, and we knew that if we could not take the place by dusk we
+would have to abandon the attack or attempt to rush the camp at night.
+That would have been a desperate undertaking--400 men against 3,000, a
+rush at close quarters with the bayonet, in which the superiority of our
+modern rifles would be greatly discounted.
+
+Matters were at this crisis, when we saw the Tibetans running out of
+their extreme left sangars. At twelve o'clock, when the front attack had
+failed and the left attack was apparently making no progress, fifteen
+men of the 32nd who were held in reserve were sent up the hill on the
+right. They had reached a point above the enemy's left forward sangar,
+and were firing into it with great effect. Twice the Tibetans rushed
+out, and, coming under a heavy Maxim fire, bolted back again. The third
+time they fled in a mass, and the Maxims mowed down about thirty. The
+capture of the sangars was a signal for a general stampede. From the
+position they had won the Sikhs could enfilade the main wall itself. The
+Tibetans only waited a few shots; then they turned and fled in three
+huge bodies down the valley. Thus the fifteen Sikhs on the right saved
+the situation. The tension had been great. In no other action during the
+campaign, if we except Palla, did the success of our arms stand so long
+in doubt. Had we failed to take the wall by daylight, Colonel Brander's
+column would have been in a most precarious position. We could not
+afford to retire, and a night attack could only have been pushed home
+with heavy loss.
+
+Directly the flight began, the 1st Mounted Infantry--forty-two men,
+under Captain Ottley--rode up to the wall. They were ten minutes making
+a breach. Then they poured into the valley and harassed the flying
+masses, riding on their flanks and pursuing them for ten miles to within
+sight of the Yamdok Tso. It showed extraordinary courage on the part of
+this little band of Masbis and Gurkhas that they did not hesitate to
+hurl themselves on the flanks of this enormous body of men, like
+terriers on the heels of a flock of cattle, though they had had
+experience of their stubborn resistance the whole day long, and rode
+through the bodies of their fallen comrades. Not a man drew rein. The
+Tibetans were caught in a trap. The hills that sloped down to the valley
+afforded them little cover. Their fate was only a question of time and
+ammunition. The mounted infantry returned at night with only three
+casualties, having killed over 300 men.
+
+The sortie to the Karo la was one of the most brilliant episodes of the
+campaign. We risked more then than on any other occasion. But the safety
+of the mission and many isolated posts on the line was imperilled by
+this large force at the cross-roads, which might have increased until it
+had doubled or trebled if we had not gone out to disperse it. A weak
+commander might have faltered and weighed the odds, but Colonel Brander
+saw that it was a moment to strike, and struck home. His action was
+criticised at the time as too adventurous. But the sortie is one of the
+many instances that our interests are best cared for by men who are
+beyond the telegraph-poles, and can act on their own initiative without
+reference to Government offices in Simla.
+
+As the column advanced to the Karo la, a message was received that the
+mission camp at Gyantse had been attacked in the early morning of the
+5th, and that Major Murray's men--150 odd rifles--had not only beaten
+the enemy off, but had made three sorties from different points and
+killed 200.
+
+With the action at the Karo la and the attack on the mission at Gyantse
+began the second phase of the operations, during which we were
+practically besieged in our own camp, and for nine weeks compelled to
+act on the defensive. The courage of the Tibetans was now proved beyond
+a doubt. The new levies from Kham and Shigatze were composed of very
+different men from those we herded like sheep at Guru. They were also
+better armed than our previous assailants, and many of them knew how to
+shoot. At the same time they were better led. The primitive ideas of
+strategy hitherto displayed by the Tibetans gave place to more advanced
+tactics. The usual story got wind that the Tibetans were being led by
+trained Russian Buriats. But there was no truth in it. The altered
+conditions of the campaign, as we may call it, after it became necessary
+to begin active operations, were due to the force of circumstances--the
+arrival of stouter levies from the east, the great numerical superiority
+of the enemy, and their strongly fortified positions.
+
+The operations at Gyantse are fully dealt with in another chapter, and I
+will conclude this account of the opposition to our advance with a
+description of the attack on the Kangma post, the only attempt on the
+part of the enemy to cut off our line of communications. Its complete
+failure seems to have deterred the Tibetans from subsequent ventures of
+the kind.
+
+From Ralung, ten miles this side of the Karo la, two roads branch off to
+India. The road leading to Kangma is the shortest route; the other road
+makes a detour of thirty miles to include Gyantse. Ralung lies at the
+apex of the triangle, as shown in this rough diagram. Gyantse and Kangma
+form the two base angles.
+
+[Illustration]
+
+If it had been possible, a strong post would have been left at the Karo
+la after the action of May 6. But our small force was barely sufficient
+to garrison Gyantse, and we had to leave the alternative approach to
+Kangma unguarded. An attack was expected there; the post was strongly
+fortified, and garrisoned by two companies of the 23rd Pioneers, under
+Captain Pearson.
+
+The attack, which was made on June 7, was unexpectedly dramatic. We have
+learnt that the Tibetan has courage, but in other respects he is still
+an unknown quantity. In motive and action he is as mysterious and
+unaccountable as his paradoxical associations would lead us to imagine.
+In dealing with the Tibetans one must expect the unexpected. They will
+try to achieve the impossible, and shut their eyes to the obvious. They
+have a genius for doing the wrong thing at the wrong time. Their elan,
+their dogged courage, their undoubted heroism, their occasional
+acuteness, their more general imbecile folly and vacillation and
+inability to grasp a situation, make it impossible to say what they will
+do in any given circumstances. A few dozen men will hurl themselves
+against hopeless odds, and die to a man fighting desperately; a handful
+of impressed peasants will devote themselves to death in the defence of
+a village, like the old Roman patriots. At other times they will forsake
+a strongly sangared position at the first shot, and thousands will prowl
+round a camp at night, shouting grotesquely, but too timid to make a
+determined attack on a vastly outnumbered enemy.
+
+The uncertainty of the enemy may be accounted for to some extent by the
+fact that we are not often opposed by the same levies, which would imply
+that theirs is greatly the courage of ignorance. Yet in the face of the
+fighting at Palla, Naini, and Gyantse Jong, this is evidently no fair
+estimate of the Tibetan spirit. The men who stood in the breach at
+Gyantse in that hell of shrapnel and Maxim and rifle fire, and dropped
+down stones on our Gurkhas as they climbed the wall, met death
+knowingly, and were unterrified by the resources of modern science in
+war, the magic, the demons, the unseen, unimagined messengers of death.
+
+But the men who attacked the Kangma post, what parallel in history have
+we for these? They came by night many miles over steep mountain cliffs
+and rocky ravines, perhaps silently, with determined purpose, weighing
+the odds; or, as I like to think, boastfully, with song and jest,
+saying, 'We will steal in upon these English at dawn before they wake,
+and slay them in their beds. Then we will hold the fort, and kill all
+who come near.'
+
+They came in the gray before dawn, and hid in a gully beside our camp.
+At five the reveille sounded and the sentry left the bastions. Then they
+sprang up and rushed, sword in hand, their rifles slung behind their
+backs, to the wall. The whole attack was directed on the south-east
+front, an unscalable wall of solid masonry, with bastions at each corner
+four feet thick and ten feet high. They directed their attack on the
+bastions, the only point on that side they could scramble over. They
+knew nothing of the fort and its tracing. Perhaps they had expected to
+find us encamped in tents on the open ground. 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. They had no artillery or
+guncotton or materials for a siege, but they hoped to scale the wall and
+annihilate the garrison that held it. They had come from Lhasa to take
+Kangma, and they were not going to turn back. They came on undismayed,
+like men flushed with victory. The sepoys said they must be drunk or
+drugged. They rushed to the bottom of the wall, tore out stones, and
+flung them up at our sepoys; they leapt up to seize the muzzles of our
+rifles, and scrambled to gain a foothold and lift themselves on to the
+parapet; they fell bullet-pierced, and some turned savagely on the wall
+again. It was only a question of time, of minutes, and the cool
+mechanical fire of the 23rd Pioneers would have dropped every man. One
+hundred and six bodies were left under the wall, and sixty more were
+killed in the pursuit. Never was there such a hopeless, helpless
+struggle, such desperate and ineffectual gallantry.
+
+Almost before it was light the yak corps with their small escort of
+thirty rifles of the 2nd Gurkhas were starting on the road to Kalatso.
+They had passed the hiding-place of the Tibetans without noticing the
+500 men in rusty-coloured cloaks breathing quietly among the brown
+stones. Then the Tibetans made their charge, just as the transport had
+passed, and a party of them made for the yaks. Two Tibetan drivers in
+our service stood directly in their path. 'Who are you?' cried one of
+the enemy. 'Only yak-drivers,' was the frightened answer. 'Then, take
+that,' the Tibetan said, slashing at his arm with no intent to kill. The
+Gurkha escort took up a position behind a sangar and opened fire--all
+save one man, who stood by his yak and refused to come under cover,
+despite the shouts and warnings of his comrades. He killed several, but
+fell himself, hacked to pieces with swords. The Tibetans were driven
+off, and joined the rout from the fort. The whole affair lasted less
+than ten minutes.
+
+Our casualties were: the isolated Gurkha killed, two men in the fort
+wounded by stones, and three of the 2nd Gurkhas severely wounded--two by
+sword-cuts, one by a bullet in the neck.
+
+But what was the flame that smouldered in these men and lighted them to
+action? They might have been Paladins or Crusaders. But the Buddhists
+are not fanatics. They do not stake eternity on a single existence. They
+have no Mahdis or Juggernaut cars. The Tibetans, we are told, are not
+patriots. Politicians say that they want us in their country, that they
+are priest-ridden, and hate and fear their Lamas. What, then, drove them
+on? It was certainly not fear. No people on earth have shown a greater
+contempt for death. Their Lamas were with them until the final assault.
+Twenty shaven polls were found hiding in the nullah down which the
+Tibetans had crept in the dark, and were immediately despatched. What
+promises and cajoleries and threats the holy men used no one will ever
+know. But whatever the alternative, their simple followers preferred
+death.
+
+The second phase of the operations, in which we had to act on the
+defensive in Gyantse, and the beginning of the third phase, which saw
+the arrival of reinforcements and the collapse of the Tibetan
+opposition, are described by an eye-witness in the next two chapters.
+During the whole of these operations I was invalided in Darjeeling,
+owing to a second operation which had to be performed on my amputation
+wound.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER IX
+
+GYANTSE
+
+[BY HENRY NEWMAN]
+
+
+Gyantse Plain lies at the intersection of four great valleys running
+almost at right angles to one another. In the north-eastern corner there
+emerge two gigantic ridges of sandstone. On one is built the jong, and
+on the other the monastery. The town fringes the base of the jong, and
+creeps into the hollow between the two ridges. The plain, about six
+miles by ten, is cultivated almost to the last inch, if we except a few
+stony patches here and there. There are, I believe, thirty-three
+villages in the plain. These are built in the midst of groves of poplar
+and willow. At one time, no doubt, the waters from the four valleys
+united to form a lake. Now they have found an outlet, and flow
+peacefully down Shigatze way. High up on the cold mountains one sees the
+cold bleached walls of the Seven Monasteries, some of them perched on
+almost inaccessible cliffs, whence they look sternly down on the warmth
+and prosperity below.
+
+For centuries the Gyantse folk had lived self-contained and happy,
+practising their simple arts of agriculture, and but dimly aware of any
+world outside their own. Then one day there marched into their midst a
+column of British troops--white-faced Englishmen, dark, lithe Gurkhas,
+great, solemn, bearded Sikhs--and it was borne in upon the wondering
+Gyantse men that beyond their frontiers there existed great nations--so
+great, indeed, that they ventured to dispute on equal terms with the
+awful personage who ruled from Lhasa. It is true that from time to time
+there must have passed through Gyantse rumours of war on the distant
+frontier. The armies that we defeated at Guru and in the Red Idol Gorge
+had camped at Gyantse on their way to and fro. Gyantse saw and wondered
+at the haste of Lhasa despatch-riders. But I question whether any
+Gyantse man realized that events, great and shattering in his world,
+were impending when the British column rounded the corner of Naini
+Valley.
+
+At first we were received without hostility, or even suspicion. The
+ruined jong, uninhabited save for a few droning Lamas, was surrendered
+as soon as we asked for it. A clump of buildings in a large grove near
+the river was rented without demur--though at a price--to the
+Commission. And when the country-people found that there was a sale for
+their produce, they flocked to the camp to sell. The entry of the
+British troops made no difference to the peace of Gyantse till the
+Lamas of Lhasa embarked on the fatal policy of levying more troops in
+Lhasa, Shigatze, and far-away Kham, and sending them down to fight. Then
+there entered the peaceful valley all the horrors of war--dead and
+maimed men in the streets and houses, burning villages, death and
+destruction of all kinds. Gyantse Plain and the town became scenes of
+desolation. To the British army in India war, unfortunately, is nothing
+new, but one can imagine what an upheaval this business of which I am
+about to write meant to people who for generations had lived in peace.
+
+The incidents connected with the arrival of the mission with its escort
+at Gyantse need not be described in detail. On the day of arrival we
+camped in the midst of some fallow fields about two miles from the jong.
+The same afternoon a Chinese official, who called himself 'General' Ma,
+came into camp with the news that the jong was unoccupied, and that the
+local Tibetans did not propose to offer any resistance. The next morning
+we took quiet possession of the jong, placing two companies of Pioneers
+in garrison. The General with a small escort visited the monastery
+behind the fort, and was received with friendliness by the venerable
+Abbot. Neither the villagers nor the towns-people showed any signs of
+resentment at our presence. The Jongpen actively interested himself in
+the question of procuring an official residence for Colonel Younghusband
+and the members of the mission. There were reports of the Dalai Lama's
+representatives coming in haste to treat. Altogether the outlook was so
+promising that nobody was surprised when, after a stay of a week,
+General Macdonald, bearing in mind the difficulty of procuring supplies
+for the whole force, announced his intention of returning to Chumbi with
+the larger portion of the escort, leaving a sufficient guard with the
+mission.
+
+The guard left behind consisted of four companies of the 32nd Pioneers,
+under Colonel Brander; four companies of the 8th Gurkhas, under Major
+Row; the 1st Mounted Infantry, under Captain Ottley; and the machine-gun
+section of the Norfolks, under Lieutenant Hadow. Mention should also be
+made of the two 7-pounder mountain-guns attached to the 8th Gurkhas,
+under the command of Captain Luke.
+
+Before the General left for Chumbi he decided to evacuate the jong. The
+grounds on which this decision was come to were that the whole place was
+in a ruinous and dangerous condition, the surroundings were insanitary,
+there was only one building fit for human habitation, the water-supply
+was bad and deficient, and there seemed to be no prospect of further
+hostilities. Besides, from the military point of view there was some
+risk in splitting up the small guard to be left behind between the jong
+and the mission post. However, the precaution was taken of further
+dismantling the jong. The gateways and such portions as seemed capable
+of lending themselves to defence were blown up.
+
+The house, or, rather, group of houses, rented by Colonel Younghusband
+for the mission was situated about 100 yards from a well-made stone
+bridge over the river. A beautiful grove, mostly of willow, extended
+behind the post along the banks of the river to a distance of about 500
+yards. The jong lay about 1,800 yards to the right front. There were two
+houses in the intervening space, built amongst fields of iris and
+barley. Small groups of trees were dotted here and there. Altogether,
+the post was located in a spot as pleasant as one could hope to find in
+Tibet.
+
+For some days before the General left, all the troops were engaged in
+putting the post in a state of defence. It was found that the force to
+be left behind could be easily located within the perimeter of a wall
+built round the group of houses. There was no room, however, for 200
+mules and their drivers, needed for convoy purposes. These were placed
+in a kind of hornwork thrown out to the right front.
+
+After the departure of the General we resigned ourselves to what we
+conceived would be a monotonous stay at Gyantse of two or three months,
+pending the signing of the treaty. The people continued to be perfectly
+friendly. A market was established outside the post, to which
+practically the whole bazaar from Gyantse town was removed. We were able
+to buy in the market, very cheap, the famous Gyantse carpets, for which
+enormous prices are demanded at Darjeeling and elsewhere in India.
+Unarmed officers wandered freely about Gyantse town, and the monks of
+Palkhor Choide, the monastery behind the fort, willingly conducted
+parties over the most sacred spots. They even readily sold some of the
+images before the altars, and the silk screens which shrouded the forms
+of the gigantic Buddhas. I mention these facts about the carpets and
+images because, when hereafter they adorned Simla and Darjeeling
+drawing-rooms, unkind people began to say that British officers had
+wantonly looted Palkhor Choide, one of the most famous monasteries in
+Tibet.
+
+A little shooting was to be had, and officers wandered about the plain,
+gun in hand, bringing home mountain-hare--a queer little beast with a
+blue rump--duck, and pigeon. Occasionally an excursion up one of the
+side valleys would result in the shooting of a burhel or of a Tibetan
+gazelle. The country-people met with were all perfectly friendly.
+
+Another feature of those first few peaceful days at Gyantse was the
+eagerness with which the Tibetans availed themselves of the skilled
+medical attendance with the mission. At first only one or two men
+wounded at the Red Idol Gorge were brought in, but the skill of Captain
+Walton, Indian Medical Service, soon began to be noised abroad, and
+every morning the little outdoor dispensary was crowded with sufferers
+of all kinds.
+
+But during the last week in May reports began to reach Colonel
+Younghusband that, so far from attempting to enter into negociations,
+the Lhasa Government was levying an army in Kham, and that already five
+or six hundred men were camped on the other side of the Karo la, and
+were busily engaged in building a wall. Lieutenant Hodgson with a small
+force was sent to reconnoitre. He came back with the news that the wall
+was already built, stretching from one side of the valley to the other,
+and that there were several thousand well-armed men behind it. Both
+Colonel Younghusband and Colonel Brander considered it highly necessary
+that this gathering should be immediately dispersed, for it is a
+principle in Indian frontier warfare to strike quickly at any tribal
+assembly, in order to prevent it growing into dangerous proportions. The
+possibly exciting effect the force on the Karo la might have on the
+inhabitants of Gyantse had particularly to be considered. Accordingly,
+on May 3 Colonel Brander led the major portion of the Gyantse garrison
+towards the Karo la, leaving behind as a guard to the post two companies
+of Gurkhas, a company of the 32nd Pioneers, and a few mounted infantry,
+all under the command of Major Murray.
+
+I accompanied the Karo la column, and must rely on hearsay as to my
+facts with regard to the attack on the mission. We heard about the
+attack the night before Colonel Brander drove the Tibetans from their
+wall on the Karo la, after a long fight which altered all our previous
+conceptions of the fighting qualities of the Tibetans. The courage shown
+by the enemy naturally excited apprehension about the safety of the
+mission. Colonel Brander did not stay to rest his troops after their day
+of arduous fighting, but began his return march next morning, arriving
+at Gyantse on the 9th.
+
+The column had been warned that it was likely to be fired on from the
+jong if it entered camp by the direct Lhasa road. Accordingly, we
+marched in by a circuitous route, moving in under cover of the grove
+previously mentioned. The Maxims and guns came into action at the edge
+of the grove to cover the baggage. But, though numbers of Tibetans were
+seen on the walls of the jong, not a shot was fired.
+
+We then learnt the story of the attack on the post. It appears that the
+day after Colonel Brander left for the Karo la (May 3) certain wounded
+and sick Tibetans that we had been attending informed the mission that
+about 1,000 armed men had come down towards Gyantse from Shigatze, and
+were building a wall about twelve miles away. It was added that they
+might possibly attack the post if they got to know that the garrison had
+been largely depleted. This news seemed to be worth inquiring into, and,
+accordingly, next day Major Murray sent some mounted infantry to
+reconnoitre up the Shigatze road. The latter returned with the
+information that they had gone up the valley some seven or eight miles,
+but had found no signs of any enemy.
+
+The very next morning the post was attacked at dawn. It appears that the
+Shigatze force, about 1,000 strong, was really engaged in building a
+wall twelve miles away. Hearing that very few troops were guarding the
+mission, its commander--who, I hear, was none other than Khomba Bombu,
+the very man who arrested Sven Hedin's dash to Lhasa--determined to make
+a sudden attack on the post. He marched his men during the night, and
+about an hour before sunrise had them crouching behind trees and inside
+ditches all round the post.
+
+The attack was sudden and simultaneous. A Gurkha sentry had just time to
+fire off his rifle before the Tibetans rushed to our walls and had their
+muskets through our loopholes. The enemy did not for the moment attempt
+to scale, but contented themselves with firing into the post through the
+loopholes they had taken. This delay proved fatal to their plans, for it
+gave the small garrison time to rise and arm. The brunt of the Tibetan
+fire was directed on the courtyard of the house where the tents of the
+members of the mission were pitched. Major Murray, who had rushed out of
+bed half clad, first directed his attention to this spot. The Sikhs,
+emerging from their tents with bandolier and rifle, in extraordinary
+costumes, were directed towards the loopholes. Some were sent on the
+roof of the mission-house, whence they could enfilade the attackers.
+Elsewhere various junior officers had taken command. Captain Luke, who,
+owing to sickness, had not gone on with the Karo la column, took charge
+of the Gurkhas on the south and west fronts. Lieutenant Franklin, the
+medical officer of the 8th Gurkhas, rallied Gurkhas and Pioneers to the
+loopholes on the east and north. Lieutenant Lynch, the treasure-chest
+officer, who had a guard of about twenty Gurkhas, took his men to the
+main gate to the south. There were at this time in hospital about a
+dozen Sikhs, who had been badly burnt in a lamentable gunpowder
+explosion a few days previously. These men, bandaged and crippled as
+they were, rose from their couches, made their painful way to the tops
+of the houses, and fired into the enemy below. About a dozen Tibetans
+had just begun to scramble over the wall by the time the defenders had
+manned the whole position, which was now not only held by fighting men,
+but by various members of the mission, including Colonel Younghusband,
+who had emerged with revolvers and sporting guns. A few of the enemy got
+inside the defences, and were immediately shot down.
+
+Our fire was so heavy and so well directed that it is supposed that not
+more than ten minutes elapsed from the time the first shot was fired to
+the time the enemy began to withdraw. The withdrawal, however, was only
+to the shelter of trees and ditches a few hundred yards away, whence a
+long but almost harmless fusillade was kept up on the post. After about
+twenty minutes of this firing, Major Murray determined on a rally.
+Lieutenant Lynch with his treasure guard dashed out from the south gate.
+Some five-and-twenty Tibetans were discovered hiding in a small refuse
+hut about fifteen yards from the gate. The furious Gurkhas rushed in
+upon them and killed them all, and then dashed on through the long
+grove, clearing the enemy in front of them. Returning along the banks of
+the river, the same party discovered another body of Tibetans hiding
+under the arches of the bridge. Twenty or thirty were shot down, and
+about fifteen made prisoners. Similar success attended a rally from the
+north-east gate made by Major Murray and Lieutenant Franklin. The enemy
+fled howling from their hiding-places towards the town and jong as soon
+as they saw our men issue. They were pursued almost to the very walls of
+the fort. Indeed, but for the fringe of houses and narrow streets at the
+base of the jong, Major Murray would have gone on. The Tibetans,
+however, turned as soon as they reached the shelter of walls, and it
+would have been madness to attack five or six hundred determined men in
+a maze of alleys and passages with only a weak company. Major Murray
+accordingly made his way back to the post, picking up a dozen prisoners
+_en route_.
+
+In this affair our casualties only amounted to five wounded and two
+killed. One hundred and forty dead of the enemy were counted outside
+the camp.
+
+During the course of the day Major Murray sent a flag of truce to the
+jong with an intimation to the effect that the Tibetans could come out
+and bury their dead without fear of molestation. The reply was that we
+could bury the dead ourselves without fear of molestation. As it was
+impossible to leave all the bodies in the vicinity of the camp, a heavy
+and disagreeable task was thrown on the garrison.
+
+Towards sundown the enemy in the jong began to fire into the camp, and
+our troops became aware of the unpleasant fact that the Tibetans
+possessed jingals, which could easily range from 1,800 to 2,000 yards.
+It was also realized that the jong entirely dominated the post; that our
+walls and stockades, protection enough against a direct assault from the
+plain, were no protection against bullets dropped from a height. So for
+the next four days, pending the return of the Karo la column, the little
+garrison toiled unceasingly at improving the defences. Traverses were
+built, the walls raised in height, the gates strengthened. It was
+discovered that the Tibetan fire was heaviest when we attempted to
+return it by sniping at figures seen on the jong. Accordingly, pending
+the completion of the traverses and other new protective works, Major
+Murray forbade any return fire.
+
+Such was the position of affairs when the Karo la column returned. One
+of Colonel Brander's first acts, after his weary troops had rested for
+an hour or two, was to turn the Maxim on the groups who could be seen
+wandering about the jong. They quickly disappeared under cover, but only
+to man their jingals. Then began the bombardment of the post, which we
+had to endure for nearly seven weeks.
+
+This is the place to speak of the bombardment generally, for it would be
+tedious to recapitulate in the form of a diary incidents which, however
+exciting at the time, now seem remarkable only for their monotony. It
+may be said at once that the bombardment was singularly ineffective.
+From first to last only fifteen men in the post were hit. Of these
+twelve were either killed or died of the wound. Of course, I exclude the
+casualties in the fighting, of which I will presently speak, outside the
+post. But the futility of the bombardment must not be entirely put down
+to bad marksmanship on the part of the Tibetans. That our losses were
+not heavier is largely due to the fact that the garrison laboured
+daily--and at first at night also--in erecting protecting walls and
+traverses. Practically every tent had a traverse built in front of it.
+It was found that the hornwork in which the mules were located came
+particularly under fire of the jong. This was pulled down one dark
+night, and the mules transferred to a fresh enclosure at the back of the
+post. Strong parapets of sand-bags were built on the roofs of the
+houses. Every window facing the jong was securely blocked with mud
+bricks. It will be realized how considerable was the labour involved in
+building the traverses when it is remembered that the jong looked down
+into the post. The majority of the walls had to be considerably higher
+than the tents themselves. They were mostly built of stakes cut from the
+grove, with two feet of earth rammed in between. After the first week or
+so the enemy brought to bear on the post several brass cannon, throwing
+balls weighing four or five pounds, and travelling with a velocity which
+enabled them to penetrate our traverses--when they struck them, for the
+majority of shots from the cannon whistled harmlessly over our heads.
+
+Practically, we did not return the fire from the jong. All that was done
+in this direction was to place one of Lieutenant Hadow's Maxims on the
+roof of the house occupied by the mission, and thence to snipe during
+the daylight hours at any warriors who showed themselves above the walls
+of the jong. Hadow was very patient and persistent with his gun, and
+quickly made it clear to the Tibetans that, if we were obliged to keep
+under cover, so were they. But our fire from the post was probably as
+ineffective as that of the enemy from the jong, for the Tibetans build
+walls with extraordinary rapidity. Working mostly at night in order to
+avoid the malignant Maxim, the enemy within a few days almost altered
+the face of the jong. New walls, traverses, and covered ways seemed to
+spring up with the rapidity of mushrooms.
+
+Our life during the siege, if so the bombardment can be called, was
+hardly as unpleasant as people might imagine. To begin with, we were
+never short of food--that is to say, of Tibetan barley and meat. The
+commissariat stock of tea--a necessity in Tibet--also never gave out.
+From time to time also convoys and parcel-posts with little luxuries
+came through. Again, the longest period for which we were without a
+letter-post was eight days. Socially, the relations of the officers with
+one another and with the members of the Commission were most harmonious.
+I make a point of mentioning this fact, because all those who have had
+any experience of sieges, or of similar conditions where small
+communities are shut up together in circumstances of hardship and
+danger, know how apt the temper is to get on edge, how often small
+differences are likely to give rise to bitter animosities. But we had in
+the Gyantse garrison men of such vast experience and geniality as
+Colonel Brander, of such high culture and attainment as Colonel
+Younghusband, Captain O'Connor, and Mr. Perceval Landon--the
+correspondent of _The Times_; men whose spirits never failed, and who
+found humour in everything, such as Major Row, Captain Luke, Captain
+Coleridge, Lieutenant Franklin. Amongst the besieged was Colonel
+Waddell, I.M.S., an Orientalist and Sinologist of European fame. Hence,
+in some of its aspects the Gyantse siege was almost a delightful
+episode. In the later days, when all the outpost fighting occurred, our
+spirits were somewhat damped, for we had to mourn brave men killed and
+sympathize with others dangerously wounded.
+
+Of course, one of the first questions for consideration when the Karo la
+column returned to Gyantse was whether the enemy could or could not be
+turned out of the jong. To make a frontal attack on the frowning face
+overlooking the post would have been foolhardy, but Colonel Brander
+decided to make a reconnaissance to a monastery on the high hills to our
+right, whence the jong itself could be overlooked. A subsidiary reason
+for visiting this monastery was that it was known to have afforded
+shelter to a number of those who had fled from the attack on the post.
+The hill was climbed with every military precaution, but only a few old
+monks were found in occupation of the buildings. More disappointing was
+the fact that an examination through telescopes of the rear of the jong
+showed that the Tibetans had been also building indefatigably there. A
+strong loopholed wall ran zigzagging up the side of the rock. It was
+clear that nothing could be done till the General returned from Chumbi
+with more troops and guns.
+
+For more than two weeks our rear remained absolutely open. The post,
+carried by mounted infantry, came in and went out regularly. Two large
+convoys reached us unopposed. The only danger lay in the fact that
+people seen entering or leaving the post came under a heavy fire from
+the jong. To minimize risks, departures from the post were always made
+before dawn.
+
+During the two weeks streams of men could be seen entering the jong from
+both the Shigatze and Lhasa roads. Emboldened by numbers, and also by
+our non-aggressive attitude, the enemy began to cast about for means of
+taking the post. One of the first steps taken by the Tibetan General in
+pursuance of this policy was to occupy during the night a small house
+surrounded by trees, lying to our left front, almost midway between the
+jong and the post. On the morning of the 18th bullets from a new
+direction were whizzing in amongst us, and partly enfilading our
+traverses. This was not to be tolerated, and the same night arrangements
+were made for the capture of the position.
+
+Five companies stole out during the hours of darkness and surrounded the
+house. The rush, delivered at dawn, was left to the Gurkhas. But the
+entrance was found blocked with stones, and the enemy was thoroughly
+awake by the time the Gurkhas were under the wall. Luckily, the
+loopholes were not so constructed as to allow the Tibetans to fire their
+jingals down upon our men, who had only to bear the brunt of showers of
+stones thrown upon them from the roof. The shower was well directed
+enough to bruise a good many Gurkhas. Three officers were struck--
+Major Murray, Lieutenant Lynch, and Lieutenant Franklin, I.M.S. Whilst
+the Gurkhas were striving to effect an entrance, the Pioneer companies
+deployed on the flanks came under a heavy fire from the jong. We had
+three men hit. One fell on a bit of very exposed ground, and was
+gallantly dragged under cover by Colonel Brander and Captain Minogue,
+Staff officer.
+
+It was soon evident that the Gurkhas would never get in without
+explosives. Accordingly, Lieutenant Gurdon, 32nd Pioneers, was sent to
+join them with a box of guncotton. Gurdon speedily blew a hole through
+the wall, and the Gurkhas dashed in yelling. The Tibetans on the roof
+could easily at this time have jumped off and escaped towards the jong.
+But they chose a braver part. They slid down into the middle of the
+courtyard, and, drawing their swords, awaited the Gurkha onset. I must
+not describe the pitiful struggle that followed. The Tibetans--about
+fifty in number--herded themselves together as if to meet a bayonet
+charge, but our troops, rushing through the door, extended themselves
+along the edges of the courtyard, and emptied their magazines into the
+mob. Within a minute all the fifty were either dead or mortally wounded.
+
+The house was hereafter held by a company of Gurkhas all through the
+bombardment, and proved a great thorn in the side of the enemy; for the
+Gurkhas often used to sally out at night and ambuscade parties of men
+and convoys on the Shigatze road.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER X
+
+GYANTSE--_continued_
+
+[BY HENRY NEWMAN]
+
+
+On the afternoon of the day on which the house was taken we were
+provided with a new excitement--continuous firing was heard to the rear
+of the post about a mile away. Captain Ottley galloped out with his
+mounted infantry, and was only just in time to save a party of his men
+who were coming up from Kangma with the letter-bags. These Sikhs--eight
+in number--were riding along the edge of the river, when they were met
+by a fusillade from a number of the enemy concealed amongst sedges on
+the opposite bank. Before the Sikhs could take cover, one man was
+killed, three wounded, and seven out of the eight horses shot down. The
+remaining men showed rare courage. They carried their wounded comrades
+under cover of a ditch, untied and brought to the same place the
+letter-bags, and then lay down and returned the fire of the enemy. The
+Tibetans, however, were beginning to creep round, and the ammunition of
+the Sikhs was running low, when Captain Ottley dashed up to the rescue.
+Without waiting to consider how many of the enemy might be hiding in the
+sedge, Ottley took his twenty men splashing through the river. Nearly
+300 Tibetans bolted out in all directions like rabbits from a cover. The
+mounted infantry, shooting and smiting, chased them to the very edge of
+the plain. On reaching hilly ground the enemy, who must have lost about
+fifty of their number, began to turn, having doubtless realized that
+they were running before a handful of men. At the same time shots were
+fired from villages, previously thought unoccupied, on Ottley's left,
+and a body of matchlock men were seen running up to reinforce from a
+large village on the Lhasa road. Under these conditions it would have
+been madness to continue the fight, and Ottley cleverly and skilfully
+withdrew without having lost a single man. In the meanwhile a company of
+Pioneers had brought in the men wounded in the attack on the postal
+riders.
+
+This affair was even more significant than the occupation by the enemy
+of the position taken by the Gurkhas in the early morning. It showed
+that the Tibetan General had at last conceived a plan for cutting off
+our line of communications. This was a rude shock. It implied that the
+enemy had received reinforcements which were to be utilized for
+offensive warfare of the kind most to be feared by an invader. We knew
+that so long as our ammunition lasted there was absolutely no danger of
+the post being captured. But an enemy on the lines would certainly
+cause the greatest annoyance to, and might even cut off, our convoys. As
+it would be very difficult to get messages through, apprehensions as to
+our safety would be excited in the outer world. Further, General
+Macdonald's arrangements for the relief of the mission would have to be
+considerably modified if he were obliged to fight his way through to us.
+
+With the same prompt decision that marked his action with regard to the
+gathering on the Karo la, Colonel Brander determined on the very next
+day to clear the villages found occupied by the mounted infantry. As far
+as could be discovered, the villages were five in number, all on the
+right bank of the river, and occupying a position which could be roughly
+outlined as an equilateral triangle. Captain Ottley was sent round to
+the rear of the villages to cut off the retreat of the enemy; Captain
+Luke took his two mountain-guns, under cover of the right bank of the
+river, to a position whence he could support the infantry attack, if
+necessary, by shell fire. Two companies of Pioneers with one in reserve
+were sent forward to the attack.
+
+The first objective was two villages forming the base of the triangle of
+which I have spoken. The troops advanced cautiously, widely extended,
+but both villages were found deserted. They were set on fire. Then
+Captain Hodgson with a company went forward to the village forming the
+apex of the triangle. He came under a flanking fire from the villages
+on the left, and had one man severely wounded. The houses in front
+seemed to be unoccupied, and our right might have been swung round to
+face this fire; but Colonel Brander was determined to do the work
+thoroughly, and Hodgson was directed to move on and burn the village
+ahead of him before changing front. The troops accordingly took no
+notice of the flanking fire, and moved on till they were under the walls
+of the two houses of which the village was composed.
+
+Suddenly fire was opened on our soldiers from the upper windows of the
+two houses. All the doors were found blocked with bricks and stones. Two
+Sikhs dropped, and for the moment it seemed as if we would lose heavily.
+But Lieutenant Gurdon with half a dozen men rushed up with a box of
+explosives, and blew a breach in the wall. Two of the party helping to
+lay the fuse were killed by shots fired from a loophole a few feet
+above. Captain Hodgson was the first man through the breach. He was
+confronted by a swordsman, who cut hard just as Hodgson fired his
+revolver. The man fell dead, but Hodgson received a severe wound on the
+wrist. But this was the only man who stood after the explosion. About
+thirty others in the village rushed to the roofs of the houses, jumped
+off, and fled to the left. They came, however, under a very heavy fire
+as they were running away, and the majority dropped.
+
+Preparations were now made for taking the remaining village. This was
+protected by a high loopholed embankment, which sheltered about five or
+six hundred of the enemy. The Pioneers had just extended, and were
+advancing, when someone who happened to be looking at the jong through
+his glasses suddenly uttered a loud exclamation. Turning round, we all
+saw a dense stream of men, several thousands in number, forming up at
+the base of the rock, evidently with the intention of rushing the
+mission post whilst the majority of the garrison and the guns were
+engaged elsewhere. Colonel Brander immediately gave the order for the
+whole force to retire into the post at the double. The withdrawal was
+effected before the Tibetans made their contemplated rush, but we all
+felt that it was rather a narrow shave.
+
+Troops were to have gone out again the next day to clear the village we
+had left untaken, but the mounted infantry reconnoitring in the morning
+reported that the enemy had fled, and that the lines of communication
+were again clear.
+
+On the succeeding day a large convoy and reinforcements under Major
+Peterson, 32nd Pioneers, came safely through. The additional troops
+included a section of No. 7 (British) Mountain Battery, under Captain
+Easton; one and a half companies of Sappers and Miners, under Captain
+Shepherd and Lieutenant Garstin; and another company of the 32nd
+Pioneers. Major Peterson reported that his convoy had come under a
+heavy fire from the village and monastery of Naini. This monastery lies
+about seven miles from Gyantse in an opening of the valley just before
+the road turns into Gyantse Plain. It holds about 5,000 monks. When the
+column first passed by it, the monks were extremely friendly, bringing
+out presents of butter and eggs, and readily selling flour and meat. The
+monastery is surrounded by a wall thirty feet high, and at least ten
+feet thick. The buildings inside are also solidly built of stone.
+Altogether the position was a very difficult one to tackle, but Colonel
+Brander, following his usual policy, decided that the enemy must be
+turned out of it at all costs. Accordingly, on the 24th a column, which
+included Captain Easton's two guns, marched out to Naini. But the
+monastery and the group of buildings outside it were found absolutely
+deserted. The walls were far too heavy and strong to be destroyed by a
+small force, which had to return before nightfall, but Captain Shepherd
+blew up the four towers at the corners and a portion of the hall in
+which the Buddhas were enthroned.
+
+The 27th provided a new excitement. About 1,000 yards to the right of
+the post stood what was known as the Palla House, the residence of a
+Tibetan nobleman of great wealth. The building consisted of a large
+double-storied house, surrounded by a series of smaller buildings, each
+within a courtyard of its own. During the night the Tibetans in the jong
+built a covered way extending about half the distance between the jong
+and Palla. In the morning the latter place was seen to be swarming with
+men, busily occupied in erecting defences, making loopholes, and
+generally engaged in work of a menacing character. The enemy could less
+be tolerated in Palla than in the Gurkha outpost, for fire from the
+former would have taken us absolutely in the flank, and the garrison was
+not strong enough to provide the labour necessary for building an
+entirely new series of traverses.
+
+That very night Colonel Brander detailed the troops that were to take
+Palla by assault at dawn. The storming-party was composed of three
+companies of the 32nd under Major Peterson, assisted by the Sappers and
+Miners with explosives under Captain Shepherd. Our four mountain-guns,
+the 7-pounders under Captain Luke, and the 10-pounders under Captain
+Easton, escorted by a company of Gurkhas, were detailed to occupy a
+position on a ridge which overlooked Palla. The troops fell in at two in
+the morning. The night was pitch-dark, but with such care were the
+operations conducted that the troops had made a long detour, and got
+into their respective positions before dawn, without an alarm being
+raised.
+
+Daylight was just breaking when Captain Shepherd crept up to the wall of
+the house on the extreme left, where it was believed the majority of the
+enemy were located, and laid his explosives. A tremendous explosion
+followed, the whole side of the house falling in. A minute afterwards,
+and Palla was alarmed and firing furiously all round, and even up in the
+air. The jong also awoke, and from that time till the village was
+finally ours poured a continuous storm of bullets into Palla, regardless
+whether friend or foe was hit. Our guns on the ridge did their best to
+quiet the jong, but without much effect. Against Tibetan walls, provided
+as they are with head cover, our experience showed shrapnel to be almost
+entirely useless.
+
+A company of Pioneers followed Captain Shepherd into the breach he had
+made. But they found themselves only in a small courtyard, with no means
+of entering the rest of the village, except over or through high walls
+lined by the enemy. All that could be done was to blow in another
+breach. The preparations for doing this were attended with a good deal
+of danger. Of three men who attempted to rush across the courtyard, two
+were killed and the third mortally wounded. However, by creeping along
+under cover of the wall, Captain Shepherd and Lieutenant Garstin were
+able to lay the guncotton and light the fuse for another explosion. They
+were fired at from a distance of a few yards, but escaped being hit by a
+miracle. But the second explosion only led into another courtyard, from
+which there was also no exit. There was the same fire to be faced from
+the next house whilst the needful preparations were being made for
+making a third breach.
+
+During the time Shepherd with his gallant lieutenants and equally
+gallant sepoys was working his way in from the left, the companies of
+Pioneers lining ditches and banks outside Palla were exposed to a
+persistent fire from about a hundred of the enemy inside the big
+two-storied house mentioned above. The men in this house--all Kham
+warriors--seemed to be filled with an extraordinary fury. Many exposed
+themselves boldly at the windows, calling to our men to come on. A dozen
+or so even climbed to the roof of the house, and danced about thereon in
+what seemed frantic derision. There was a Maxim on the ridge with the
+mountain-guns, the fire from which put an end to the fantastic display.
+Our rifle fire, however, seemed totally unable to check the Tibetan
+warriors in the loopholed windows. They kept up a fusillade which made a
+rush impossible. Major Peterson finally, with great daring, led a few
+men into the dwelling on the extreme right. The escalade was managed by
+means of a ruined tree which projected from the wall. But Peterson, like
+Shepherd, found himself in a courtyard with high walls which baffled
+further progress.
+
+The fight now began to drag. Hours passed without any signal incident.
+The Tibetans were greatly elated at the failure of our troops to make
+progress. They shouted and yelled, and were encouraged by answering
+cheers from the jong. Then about mid-day the jong Commandant conceived
+the idea of reinforcing Palla. A dozen men mounted on black mules,
+followed by about fifty infantry, suddenly dashed out from the
+half-completed covered way mentioned above, and made for the village.
+This party was absolutely annihilated. As soon as it emerged from the
+covered way it came under the fire, not only of the troops round the
+village and on the hill, but of the Maxim on the roof of the
+mission-house. In three minutes every single man and mule was down,
+except one animal with a broken leg, gazing disconsolately at the body
+of its master.
+
+This disaster evidently shook the Tibetans in Palla. Their fire
+slackened. Captain Luke on the ridge was then directed to put some
+common shell into the roof of the double-storied house. He dropped the
+shells exactly where they were wanted, and so disconcerted the enemy
+that Shepherd was able to resume his preparations for making a way into
+the Tibetan stronghold. But he still had to face an awkward fire, and
+the three further breaches he made were attended by the loss of several
+men, including Lieutenant Garstin, shot through the head. But the last
+explosion led our troops into the big house. Tibetan resistance then
+practically ceased. About twenty or thirty men made an attempt to get
+away to the jong, but the majority were shot down before they could
+reach the covered way.
+
+In this affair our total casualties were twenty-three. In addition to
+Lieutenant Garstin, we had seven men killed. The wounded included
+Captain O'Connor, R.A., secretary to the mission, and Lieutenant
+Mitchell, 32nd Pioneers. The enemy must have lost quite 250 in killed
+and wounded. The position at Palla was too important to be abandoned,
+and for the rest of the bombardment it was held by a company of Sikhs.
+In order to provide free communication both day and night, Captain
+Shepherd, with his usual energy, dug a covered way from the post to the
+village.
+
+The fight at Palla was the last affair of any importance in which the
+garrison was engaged pending the arrival of the relieving force. The
+Tibetans had received such a shock that in future they confined
+themselves practically to the defensive, if we except five half-hearted
+night attacks which were never anywhere near being pushed home. There
+were no more attempts to interrupt our lines of communication, though
+later on Naini was again occupied as part of the Tibetan scheme for
+resisting General Macdonald's advance. The jong Commandant devoted his
+energies chiefly to strengthening his already strong position.
+
+The night attacks were all very similar in character, and may be summed
+up and dismissed in a paragraph. Generally about midnight, bands of
+Tibetans would issue from the jong and take up their position about four
+or five hundred yards from the post. Then they would shout wildly, and
+fire off their matchlocks and Martini rifles. The troops would
+immediately rush to their loopholes, clad in impossible garments, and
+wait shivering in the cold, finger on trigger, for the rush that never
+came. After shouting and firing for about an hour, the Tibetans would
+retire to the jong and our troops creep back to their beds. On no
+occasion did the enemy come close enough to be seen in the dark. We
+never fired a single shot from the post. Twice, however, the Gurkha
+outpost and the Sikhs at Palla were enabled to get in a few volleys at
+Tibetans as they slunk past. During the night attacks the jong remained
+silent, except on one occasion, when there was so much firing from the
+Gurkha outpost that the enemy thought we were about to make a
+counter-attack. Every jingal, musket, and rifle in the jong was then
+loosed off in any and every direction. We even heard firing in the rear
+of the monastery. Although no one was hit in this wild fire, the volume
+of it was ominously indicative of the strength in which the jong was
+held.
+
+But even more ominous against the day when our troops should be called
+upon to take the jong were the defensive preparations mentioned above.
+Nearly every morning we found that during the night the enemy had built
+up a new wall or covered way somewhere on the jong or about the village
+that fringed the base of the rock. When the fortress was fortified as
+strongly as Tibetan wit could devise, the jong Commandant began to
+fortify and place in a position of defence the villages and monasteries
+on his right and left. It was calculated that, from the small monastery
+perched on the hills to his left to Tsechen Monastery on a ridge to his
+right, the Tibetan General had occupied and fortified a position with
+nearly seven miles of front.
+
+Whilst the Tibetans were engaged in making these preparations, our
+garrison was busy collecting forage for the enormous number of animals
+coming up with the relief column. Our rear being absolutely open, small
+parties with mules were able to collect quantities of hay from villages
+within a radius of seven miles behind us. It was the fire opened on
+these parties when they attempted to push to the right or left of the
+jong which first revealed to us the full extent of the defensive
+position occupied by the enemy.
+
+On June 6 Colonel Younghusband left the post with a returning convoy, in
+order to confer with the General at Chumbi. This convoy was attacked
+whilst halting at the entrenched post at Kangma. The enemy in this
+instance came down from the Karo la, and it is for this reason that I do
+not include the Kangma attack amongst the operations at and around
+Gyantse.
+
+It was not till June 15 that we got definite news of the approaching
+advance of the relief column. Reinforcements had come up to Chumbi from
+India in the interval, and the General was accompanied by the 2nd
+Mounted Infantry under Captain Peterson, No. 7 British Mountain Battery
+under Major Fuller, a section of No. 30 Native Mountain Battery under
+Captain Marindin, four companies of the Royal Fusiliers under Colonel
+Cooper, four companies of the 40th Pathans under Colonel Burn, five
+companies of the 23rd Pioneers under Colonel Hogge, and the two
+remaining companies of the 8th Gurkhas under Colonel Kerr, together with
+the usual medical and other details.
+
+The force arrived at Kangma on June 23. On the 25th a party of mounted
+infantry from Gyantse met Captain Peterson's mounted infantry
+reconnoitring at the monastery of Naini, previously mentioned. Whilst
+greetings were being exchanged a sudden fire was opened on our men from
+the monastery, which the enemy had apparently occupied and fortified
+during the night. The position was apparently held in strength, and the
+mounted infantry had no other course except to retire to their
+respective camps. Captain Peterson had one man mortally wounded.
+
+On the evening of the 26th the sentries at the mission post saw about
+twenty mounted men, followed by two or three hundred infantry, issue
+from the rear of the jong and creep up the hills on our left in the
+direction of Naini. It was evident that a determined effort was to be
+made at the monastery to check the advance of the relief column, which
+was expected at Gyantse next day. Colonel Brander came to the conclusion
+that he had found an opportunity for catching the Tibetans in a trap.
+He determined to send out a force which would block the retreat of the
+enemy when they retired before the advance of the relief column.
+Accordingly, before dawn four companies of Pioneers, four guns, and the
+Maxim gun left the post, and ascended the hills overlooking the
+monastery. Captain Ottley's mounted infantry were directed to close the
+road leading directly from Gyantse to the monastery.
+
+Colonel Brander's forces were in position some hours before the mounted
+infantry of the relief column appeared in sight. It was discovered that
+the enemy not only held the monastery, but some ruined towers on the
+hill above, and a cluster of one-storied dwellings in a grove below.
+Captain Peterson with his mounted infantry appeared in front of the
+monastery at eleven o'clock. He had with him a company of the 40th
+Pathans, and his orders were to clear the monastery with this small
+force, if the enemy made no signs of a stubborn resistance. Otherwise he
+was to await the arrival of more troops with the mountain-guns.
+
+Peterson delivered his attack from the left, having dismounted his
+troopers, who, together with the 40th Pathans, were soon very hotly
+engaged. The troops came under a heavy fire both from the monastery and
+from a ruined tower above it, but advanced most gallantly. When under
+the walls of the monastery, they were checked for some time by the
+difficulty of finding a way in. In the meanwhile, hearing the heavy
+firing, the General and his Staff, followed by Major Fuller's battery
+and the rest of the 40th, had hastened up. The battery came into action
+against the tower, and the 40th rushed up in support of their comrades.
+Colonel Brander's guns and Maxim on the top of the hill were also
+brought into play. For nearly an hour a furious cannonade and fusillade
+raged. Then the Pathans and Peterson's troopers, circling round the
+walls of the monastery, found a ramp up which they could climb. They
+swarmed up, and were quickly inside the building. But the Tibetans had
+realized that their retreat was cut off, and, instead of making a clean
+bolt for it, only retired slowly from room to room and passage to
+passage. Two companies of the 23rd were sent up to assist in clearing
+the monastery. It proved a perfect warren of dark cells and rooms. The
+Tibetan resistance lasted for over two hours. Bands of desperate
+swordsmen were found in knots under trap-doors and behind sharp
+turnings. They would not surrender, and had to be killed by rifle shots
+fired at a distance of a few feet.
+
+While the monastery was being cleared, another fight had developed in
+the cluster of dwellings outside it to the right. From this spot Tibetan
+riflemen were enfilading our troops held in reserve. The remaining
+companies of the 23rd were sent to clear away the enemy. They took three
+houses, but could not effect an entrance into the fourth, which was very
+strongly barricaded. Lieutenant Turnbull, walking up to a window with a
+section, had three men hit in a few seconds. One man fell directly under
+the window. Turnbull carried him into safety in the most gallant
+fashion. Then the General ordered up the guns, which fired into the
+house at a range of a few hundred yards. But not till it was riddled
+with great gaping holes made by common shell did the fire from the house
+cease.
+
+At about three o'clock the Tibetan resistance had completely died away,
+and the column resumed its march towards Gyantse, which was not reached
+till dark. But as the transport was making its slow way past Naini,
+about half a dozen Tibetans who had remained in hiding in the monastery
+and village opened fire on it. The Gurkha rearguard had a troublesome
+task in clearing these men out, and lost one man killed.
+
+In this affair at Naini our casualties were six killed and nine wounded,
+including Major Lye, 23rd Pioneers, who received a severe sword-cut in
+the hand.
+
+The General's camp was pitched about a mile from the mission post, well
+out of range of the jong, though our troops whilst crossing the river
+came under fire from some of the bigger jingals. The next day was one of
+rest, which the troops badly needed after their long march from Chumbi.
+The Tibetans in the jong also refrained from firing. On the 29th the
+General began the operations intended to culminate in the capture of the
+jong. His objective was Tsechen Monastery, on the extreme left. But
+before the monastery could be attacked, some twelve fortified villages
+between it and the river had to be cleared. It proved a difficult task,
+not so much on account of the resistance offered by the enemy--for after
+a few idle shots the Tibetans quickly retired on the monastery--as
+because of the nature of the ground that had to be traversed. The whole
+country was a network of deep irrigation channels and water-cuts, in the
+fording and crossing of which the troops got wet to the skin. However,
+by four in the afternoon all the villages had been cleared, and the
+Fusiliers were lying in a long grove under the right front of the
+monastery.
+
+It was then discovered that not only was Tsechen very strongly held, but
+that masses of the enemy were lying behind the rocks on the top of the
+ridge, on the summit of which there was a ruined tower, also held by
+fifty or sixty men. The General sent two companies of Gurkhas to scale
+the ridge from the left, whilst the 40th Pathans were ordered to make a
+direct assault on the monastery. A hundred mounted infantry made their
+way to the rear to cut off the retreat of the enemy. Fuller and Marindin
+with their guns covered the advance of the infantry. Four Maxims were
+also brought into action. Our guns made splendid practice on the top of
+the ridge, and time and again we could see the enemy bolting from cover.
+But with magnificent bravery they would return to oppose the advance of
+the Gurkhas creeping round their flank. The guns had presently to cease
+fire to enable the Gurkhas to get nearer. A series of desperate little
+fights then took place on the top of the ridge, the Tibetans slinging
+and throwing stones when they found they could not load their muskets
+quickly enough. But as the Gurkhas would not be stopped, the Tibetans
+had to move. In the meanwhile the Pathans worked through the monastery
+below, only meeting with small resistance from a band of men in one
+house. The Tibetans fled in a mass over the right edge of the ridge into
+the jaws of the mounted infantry lying in wait below. Slaughter
+followed.
+
+It was now quite dark, and the troops made their way back to camp. Next
+morning a party went up to Tsechen, found it entirely deserted, and set
+fire to it. The taking of the monastery cost us the lives of Captain
+Craster, 40th Pathans, and two sepoys. Our wounded numbered ten,
+including Captains Bliss and Humphreys, 8th Gurkhas.
+
+On July 1 the General intended assaulting the jong, but in the interval
+the jong Commandant sent in a flag of truce. He prayed for an armistice
+pending the arrival of three delegates who were posting down from Lhasa
+with instructions to make peace. As Colonel Younghusband had been
+directed to lose no opportunity of bringing affairs to an end at
+Gyantse, the armistice was granted, and two days afterwards the
+delegates, all Lamas, were received in open durbar in a large room in
+the mission post. Colonel Younghusband, after having satisfied himself
+that the delegates possessed proper credentials, made them a speech. He
+reviewed the history of the mission, pointing out that we had only come
+to Gyantse because of the obstinacy and evasion of the Tibetan
+officials, who could easily have treated with us at Khamba Jong and
+again at Tuna, had they cared to. We were perfectly willing to come to
+terms here, and it rested with the peace delegates whether we went on to
+Lhasa or not. Younghusband then informed the delegates that he was
+prepared to open negociations on the next day. The delegates were due at
+eleven next morning, but they did not put in an appearance till three.
+They were then told that as a preliminary they must surrender the jong
+by noon on the succeeding day. They demurred a great deal, but the
+Commissioner was quite firm, and they went away downcast, with the
+assurance that if the jong was not surrendered we should take it by
+force. Younghusband, however, added that after the capture of the fort
+he was perfectly willing to open negociations again.
+
+Next day, shortly after noon, a signal gun was fired to indicate that
+the armistice was at an end, and the General forthwith began his
+preparations to storm the formidable hill fortress. The Tibetans had
+taken advantage of the armistice to build more walls and sangars. No one
+could look at the bristling jong without realizing how difficult was
+the task before our troops, and without anxiety as to the outcome of the
+assault in killed and wounded. But we all knew that the jong had to be
+taken, whatever the cost.
+
+Operations began in the afternoon, the General making a demonstration
+against the left face of the jong and Palkhor Choide Monastery. Fuller's
+battery took up a position about 1,600 yards from the jong. Five
+companies of infantry were extended on either flank. Both the jong and
+monastery opened fire on our troops, and we had one man mortally
+wounded. The General's intention, however, was only to deceive the
+Tibetans into thinking that we intended to assault from that side. As
+soon as dusk fell, the troops were withdrawn and preparations made for
+the real assault.
+
+The south-eastern face of the rock on which the jong is built is most
+precipitous, yet this was exactly the face which the General decided to
+storm. His reasons, I imagine, were that the fringe of houses at the
+base of the rock was thinnest on this side, and that the very
+multiplicity of sangars and walls that the enemy had built prevented
+their having the open field of fire necessary to stop a rush. Moreover,
+down the middle of the rock ran a deep fissure or cleft, which was
+commanded, the General noticed, by no tower or loopholed wall. At two
+points, however, the Tibetans had built walls across the fissure. The
+first of these the General believed could be breached by our artillery.
+Our troops through that could work their way round to either flank, and
+so into the heart of the jong.
+
+The plan of operations was very simple. Before dawn three columns were
+to rush the fringe of houses at the base. Then was to follow a storm of
+artillery fire directed on all the salient points of the jong, after
+which our guns were to make a breach in the lower wall across the cleft
+up which the storming-party was later on to climb.
+
+The action turned out exactly as was planned, with the exception that
+the fighting lasted much longer than was expected, for the Tibetans made
+a heroic resistance. The troops were astir shortly after midnight. The
+night was very dark, and the necessary deployment of the three columns
+took some hours. However, an hour before dawn the troops had begun their
+cautious advance, the General and his Staff taking up their position at
+Palla. The alarm was not given till our leading files were within twenty
+yards of the fringe of houses at the base of the rock. The storm of fire
+which then burst from the jong was an alarming indication of the
+strength in which it was held. The heavy jingals were all directed on
+Palla, and the General and his Staff had many narrow escapes. As on the
+previous occasion when the jong bombarded us at night, there were
+moments when every building in it seemed outlined in flame.
+
+Of the three columns, only that on the extreme left, Gurkhas under
+Major Murray, was able to get in at once. The other two columns were for
+the time being checked, so bullet-swept was the open space they had to
+cross. From time to time small parties of two or three dashed across in
+the dark, and gained the shelter of the walls of the houses in front.
+There were barely twenty men and half a dozen officers across when
+Captain Shepherd blew in the walls of the house most strongly held. The
+storming-party came under a most heavy fire from the jong above. Among
+those hit was Lieutenant Gurdon, of the 32nd. He was shot through the
+head, and died almost immediately. The breach made by Shepherd was the
+point to which most of the men of the centre and right columns made, but
+their progress became very slow when daylight appeared and the Tibetans
+could see what they were firing at. It was not till nearly nine o'clock
+that the whole fringe of houses at the base of the front face of the
+rock was in our possession.
+
+Then followed several hours of cannonading and small-arms fire. The
+position the troops had now won was commanded almost absolutely from the
+jong. It was found impossible to return the Tibetan fire from the roofs
+of the houses we had occupied without exposing the troops in an
+unnecessary degree, but loopholes were hastily made in the walls of the
+rooms below, and the 40th Pathans were sent into a garden on the extreme
+right, where some cover was to be had. Colonel Campbell, commanding the
+first line, was able to show the enemy that our marksmen were still in a
+position to pick off such Tibetans as were rash enough to unduly expose
+themselves. In the meanwhile, Luke's guns on the extreme right, Fuller's
+battery at Palla, and Marindin's guns at the Gurkha outpost threw a
+stream of shrapnel on all parts of the jong.
+
+But it was not till four o'clock in the afternoon that the General
+decided that the time had come to make the breach aforementioned. The
+reserve companies of Gurkhas and Fusiliers were sent across from Palla
+in the face of very heavy jingal and rifle fire, and took cover in the
+houses we had occupied. In the meanwhile Fuller was directed to make the
+breach. So magnificent was the shooting made by his guns that a dozen
+rounds of common shell, planted one below the other, had made a hole
+large enough for active men to clamber through. The enemy quickly saw
+the purport of the breach. Dozens of men could be distinctly seen
+hurrying to the wall above it.
+
+Then the Gurkhas and Fusiliers began their perilous ascent. The nimble
+Gurkhas, led by Lieutenant Grant, soon outpaced the Fusiliers, and in
+ten brief minutes forty or fifty of them were crouching under the
+breach. The Tibetans, finding their fire could not stop us, tore great
+stones from the walls and rolled them down the cleft. Dozens of men were
+hit and bruised. Presently Grant was through the breach, followed by
+fifteen or twenty flushed and shouting men. The breach won, the only
+thought of the enemy was flight. They made their way by the back of the
+jong into the monastery. By six o'clock every building in the great
+fortress was in our possession.
+
+Our casualties in this affair were forty-three--Lieutenant Gurdon and
+seven men killed, and twelve officers, including the gallant Grant, and
+twenty-three men wounded. These casualties exclude a number of men cut
+and bruised with stones.
+
+Next morning the monastery was found deserted. It was reported that the
+bulk of the enemy had fled to Dongtse, about ten miles up the Shigatze
+road. A column was sent thither, but found the place empty, except for a
+very humble and submissive monk.
+
+On the 14th, having waited for over a week in the hope of the peace
+delegates putting in an appearance, the force started on its march to
+Lhasa.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XI
+
+GOSSIP ON THE ROAD TO THE FRONT
+
+
+ ARI, SIKKIM,
+ _June 24._
+
+I write in an old forest rest-house on the borders of British Bhutan.
+
+The place is quiet and pastoral; climbing roses overhang the roof and
+invade the bedrooms; martins have built their nests in the eaves;
+cuckoos are calling among the chestnuts down the hill. Outside is a
+flower-garden, gay with geraniums and petunias and familiar English
+plants that have overrun their straggling borders and scattered
+themselves in the narrow plot of grass that fringes the forest. Some
+Government officer must have planted them years ago, and left them to
+fight it out with Nature and the caretaker.
+
+The forest has encroached, and it is hard to say where Nature's hand or
+Art's begins and ends. Beside a rose-bush there has sprung up the solid
+pink club of the wild ginger, and from a bed of amaryllis a giant arum
+raises itself four feet in its dappled, snake-like sheath. Gardens have
+most charm in spots like this, where their mingled trimness and neglect
+contrast with the insolent unconcern of an encroaching forest.
+
+At Ari I am fifty miles from Darjeeling, on the road to Lhasa.
+
+On June 21 I set my face to Lhasa for the second time. I took another
+route to Chumbi, via Kalimpong and Pedong in British Bhutan. The road is
+no further, but it compasses some arduous ascents. On the other hand it
+avoids the low, malarious valleys of Sikkim, where the path is
+constantly carried away by slips. There is less chance of a block, and
+one is above the cholera zone. The Jelap route, which I strike
+to-morrow, is closed, owing to cholera and land-slips, so that I shall
+not touch the line of communications until within a few miles of Chumbi,
+in which time my wound will have had a week longer to heal before I risk
+a medical examination and the chance of being sent back. The relief
+column is due at Gyantse in a few days; it depends on the length of the
+operations there whether I catch the advance to Lhasa.
+
+Through avoiding the Nathu-la route to Chumbi I had to arrange my own
+transport. In Darjeeling my coolies bolted without putting a pack on
+their backs. More were secured; these disappeared in the night at
+Kalimpong without waiting to be paid. Pack-ponies were hired to replace
+them, but these are now in a state of collapse. Arguing, and haggling,
+and hectoring, and blarneying, and persuading are wearisome at all
+times, but more especially in these close steamy valleys, where it is
+too much trouble to lift an eyelid, and the air induces an almost
+immoral state of lassitude, in which one is tempted to dole out silver
+indifferently to anyone who has it in his power to oil the wheels of
+life. I could fill a whole chapter with a jeremiad on transport, but it
+is enough to indicate, to those who go about in vehicles, that there are
+men on the road to Tibet now who would beggar themselves and their
+families for generations for a macadamized highway and two hansom cabs
+to carry them and their belongings smoothly to Lhasa. Before I reached
+Kalimpong I wished I had never left the 'radius.' No one should embark
+on Asiatic travel who is not thoroughly out of harmony with
+civilization.
+
+The servant question is another difficulty. No native bearer wishes to
+join the field force. Why should he? He has to cook and pack and do the
+work of three men; he has to make long, exhausting marches; he is
+exposed to hunger, cold, and fatigue; he may be under fire every day;
+and he knows that if he falls into the hands of the Tibetans, like the
+unfortunate servants of Captain Parr at Gyantse, he will be brutally
+murdered and cut up into mincemeat. In return for which he is fed and
+clothed, and earns ten rupees more a month than he would in the security
+of his own home. After several unsuccessful trials, I have found one
+Jung Bir, a Nepali bearer, who is attached to me because I forget
+sometimes to ask for my bazaar account, and do not object to his being
+occasionally drunk. In Tibet the poor fellow will have little chance of
+drinking.
+
+My first man lost his nerve altogether, and, when told to work, could
+only whine out that his father and mother were not with him. My next
+applicant was an opium-eater, prematurely bent and aged, with the dazed
+look of a toad that has been incarcerated for ages in a rock, and is at
+last restored to light and the world by the blow of a mason's hammer. He
+wanted money to buy more dreams, and for this he was willing to expose
+his poor old body to hardships that would have killed him in a month.
+Jung Bir was a Gurkha and more martial. His first care on being engaged
+was to buy a long and heavy chopper--'for making mince,' he said; but I
+knew it was for the Tibetans.
+
+To reach Ari one has to descend twice, crossing the Teesta at 700 feet,
+and the Russett Chu at 1,500 feet. These valleys are hotter than the
+plains of India. The streams run east and west, and the cliffs on both
+sides catch the heat of the early morning sun and hold it all day. The
+closeness, the refraction from the rocks, and the evaporation of the
+water, make the atmosphere almost suffocating, and one feels the heat
+the more intensely by the change from the bracing air above. Crossing
+the Teesta, one enters British Bhutan, a strip of land of less than 300
+square miles on the left bank of the river. It was ceded to us with
+other territories by the treaty of 1865; or, in plain words, it was
+annexed by us as a punishment for the outrage on Sir Ashley Eden, the
+British Envoy, who was captured and grossly insulted by the Bhutanese at
+Punakha in the previous year. The Bhutanese were as arrogant, exclusive,
+and impossible to deal with, in those days, as the Tibetans are to-day.
+Yet they have been brought into line, and are now our friends. Why
+should not the Tibetans, who are of the same stock, yield themselves to
+enlightenment? Their evolution would be no stranger.
+
+Nine miles above the Teesta bridge is Kalimpong, the capital of British
+Bhutan, and virtually the foreign mart for what trade passes out of
+Tibet. The Tomos of the Chumbi Valley, who have the monopoly of the
+carrying, do not go further south than this. At Kalimpong I found a
+horse-dealer with a good selection of 'Bhutia tats.' These excellent
+little beasts are now well known to be as strong and plucky a breed of
+mountain ponies as can be found anywhere. I discovered that their fame
+is not merely modern when I came across what must be the first reference
+to them in history in the narrative of Master Ralph Fitch, England's
+pioneer to India. 'These northern merchants,' says Fitch, speaking of
+the Bhutia, 'report that in their countrie they haue very good horses,
+but they be litle.' The Bhutias themselves, equally ubiquitous in the
+Sikkim Himalayas, but not equally indispensable, Fitch describes to the
+letter. At Kalimpong I found them dirty, lazy, good-natured, independent
+rascals, possessed, apparently, of wealth beyond their deserts, for hard
+work is as alien to their character as straight dealing. Even the
+drovers will pay a coolie good wages to cut grass for them rather than
+walk a mile downhill to fetch it themselves.
+
+The main street of Kalimpong is laid out in the correct boulevard style,
+with young trees protected by tubs and iron railings. It is dominated by
+the church of the Scotch Mission, whose steeple is a landmark for miles.
+The place seems to be overrun with the healthiest-looking English
+children I have seen anywhere, whose parents are given over to very
+practical good works.
+
+I took the Bhutan route chiefly to avoid running the gauntlet of the
+medicals; but another inducement was the prospect of meeting Father
+Desgodins, a French Roman Catholic, Vicar Apostolic of the Roman
+Catholic Mission to Western Tibet, who, after fifty years' intimacy with
+various Mongol types, is probably better acquainted with the Tibetans
+than any other living European.
+
+I met Father Desgodins at Pedong. The rest-house here looks over the
+valley to his symmetrical French presbytery and chapel, perched on the
+hillside amid waving maize-fields, whose spring verdure is the greenest
+in the world. Scattered over the fields are thatched Lamas' houses and
+low-storied gompas, with overhanging eaves and praying-flags--'horses
+of the wind,' as the Tibetans picturesquely call them, imagining that
+the prayers inscribed on them are carried to the good god, whoever he
+may be, who watches their particular fold and fends off intruding
+spirits as well as material invaders.
+
+Behind the presbytery are terraced rice-fields, irrigated by perennial
+streams, and bordered by thick artemisia scrub, which in the hot sun,
+after rain, sends out an aromatic scent, never to be dissociated in
+travellers' dreams and reveries from these great southern slopes of the
+Himalayas.
+
+Pere Desgodins is an erect old gentleman with quiet, steely gray eyes
+and a tawny beard now turning gray. He is known to few Englishmen, but
+his adventurous travels in Tibet and his devoted, strenuous life are
+known throughout Europe.
+
+He was sent out from France to the Tibet Mission shortly after the
+murder of Krick and Bourry by the Mishmis. Failing to enter Tibet from
+the south through Sikkim, he made preparations for an entry by Ladak.
+His journey was arrested by the Indian Mutiny, when he was one of the
+besieged at Agra. He afterwards penetrated Western Tibet as far as
+Khanam, but was recalled to the Chinese side, where he spent twenty-two
+perilous and adventurous years in the establishment of the mission at
+Batang and Bonga. The mission was burnt down and the settlement expelled
+by the Lamas. In 1888 Father Desgodins was sent to Pedong, his present
+post, as Pro-vicar of the Mission to Western Tibet.
+
+With regard to the present situation in Tibet, Father Desgodins
+expressed astonishment at our policy of folded arms.
+
+'You have missed the occasion,' he said; 'you should have made your
+treaty with the Tibetans themselves in 1888. You could have forced them
+to treat then, when they were unprepared for a military invasion. You
+should have said to them'--here Pere Desgodins took out his watch--'"It
+is now one o'clock. Sign that treaty by five, or we advance to-morrow."
+What could they have done? Now you are too late. They have been
+preparing for this for the last fifteen years.'
+
+Father Desgodins was right. It is the old story of ill-advised
+conciliation and forbearance. We were afraid of the bugbear of China.
+The British Government says to her victim after the chastisement:
+'You've had your lesson. Now run off and be good.' And the spoilt child
+of arrested civilization runs off with his tongue in his cheek and
+learns to make new arms and friends. The British Government in the
+meantime sleeps in smug complacency, and Exeter Hall is appeased.
+
+'But why did you not treat with the Tibetans themselves?' Pere Desgodins
+asked. 'China!'--here he made an expressive gesture--'I have known China
+for fifty years. She is not your friend.' Of course it is to the
+interest of China to keep the tea monopoly, and to close the market to
+British India. Travellers on the Chinese borders are given passports and
+promises of assistance, but the natives of the districts they traverse
+are ordered to turn them back and place every obstacle in their way.
+Nobody knows this better than Father Desgodins. China's policy is the
+same with nations as with individuals. She will always profess
+willingness to help, but protest that her subjects are unmanageable and
+out of hand. Why, then, deal with China at all? We can only answer that
+she had more authority in Lhasa in 1888. Moreover, we were more afraid
+of offending her susceptibilities. But that bubble has burst.
+
+Others who hold different views from Pere Desgodins say that this very
+unruliness of her vassal ought to make China welcome our intervention in
+Tibet, if we engage to respect her claims there when we have subdued the
+Lamas. This policy might certainly point a temporary way out of the
+muddle, whereby we could save our face and be rid of the Tibet incubus
+for perhaps a year. But the plan of leaving things to the suzerain Power
+has been tried too often.
+
+As I rode down the Pedong street from the presbytery someone called me
+by name, and a little, smiling, gnome-like man stepped out of a
+whitewashed office. It was Phuntshog, a Tibetan friend whom I had known
+six years previously on the North-East frontier. I dismounted,
+expecting entertainment.
+
+The office was bare of furniture save a new writing-table and two
+chairs, but heaped round the walls were piles of cast steel and iron
+plates and files and pipes for bellows. Phuntshog explained that he was
+frontier trade examiner, and that the steel had been purchased in
+Calcutta by a Lama last year, and was confiscated on the frontier as
+contraband. It was material for an armoury. The spoilt child was making
+new arms, like the schoolboy who exercises his muscle to avenge himself
+after a beating.
+
+'Do you get much of this sort of thing?' I asked.
+
+'Not now,' he said; 'they have given up trying to get it through this
+way.'
+
+A few years ago eight Mohammedans, experts in rifle manufacture, had
+been decoyed from a Calcutta factory to Lhasa. Two had died there, and
+one I traced at Yatung. His wife had not been allowed to pass the
+barrier, but he was given a Tibetan helpmate. The wife lived some months
+at Yatung, and used to receive large instalments from her husband; once,
+I was told, as much as Rs. 1,400. But he never came back. The Tibetans
+have learned to make rifles for themselves now. Phuntshog had a story
+about another suspicious character, a mysterious Lama who arrived in
+Darjeeling in 1901 from Calcutta with 5,000 alms bowls for Tibet, which
+he said he had purchased in Germany. The man was detained in Darjeeling
+five months under police espionage, and finally sent back to Calcutta.
+
+Our Intelligence Department on this frontier is more alert than it used
+to be. Dorjieff, Phuntshog told me, had been to Darjeeling twice, and
+stayed in a trader's house at Kalimpong several days. He wore the dress
+of a Lama. The ostensible object of his journey was to visit the sacred
+Chorten at Khatmandu and the shrines of Benares. He visited these, and
+was known to spend some time in Calcutta. On the occasion of the mission
+to St. Petersburg Dorjieff and his colleagues entered India through
+Nepal, took train to Bombay, and shipped thence to Odessa. The discovery
+of the Lamas' visit to India was almost simultaneous with their
+departure from Bombay.
+
+Phuntshog is not an admirer of our Tibetan policy. We ought to have laid
+ourselves out, he said, to influence the Lamas by secret agents, as
+Russia did. There was no chance of a compromise now; they would fight to
+the death. Phuntshog said much more which I suspected was inspired by
+the daily newspapers, so I questioned him as to the feelings of the
+natives of the district.
+
+'The feeling of patriotism is extinct,' he said; and he looked at his
+stomach, showing that he spoke the truth. 'We Tibetan British subjects
+are fed well and paid well by your Government. We want nothing more. My
+family are here. Now I have no trade to examine.' His eyes slowly
+surveyed the room, glanced over his office table, with its pen and ink
+and blank paper, lit on the 150 maunds of cast-steel, and finally rested
+on two volumes by his elbow.
+
+'Do you read much?' I asked.
+
+'Sometimes,' he said. 'I have learnt a good deal from these books.'
+
+They were the Holy Bible and Miss Braddon's 'Dead Men's Shoes.'
+
+'Phuntshog,' I said, 'you are a psychological enigma. Your mind is like
+that cast-iron huddled in the corner there, bought in an enlightened
+Western city and destined for your benighted Lhasa, but stuck halfway.
+Only it was going the other way. You don't understand? Neither do I.'
+
+And here at Ari, as I look across the valley of the Russett Chu to
+Pedong, and hear the vesper bell, I cannot help thinking of that strange
+conflict of minds--the devotee who, seeing further than most men, has
+cared nothing for the things of this incarnation, and Phuntshog, the
+strange hybrid product of restless Western energies, stirring and
+muddying the shallows of the Eastern mind. Or are they depths?
+
+Who knows? I know nothing, only that these men are inscrutable, and one
+cannot see into their hearts.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XII
+
+TO THE GREAT RIVER
+
+
+I reached Gyantse on July 12. The advance to Lhasa began on the 14th. As
+might be expected from the tone of the delegates, peace negociations
+fell through. The Lhasa Government seemed to be chaotic and conveniently
+inaccessible. The Dalai Lama remained a great impersonality, and the
+four Shapes or Councillors disclaimed all responsibility. The Tsong-du,
+or National Assembly, who virtually governed the country, had sent us no
+communication. The delegates' attitude of _non possumus_ was not
+assumed. Though these men were the highest officials in Tibet, they
+could not guarantee that any settlement they might make with us would be
+faithfully observed. There seemed no hope of a solution to the deadlock
+except by absolute militarism. If the Tibetans had fought so stubbornly
+at Gyantse, what fanaticism might we not expect at Lhasa! Most of us
+thought that we could only reach the capital through the most awful
+carnage. We pictured the 40,000 monks of Lhasa hurling themselves
+defiantly on our camp. We saw them mown down by Maxims, lanes of dead.
+A hopeless struggle, and an ugly page in military history. Still, we
+must go on; there was no help for it. The blood of these people was on
+their own heads.
+
+We left Gyantse on the 14th, and plunged into the unknown towards Lhasa,
+which we had reason to believe lay in some hidden valley 150 miles to
+the north, beyond the unexplored basin of the Tsangpo. Every position on
+the road was held. The Karo la had been enormously strengthened, and was
+occupied by 2,000 men. The enemy's cavalry, which we had never seen,
+were at Nagartse Jong. Gubshi, a dilapidated fort, only nineteen miles
+on the road, was held by several hundred. The Tibetans intended to
+dispute the passage of the Brahmaputra, and there were other strong
+positions where the path skirted the Kyi-chu for miles beneath
+overhanging rocks, which were carefully prepared for booby-traps. We had
+to launch ourselves into this intensely hostile region and compel some
+people--we did not know whom--to attach their signatures and seals to a
+certain parchment which was to bind them to good behaviour in the
+future, and a recognition of obligations they had hitherto disavowed.
+
+Our force consisted of eight companies of the 8th Gurkhas, five
+companies of the 32nd Pioneers, four companies of the 40th Pathans, four
+companies of the Royal Fusiliers, two companies of Mounted Infantry,
+No. 30 British Mountain Battery, a section of No. 7 Native Mountain
+Battery, 1st Madras Sappers and Miners, machine-gun section of the
+Norfolks, and details.[14] The 23rd Pioneers, to their disgust, were
+left to garrison Gyantse. The transport included mule, yak, donkey, and
+coolie corps.
+
+ [14] Companies of Pathans and Gurkhas were left to garrison Ralung,
+ Nagartse, Pehte, Chaksam, and Toilung Bridge.
+
+The first three marches to Ralung were a repetition of the country
+between Kalatso and Gyantse--in the valley a strip of irrigated land,
+green and gold, with alternate barley and mustard fields between
+hillsides bare and verdureless save for tufts of larkspur, astragalus,
+and scattered yellow poppies. To Gyantse one descends 2,000 feet from a
+country entirely barren of trees to a valley of occasional willow and
+poplar groves; while from Gyantse, as one ascends, the clusters of trees
+become fewer, until one reaches the treeless zone again at Ralung
+(15,000 feet). The last grove is at Gubchi.
+
+I quote some notes of the march from my diary:
+
+'_July 14._--The villages by the roadside are deserted save for old
+women and barking dogs. The Tibetans came down from the Karo la and
+impressed the villagers. Many have fled into the hills, and are hiding
+among the rocks and caves. Our pickets fired on some to-night. Seeing
+their heads bobbing up and down among the rocks, they thought they were
+surrounded. Many of the fugitives were women. Luckily, none were hit.
+They were brought into camp whimpering and salaaming, and became
+embarrassingly grateful when it was made clear to them that they were
+not to be tortured or killed, but set free. They were called back,
+however, to give information about grain, and thought their last hour
+had come.'
+
+'_July 16._--All the houses between Gubchi and Ralung are decorated with
+diagonal blue, red, and white stripes, characteristic of the Ning-ma
+sect of Buddhists. They remind me of the walls of Damascus after the
+visit of the German Emperor. Heavy rain falls every day. Last night we
+camped in a wet mustard-field. It is impossible to keep our bedding
+dry.'
+
+From Ralung the valley widens out, and the country becomes more bleak.
+We enter a plateau frequented by gazelle. Cultivation ceases. The ascent
+to the Karo Pass is very gradual. The path takes a sudden turn to the
+east through a narrow gorge.
+
+On the 17th we camped under the Karo la in the snow range of Noijin Kang
+Sang, at an elevation of 1,000 feet above Mont Blanc. The pass was free
+of snow, but a magnificent glacier descended within 500 feet of the
+camp. We lay within four miles of the enemy's position. Most of us
+expected heavy fighting the next morning, as we knew the Tibetans had
+been strengthening their defences at the Karo la for some days. Volleys
+were fired on our scouts on the 16th and 17th. The old wall had been
+extended east and west until it ended in vertical cliffs just beneath
+the snow-line. A second barrier had been built further on, and sangars
+constructed on every prominent point to meet flank attacks. The wall
+itself was massively strong, and it was approached by a steep cliff, up
+which it was impossible to make a sustained charge, as the rarefied air
+at this elevation (16,600 feet) leaves one breathless after the
+slightest exertion. The Karo la was the strongest position on the road
+to Lhasa. If the Tibetans intended to make another stand, here was their
+chance.
+
+In the messes there was much discussion as to the seriousness of the
+opposition we were likely to meet with. The flanking parties had a long
+and difficult climb before them that would take them some hours, and the
+general feeling was that we should be lucky if we got the transport
+through by noon. But when one of us suggested that the Tibetans might
+fail to come up to the scratch, and abandon the position without firing
+a shot, we laughed at him; but his conjecture was very near the mark.
+
+At 7 a.m. the troops forming the line of advance moved into position.
+The disposition of the enemy's sangars made a turning movement extremely
+difficult, but a frontal attack on the wall, if stubbornly resisted,
+could not be carried without severe loss. General Macdonald sent
+flanking parties of the 8th Gurkhas on both sides of the valley to scale
+the heights and turn the Tibetan position, and despatched the Royal
+Fusiliers along the centre of the valley to attack the wall when the
+opposition had been weakened.
+
+Stretched on a grassy knoll on the left, enjoying the sunshine and the
+smell of the warm turf, we civilians watched the whole affair with our
+glasses. It might have been a picnic on the Surrey downs if it were not
+for the tap-tap of the Maxim, like a distant woodpecker, in the valley,
+and the occasional report of the 10-pounders by our side, which made the
+valleys and cliffs reverberate like thunder.
+
+The Tibetans' ruse was to open fire from the wall directly our troops
+came into view, and then evacuate the position. They thus delayed the
+pursuit while we were waiting for the scaling-party to ascend the
+heights.
+
+At nine o'clock the Gurkhas on the left signalled that no enemy were to
+be seen. At the same time Colonel Cooper, of the Royal Fusiliers,
+heliographed that the wall was unoccupied and the Tibetans in full
+retreat. The mounted infantry were at once called up for the pursuit.
+Meanwhile one or two jingals and some Tibetan marksmen kept up an
+intermittent fire on the right flanking party from clefts in the
+overhanging cliffs. A battery replied with shrapnel, covering our
+advance. These pickets on the left stayed behind and engaged our right
+flanking party until eleven o'clock. To turn the position the Gurkhas
+climbed a parallel ridge, and were for a long time under fire of their
+jingals. The last part of the ascent was along the edge of a glacier,
+and then on to the shoulder of the ridge by steps which the Gurkhas cut
+in the ice with their _kukris_, helping one another up with the butts of
+their rifles. They carried rope scaling-ladders, but these were for the
+descent. At 11.30 Major Murray and his two companies of Gurkhas appeared
+on the heights, and possession was taken of the pass. The ridge that the
+Tibetans had held was apparently deserted, but every now and then a man
+was seen crouching in a cave or behind a rock, and was shot down. One
+Kham man shot a Gurkha who was looking into the cave where he was
+hiding. He then ran out and held up his thumbs, expecting quarter. He
+was rightly cut down with _kukris_. The dying Gurkha's comrades rushed
+the cave, and drove six more over the precipice without using steel or
+powder. They fell sheer 300 feet. Another Gurkha cut off a Tibetan's
+head with his own sword. On several occasions they hesitated to soil
+their _kukris_ when they could despatch their victims in any other way.
+
+[Illustration: KARO LA]
+
+On a further ridge, a heart-breaking ascent of shale and boulders, we
+saw two or three hundred Tibetans ascending into the clouds. We had
+marked them at the beginning of the action, before we knew that the wall
+was unoccupied. Even then it was clear that the men were fugitives, and
+had no thought of holding the place. We could see them hours afterwards,
+with our glasses, crouching under the cliffs. We turned shrapnel and
+Maxims on them; the hillsides began to move. Then a company of Pathans
+was sent up, and despatched over forty. It was at this point I saw an
+act of heroism which quite changed my estimate of these men. A group of
+four were running up a cliff, under fire from the Pathans at a distance
+of about 500 yards. One was hit, and his comrade stayed behind to carry
+him. The two unimpeded Tibetans made their escape, but the rescuer could
+only shamble along with difficulty. He and his wounded comrade were both
+shot down.
+
+The 18th was a disappointing day to our soldiers. But the action was of
+great interest, owing to the altitude in which our flanking parties had
+to operate. There is a saying on the Indian frontier: 'There is a hill;
+send up a Gurkha.' These sturdy little men are splendid mountaineers,
+and will climb up the face of a rock while the enemy are rolling down
+stones on them as coolly as they will rush a wall under heavy fire on
+the flat. Their arduous climb took three and a half hours, and was a
+real mountaineering feat. The cave fighting, in which they had three
+casualties, took place at 19,000 feet, and this is probably the highest
+elevation at which an action has been fought in history.
+
+A few of the Tibetans fled by the highroad, along which the mounted
+infantry pursued, killing twenty and taking ten prisoners. I asked a
+native officer how he decided whom to spare or kill, and he said he
+killed the men who ran, and spared those who came towards him. The
+destiny that preserved the lives of our ten Kham prisoners when nearly
+the whole of the levy perished reminded me in its capriciousness of
+Caliban's whim in Setebos:
+
+ 'Let twenty pass, and stone the twenty-first,
+ Loving not, hating not, just choosing so.'
+
+These Kham men were in our mounted infantry camp until the release of
+the prisoners in Lhasa, and made themselves useful in many ways--loading
+mules, carrying us over streams, fetching wood and water, and fodder for
+our horses. They were fed and cared for, and probably never fared better
+in their lives. When they had nothing to do, they would sit down in a
+circle and discuss things resignedly--the English, no doubt, and their
+ways, and their own distant country. Sometimes they would ask to go
+home; their mothers and wives did not know if they were alive or dead.
+But we had no guarantee that they would not fight us again. Now they
+knew the disparity of their arms they might shrink from further
+resistance, yet there was every chance that the Lamas would compel them
+to fight. They became quite popular in the camp, these wild, long-haired
+men, they were so good-humoured, gentle in manner, and ready to help.
+
+I was sorry for these Tibetans. Their struggle was so hopeless. They
+were brave and simple, and none of us bore the slightest vindictiveness
+against them. Here was all the brutality of war, and none of the glory
+and incentive. These men were of the same race as the people I had been
+living amongst at Darjeeling--cheerful, jolly fellows--and I had seen
+their crops ruined, their houses burnt and shelled, the dead lying about
+the thresholds of what were their homes, and all for no fault of their
+own--only because their leaders were politically impossible, which, of
+course, the poor fellows did not know, and there was no one to tell
+them. They thought our advance an act of unprovoked aggression, and they
+were fighting for their homes.
+
+Fortunately, however, this slaughter was beginning to put the fear of
+God into them. We never saw a Tibetan within five miles who did not
+carry a huge white flag. The second action at the Karo la was the end of
+the Tibetan resistance. The fall of Gyantse Jong, which they thought
+unassailable, seems to have broken their spirit altogether. At the Karo
+la they had evidently no serious intention of holding the position, but
+fought like men driven to the front against their will, with no
+confidence or heart in the business at all. The friendly Bhutanese told
+us that the Tibetans would not stand where they had once been defeated,
+and that levies who had once faced us were not easily brought into the
+field again. These were casual generalizations, no doubt, but they
+contained a great deal of truth. The Kham men who opposed us at the
+first Karo la action, the Shigatze men who attacked the mission in May,
+and the force from Lhasa who hurled themselves on Kangma, were all new
+levies. Many of our prisoners protested very strongly against being
+released, fearing to be exposed again to our bullets and their own
+Lamas.
+
+On the 18th we reached Nagartse Jong, and found the Shapes awaiting us.
+They met us in the same impracticable spirit. We were not to occupy the
+jong, and they were not empowered to treat with us unless we returned to
+Gyantse. It was a repetition of Khamba Jong and Tuna. In the afternoon a
+durbar was held in Colonel Younghusband's tent, when the Tibetans showed
+themselves appallingly futile and childish. They did not seem to realize
+that we were in a position to dictate terms, and Colonel Younghusband
+had to repeat that it was now too late for any compromise, and the
+settlement must be completed at Lhasa.
+
+From Nagartse we held interviews with these tedious delegates at almost
+every camp. They exhausted everyone's patience except the
+Commissioner's. For days they did not yield a point, and refused even
+to discuss terms unless we returned to Gyantse. But their protests
+became more urgent as we went on, their tone less minatory. It was not
+until we were within fifty miles of Lhasa that the Tibetan Government
+deigned to enter into communication with the mission. At Tamalung
+Colonel Younghusband received the first communication from the National
+Assembly; at Chaksam arrived the first missive the British Government
+had ever received from the Dalai Lama. During the delay at the ferry the
+councillors practically threw themselves on Colonel Younghusband's
+mercy. They said that their lives would be forfeited if we proceeded,
+and dwelt on the severe punishment they might incur if they failed to
+conclude negociations satisfactorily. But Colonel Younghusband was equal
+to every emergency. It would be impossible to find another man in the
+British Empire with a personality so calculated to impress the Tibetans.
+He sat through every durbar a monument of patience and inflexibility,
+impassive as one of their own Buddhas. Priests and councillors found
+that appeals to his mercy were hopeless. He, too, had orders from his
+King to go to Lhasa; if he faltered, _his_ life also was at stake;
+decapitation would await _him_ on his return. That was the impression he
+purposely gave them. It curtailed palaver. How in the name of all their
+Buddhas were they to stop such a man?
+
+The whole progress of negociations put me in mind of the coercion of
+very naughty children. The Lamas tried every guile to reduce his
+demands. They would be cajoling him now if he had not given them an
+ultimatum, and if they had not learnt by six weeks' contact and
+intercourse with the man that shuffling was hopeless, that he never made
+a promise that was not fulfilled, or a threat that was not executed. The
+Tibetan treaty was the victory of a personality, the triumph of an
+impression on the least impressionable people in the world. But I
+anticipate.
+
+While the Shapes were holding Colonel Younghusband in conference at
+Nagartse, their cavalry were escorting a large convoy on the road to
+Lhasa. Our mounted infantry came upon them six miles beyond Nagartse,
+and as they were rounding them up the Tibetans foolishly fired on them.
+We captured eighty riding and baggage ponies and mules and fourteen
+prisoners, and killed several. They made no stand, though they were well
+armed with a medley of modern rifles and well mounted. This was actually
+the last shot fired on our side. The delegates had been full of
+assurances that the country was clear of the enemy, hoping that the
+convoy would get well away while they delayed us with fruitless protests
+and reiterated demands to go back. While they were palavering in the
+tent, they looked out and saw the Pathans go past with their rich yellow
+silks and personal baggage looted in the brush with the cavalry. Their
+consternation was amusing, and the situation had its element of humour.
+A servant rushed to the door of the tent and delivered the whole tale of
+woe. A mounted infantry officer arrived and explained that our scouts
+had been fired on. After this, of course, there was no talk of anything
+except the restitution of the loot. The Shapes deserved to lose their
+kit. I do not remember what was arranged, but if any readers of this
+record see a gorgeous yellow cloak of silk and brocade at a fancy-dress
+ball in London, I advise them to ask its history.
+
+This last encounter with the Tibetans is especially interesting, as they
+were the best-armed body of men we had met. The weapons we captured
+included a Winchester rifle, several Lhasa-made Martinis, a bolt rifle
+of an old Austrian pattern, an English-made muzzle-loading rifle, a
+12-bore breech-loading shot-gun, some Eley's ammunition, and an English
+gun-case. The reports of Russian arms found in Tibet have been very much
+exaggerated. During the whole campaign we did not come across more than
+thirty Russian Government rifles, and these were weapons that must have
+drifted into Tibet from Mongolia, just as rifles of British pattern
+found their way over the Indian frontier into Lhasa. Also it must be
+remembered that the weapons locally made in Lhasa were of British
+pattern, and manufactured by experts decoyed from a British factory.
+Had these men been Russian subjects, we should have regarded their
+presence in Lhasa as an unquestionable proof of Muscovite assistance.
+Jealousy and suspicion make nations wilfully blind. Russia fully
+believes that we are giving underhand assistance to the Japanese, and
+many Englishmen, who are unbiassed in other questions, are ready to
+believe, without the slightest proof, that Russia has been supplying
+Tibet with arms and generals. We had been informed that large quantities
+of Russian rifles had been introduced into the country, and it was
+rumoured that the Tibetans were reserving these for the defence of Lhasa
+itself. But it is hardly credible that they should have sent levies
+against us armed with their obsolete matchlocks when they were well
+supplied with weapons of a modern pattern. Russian intrigue was active
+in Lhasa, but it had not gone so far as open armament.
+
+At Nagartse we came across the great Yamdok or Palti Lake, along the
+shores of which winds the road to Lhasa. Nagartse Jong is a striking old
+keep, built on a bluff promontory of hill stretching out towards the
+blue waters of the lake. In the distance we saw the crag-perched
+monastery of Samding, where lives the mysterious Dorje Phagmo, the
+incarnation of the goddess Tara.
+
+The wild mountain scenery of the Yamdok Tso, the most romantic in Tibet,
+has naturally inspired many legends. When Samding was threatened by the
+Dzungarian invaders early in the eighteenth century, Dorje Phagmo
+miraculously converted herself and all her attendant monks and nuns into
+pigs. Serung Dandub, the Dzungarian chief, finding the monastery
+deserted, said that he would not loot a place guarded only by swine,
+whereupon Dorje Phagmo again metamorphosed herself and her satellites.
+The terrified invaders prostrated themselves in awe before the goddess,
+and presented the monastery with the most priceless gifts. Similarly,
+the Abbot of Pehte saved the fortress and town from another band of
+invaders by giving the lake the appearance of green pasturelands, into
+which the Dzungarians galloped and were engulfed. I quote these tales,
+which have been mentioned in nearly every book on Tibet, as typical of
+the country. Doubtless similar legends will be current in a few years
+about the British to account for the sparing of Samding, Nagartse, and
+Pehte Jong.
+
+Special courtesy was shown the monks and nuns of Samding, in recognition
+of the hospitality afforded Sarat Chandra Dass by the last incarnation
+of Dorje Phagmo, who entertained the Bengali traveller, and saw that he
+was attended to and cared for through a serious illness. A letter was
+sent Dorje Phagmo, asking if she would receive three British officers,
+including the antiquary of the expedition. But the present incarnation,
+a girl of six or seven years, was invisible, and the convent was
+reported to be bare of ornament and singularly disappointing. There
+were no pigs.
+
+If only one were without the incubus of an army, a month in the Noijin
+Kang Sang country and the Yamdok Plain would be a delightful experience.
+But when one is accompanying a column one loses more than half the
+pleasure of travel. One has to get up at a fixed hour--generally
+uncomfortably early--breakfast, and pack and load one's mules and see
+them started in their allotted place in the line, ride in a crowd all
+day, often at a snail's pace, and halt at a fixed place. Shooting is
+forbidden on the line of march. When alone one can wander about with a
+gun, pitch camp where one likes, make short or long marches as one
+likes, shoot or fish or loiter for days in the same place. The spirit
+which impels one to travel in wild places is an impulse, conscious or
+unconscious, to be free of laws and restraints, to escape conventions
+and social obligations, to temporarily throw one's self back into an
+obsolete phase of existence, amidst surroundings which bear little mark
+of the arbitrary meddling of man. It is not a high ideal, but men often
+deceive themselves when they think they make expeditions in order to add
+to science, and forsake the comforts of life, and endure hunger, cold,
+fatigue and loneliness, to discover in exactly what parallel of unknown
+country a river rises or bends to some particular point of the compass.
+How many travellers are there who would spend the same time in an
+office poring over maps or statistics for the sake of geography or any
+other science? We like to have a convenient excuse, and make a virtue
+out of a hobby or an instinct. But why not own up that one travels for
+the glamour of the thing? In previous wanderings my experience had
+always been to leave a base with several different objectives in view,
+and to take the route that proved most alluring when met by a choice of
+roads--some old deserted city or ruined shrine, some lake or marshland
+haunted by wild-fowl that have never heard the crack of a gun, or a
+strip of desert where one must calculate how to get across with just
+sufficient supplies and no margin. I like to drift to the magnet of
+great watersheds, lofty mountain passes, frontiers where one emerges
+among people entirely different in habit and belief from folk the other
+side, but equally convinced that they are the only enlightened people on
+earth. Often in India I had dreamed of the great inland waters of Tibet
+and Mongolia, the haunts of myriads of duck and geese--Yamdok Tso,
+Tengri Nor, Issik Kul, names of romance to the wild-fowler, to be
+breathed with reverence and awe. I envied the great flights of mallard
+and pochard winging northward in March and April to the unknown; and
+here at last I was camping by the Yamdok Tso itself--with an army.
+
+Yet I have digressed to grumble at the only means by which a sight of
+these hidden waters was possible. When we passed in July, there were no
+wild-fowl on the lake except the bar-headed geese and Brahminy duck. The
+ruddy sheldrake, or Brahminy, is found all over Tibet, and will be
+associated with the memory of nearly every march and camping-ground. It
+is distinctly a Buddhist bird. From it is derived the title of the
+established Church of the Lamas, the Abbots of which wear robes of ruddy
+sheldrake colour, Gelug-pa.[15] In Burmah the Brahminy is sacred to
+Buddhism as a symbol of devotion and fidelity, and it was figured on
+Asoka's pillars in the same emblematical character.[16] The Brahminy is
+generally found in pairs, and when one is shot the other will often
+hover round till it falls a victim to conjugal love. In India the bird
+is considered inedible, but we were glad of it in Tibet, and discovered
+no trace of fishy flavour.
+
+ [15] Waddell, 'Lamaism in Tibet,' p. 200.
+
+ [16] _Ibid._, p. 409.
+
+Early in April, when we passed the Bam Tso and Kala Tso we found the
+lakes frequented by nearly all the common migratory Indian duck; and
+again, on our return large flights came in. But during the summer months
+nothing remained except the geese and sheldrake and the goosander, which
+is resident in Tibet and the Himalayas. I take it that no respectable
+duck spends the summer south of the Tengri Nor. At Lhasa, mallard, teal,
+gadwall, and white-eyed pochard were coming in from the north as we
+were leaving in the latter half of September, and followed us down to
+the plains. They make shorter flights than I imagined, and longer stays
+at their fashionable Central Asian watering-places.
+
+We marched three days along the banks of the Yamdok Tso, and halted a
+day at Nagartse. Duck were not plentiful on the lake. Black-headed gulls
+and redshanks were common. The fields of blue borage by the villages
+were an exquisite sight. On the 22nd we reached Pehte. The jong, a
+medieval fortress, stands out on the lake like Chillon, only it is more
+crumbling and dilapidated. The courtyards are neglected and overgrown
+with nettles. Soldiers, villagers, both men and women, had run away to
+the hills with their flocks and valuables. Only an old man and two boys
+were left in charge of the chapel and the fort. The hide fishing-boats
+were sunk, or carried over to the other side. On July 24 we left the
+lake near the village of Tamalung, and ascended the ridge on our left to
+the Khamba Pass, 1,200 feet above the lake level. A sudden turn in the
+path brought us to the saddle, and we looked down on the great river
+that has been guarded from European eyes for nearly a century. In the
+heart of Tibet we had found Arcadia--not a detached oasis, but a
+continuous strip of verdure, where the Tsangpo cleaves the bleak hills
+and desert tablelands from west to east.
+
+All the valley was covered with green and yellow cornfields, with
+scattered homesteads surrounded by clusters of trees, not dwarfish and
+stunted in the struggle for existence, but stately and spreading--trees
+that would grace the valley of the Thames or Severn.
+
+We had come through the desert to Arcady. When we left Phari, months and
+months before, and crossed the Tang la, we entered the desert.
+
+Tuna is built on bare gravel, and in winter-time does not boast a blade
+of grass. Within a mile there are stunted bushes, dry, withered, and
+sapless, which lend a sustenance to the gazelle and wild asses, beasts
+that from the beginning have chosen isolation, and, like the Tibetans,
+who people the same waste, are content with spare diet so long as they
+are left alone.
+
+Every Tibetan of the tableland is a hermit by choice, or some strange
+hereditary instinct has impelled him to accept Nature's most niggard
+gifts as his birthright, so that he toils a lifetime to win by his own
+labour and in scanty measure the necessaries which Nature deals lavishly
+elsewhere, herding his yaks on the waste lands, tilling the unproductive
+soil for his meagre crop of barley, and searching the hillsides for
+yak-dung for fuel to warm his stone hut and cook his meal of flour.
+
+Yet north and south of him, barely a week's journey, are warm, fertile
+valleys, luxuriant crops, unstinted woodlands, where Mongols like
+himself accept Nature's largess philosophically as the most natural
+thing in the world.
+
+It seems as if some special and economical law of Providence, such a law
+as makes at least one man see beauty in every type of woman, even the
+most unlovely, had ordained it, so that no corner of the earth, not even
+the Sahara, Tadmor, Tuna, or Guru, should lack men who devote themselves
+blindly and without question to live there, and care for what one might
+think God Himself had forgotten and overlooked.
+
+These men--Bedouin, Tibetans, and the like--enjoy one thing, for which
+they forego most things that men crave for, and that is freedom. They do
+not possess the gifts that cause strife, and divisions, and law-making,
+and political parties, and changes of Government. They have too little
+to share. Their country is invaded only at intervals of centuries. On
+these occasions they fight bravely, as their one inheritance is at
+stake. But they are bigoted and benighted; they have not kept time with
+evolution, and so they are defeated. The conservatism, the
+exclusiveness, that has kept them free so long has shut the door to
+'progress,' which, if they were enlightened and introspective, they
+would recognise as a pestilence that has infected one half of the world
+at the expense of the other, making both unhappy and discontented.
+
+The Tuna Plain is like the Palmyra Desert at the point where one comes
+within view of the snows of Lebanon. It is not monotonous; there is too
+much play of light and shade for that. Everywhere the sun shines, the
+mirage dances; the white calcined plain becomes a flock of frightened
+sheep hurrying down the wind; the stunted sedge by the lakeside leaps up
+like a squadron in ambush and sweeps rapidly along without ever
+approaching nearer. Sometimes a herd of wild asses is mingled in the
+dance, grotesquely magnified; stones and nettles become walls and men.
+All the country is elusive and unreal.
+
+A few miles beyond Guru the road skirts the Bamtso Lake, which must once
+have filled the whole valley. Now the waters have receded, as the
+process of desiccation is going on which has entirely changed the
+geographical features of Central Asia, and caused the disappearance of
+great expanses of water like the Koko Nor, and the dwindling of lakes
+and river from Khotan to Gobi. The Roof of the World is becoming less
+and less inhabitable.
+
+From the desert to Arcady is not a long journey, but armies travel
+slowly. After months of waiting and delay we reached the promised land.
+It was all suddenly unfolded to our view when we stood on the Khamba la.
+Below us was a purely pastoral landscape. Beyond lay hills even more
+barren and verdureless than those we had crossed. But every mile or so
+green fan-shaped valleys, irrigated by clear streams, interrupted the
+barrenness, opening out into the main valley east and west with perfect
+symmetry. To the north-east flowed the Kyi Chu, the valley in which
+Lhasa lay screened, only fifty-six miles distant.
+
+To the south of the pass lay the great Yamdok Lake, wild and beautiful,
+its channels twining into the dark interstices of the hills--valleys of
+mystery and gloom, where no white man has ever trod. Lights and shadows
+fell caressingly on the lake and hills. At one moment a peak was ebony
+black, at another--as the heavy clouds passed from over it, and the
+sun's rays illumined it through a thin mist--golden as a field of
+buttercups. Often at sunset the grassy cones of the hills glow like
+gilded pagodas, and the Tibetans, I am told, call these sunlit plots the
+'golden ground.'
+
+In bright sunlight the lake is a deep turquoise blue, but at evening
+time transient lights and shades fleet over it with the moving clouds,
+light forget-me-not, deep purple, the azure of a butterfly's wing--then
+all is swept away, immersed in gloom, before the dark, menacing
+storm-clouds.
+
+On the 25th I crossed the river with the 1st Mounted Infantry and 40th
+Pathans. My tent is pitched on the roof of a rambling two-storied house,
+under the shade of a great walnut-tree. Crops, waist-deep, grow up to
+the walls--barley, wheat, beans, and peas. On the roof are garden
+flowers in pots, hollyhocks, and marigolds. The cornfields are bright
+with English wild-flowers--dandelions, buttercups, astragalus, and a
+purple Michaelmas daisy.
+
+There is no village, but farmhouses are dotted about the valley, and
+groves of trees--walnut and peach, and poplar and willow--enclosed
+within stone walls. Wild birds that are almost tame are nesting in the
+trees--black and white magpies, crested hoopoes, and turtle-doves. The
+groves are irrigated like the fields, and carpeted with flowers.
+Homelike butterflies frequent them, and honey-bees.
+
+Everything is homelike. There is no mystery in the valley, except its
+access, or, rather, its inaccessibility. We have come to it through snow
+passes, over barren, rocky wildernesses; we have won it with toil and
+suffering, through frost and rain and snow and blistering sun.
+
+And now that we had found Arcady, I would have stayed there. Lhasa was
+only four marches distant, but to me, in that mood of almost immoral
+indolence, it seemed that this strip of verdure, with its happy pastoral
+scenes, was the most impassable barrier that Nature had planted in our
+path. Like the Tibetans, she menaced and threatened us at first, then
+she turned to us with smiles and cajoleries, entreating us to stay, and
+her seduction was harder to resist.
+
+ * * * * *
+
+To trace the course of the Tsangpo River from Tibet to its outlet into
+Assam has been the goal of travellers for over a century. Here is one
+of the few unknown tracts of the world, where no white man has ever
+penetrated. Until quite recently there was a hot controversy among
+geographers as to whether the Tsangpo was the main feeder of the
+Brahmaputra or reappeared in Burmah as the Irawaddy. All attempts to
+explore the river from India have proved fruitless, owing to the intense
+hostility of the Abor and Passi Minyang tribes, who oppose all intrusion
+with their poisoned arrows and stakes, sharp and formidable as spears,
+cunningly set in the ground to entrap invaders; while the vigilance of
+the Lamas has made it impossible for any European to get within 150
+miles of the Tsangpo Valley from Tibet. It was not until 1882 that all
+doubt as to the identity of the Tsangpo and Brahmaputra was set aside by
+the survey of the native explorer A. K. And the course of the
+Brahmaputra, or Dihong, as it is called in Northern Assam, was never
+thoroughly investigated until the explorations of Mr. Needham, the
+Political Officer at Sadiya, and his trained Gurkhas, who penetrated
+northwards as far as Gina, a village half a day's journey beyond Passi
+Ghat, and only about seventy miles south of the point reached by A. K.
+from Tibet.
+
+The return of the British expedition from Tibet was evidently the
+opportunity of a century for the investigation of this unexplored
+country. We had gained the hitherto inaccessible base, and were
+provided with supplies and transport on the spot; we had no opposition
+to expect from the Tibetans, who were naturally eager to help us out of
+the country by whatever road we chose, and had promised to send
+officials with us to their frontier at Gyala Sendong, who would forage
+for us and try to impress the villagers into our service. The hostile
+tribes beyond the frontier were not so likely to resist an expedition
+moving south to their homes after a successful campaign as a force
+entering their country from our Indian frontier. In the latter case they
+would naturally be more suspicious of designs on their independence. The
+distance from Lhasa to Assam was variously estimated from 500 to 700
+miles. I think the calculations were influenced, perhaps unconsciously,
+by sympathy with, or aversion from, the enterprise.
+
+ * * * * *
+
+The Shapes, it is true, though they promised to help us if we were
+determined on it, advised us emphatically not to go by the Tsangpo
+route. They said that the natives of their own outlying provinces were
+bandits and cut-throats, practically independent of the Lhasa
+Government, while the savages beyond the frontier were dangerous people
+who obeyed no laws. The Shapes' notions as to the course of the river
+were most vague. When questioned, they said there was a legend that it
+disappeared into a hole in the earth. The country near its mouth was
+inhabited by savages, who went about unclothed, and fed on monkeys and
+reptiles. It was rumoured that they were horned like animals, and that
+mothers did not know their own children. But this they could not vouch
+for.
+
+It was believed that tracks of a kind existed from village to village
+all along the route, but these, of course, after a time would become
+impracticable for pack transport. The mules would have to be abandoned,
+and sent back to Gyantse by our guides, or presented to the Tibetan
+officials who accompanied us. Then we were to proceed by forced marches
+through the jungle, with coolie transport if obtainable; if not, each
+man was to carry rice for a few days. The distance from the Tibet
+frontier to Sadiya is not great, and the unexplored country is reckoned
+not to be more than seven stages. The force would bivouac, and, if their
+advance were resisted, would confine themselves solely to defensive
+tactics. In case of opposition, the greatest difficulty would be the
+care of the wounded, as each invalid would need four carriers. Thus, a
+few casualties would reduce enormously the fighting strength of the
+escort.
+
+But opposition was unlikely. Mr. Needham, who has made the tribes of the
+Dihong Valley the study of a lifetime, and succeeded to some extent in
+gaining their confidence, considered the chances of resistance small. He
+would, he said, send messages to the tribes that the force coming
+through their country from the north were his friends, that they had
+been engaged in a punitive expedition against the Lamas (whom the Abors
+detested), that they were returning home by the shortest route to Assam,
+and had no designs on the territory they traversed. It was proposed that
+Mr. Needham should go up the river as far as possible and furnish the
+party with supplies.
+
+All arrangements had been made for the exploring-party, which was to
+leave the main force at Chaksam Ferry, and was expected to arrive in
+Sadiya almost simultaneously with the winding up of the expedition at
+Siliguri. Captain Ryder, R.E., was to command the party, and his escort
+was to be made up of the 8th Gurkhas, who had long experience of the
+Assam frontier tribes, and were the best men who could be chosen for the
+work. Officers were selected, supply and transport details arranged,
+everything was in readiness, when at the last moment, only a day or two
+before the party was to start, a message was received from Simla
+refusing to sanction the expedition. Colonel Younghusband was entirely
+in favour of it, but the military authorities had a clean slate; they
+had come through so far without a single disaster, and it seemed that no
+scientific or geographical considerations could have any weight with
+them in their determination to take no risks. Of course there were
+risks, and always must be in enterprises of the kind; but I think the
+circumstances of the moment reduced them to a minimum, and that the
+results to be obtained from the projected expedition should have
+entirely outweighed them.
+
+In European scientific circles much was expected of the Tibetan
+expedition. But it has added very little to science. The surveys that
+were made have done little more than modify the previous investigations
+of native surveyors.[17]
+
+ [17] The only expedition sanctioned is that which is now exploring
+ the little-known trade route between Gyantse and Gartok, where a
+ mart has been opened to us by the recent Tibetan treaty. The
+ party consists of Captain Ryder, R.E., in command, Captain Wood,
+ R.E., Lieutenant Bailey, of the 32nd Pioneers, and six picked men
+ of the 8th Gurkhas. They follow the main feeder of the Tsangpo
+ nearly 500 miles, then strike into the high lacustrine tableland
+ of Western Tibet, passing the great Mansarowar Lake to Gartok;
+ thence over the Indus watershed, and down the Sutlej Valley to
+ Simla, where they are expected about the end of January. The
+ party will be able to collect useful information about the trade
+ resources of the country; but the route has already been mapped
+ by Nain Singh, the Indian surveyor, and the geographical results
+ of the expedition will be small compared with what would have
+ been derived from the projected Tengri Nor and Brahmaputra trips.
+
+An expedition to the mountains bordering the Tengri Nor, only nine days
+north of Lhasa, would have linked all the unknown country north of the
+Tsang po with the tracts explored by Sven Hedin, and left the map
+without a hiatus in four degrees of longitude from Cape Comorin to the
+Arctic Ocean. But military considerations were paramount.
+
+For myself, the abandonment of the expedition was a great
+disappointment. I had counted on it as early as February, and had made
+all preparations to join it.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XIII
+
+LHASA AND ITS VANISHED DEITY
+
+
+The passage of the river was difficult and dangerous. If we had had to
+depend on the four Berthon boats we took with us, the crossing might
+have taken weeks. But the good fortune that attended the expedition
+throughout did not fail us. At Chaksam we found the Tibetans had left
+behind their two great ferry-boats, quaint old barges with horses' heads
+at the prow, capacious enough to hold a hundred men. The Tibetan
+ferrymen worked for us cheerfully. A number of hide boats were also
+discovered. The transport mules were swum over, and the whole force was
+across in less than a week.
+
+But the river took its toll most tragically. The current is swift and
+boisterous; the eddies and whirlpools are dangerously uncertain. Two
+Berthon boats, bound together into a raft, capsized, and Major
+Bretherton, chief supply and transport officer, and two Gurkhas were
+drowned. It seemed as if the genius of the river, offended at our
+intrusion, had claimed its price and carried off the most valuable life
+in the force. It was Major Bretherton's foresight more than anything
+that enabled us to reach Lhasa. His loss was calamitous.
+
+We left our camp at the ferry on July 31, and started for Lhasa, which
+was only forty-three miles distant. It was difficult to believe that in
+three days we would be looking on the Potala.
+
+The Kyi Chu, the holy river of Lhasa, flows into the Tsangpo at Chushul,
+three miles below Chaksam ferry, where our troops crossed. The river is
+almost as broad as the Thames at Greenwich, and the stream is swift and
+clear. The valley is cultivated in places, but long stretches are bare
+and rocky. Sand-dunes, overgrown with artemisia scrub, extend to the
+margin of cultivation, leaving a well-defined line between the green
+cornfields and the barren sand. The crops were ripening at the time of
+our advance, and promised a plentiful harvest.
+
+For many miles the road is cut out of a precipitous cliff above the
+river. A few hundred men could have destroyed it in an afternoon, and
+delayed our advance for another week. Newly-built sangars at the
+entrance of the gorge showed that the Tibetans had intended to hold it.
+But they left the valley in a disorganized state the day we reached the
+Tsangpo. Had they fortified the position, they might have made it
+stronger than the Karo la.
+
+The heat of the valley was almost tropical. Summer by the Kyi Chu River
+is very different from one's first conceptions of Tibet. To escape the
+heat, I used to write my diary in the shade of gardens and willow
+groves. Hoopoes, magpies, and huge black ravens became inquisitive and
+confidential. I have a pile of little black notebooks I scribbled over
+in their society, dirty and torn and soiled with pressed flowers. For a
+picture of the valley I will go to these. One's freshest impressions are
+the best, and truer than reminiscences.
+
+
+ NETHANG.
+
+In the most fertile part of the Kyi Chu Valley, where the fields are
+intersected in all directions by clear-running streams bordered with
+flowers, in a grove of poplars where doves were singing all day long, I
+found Atisa's tomb.
+
+It was built in a large, plain, barn-like building, clean and
+sweet-smelling as a granary, and innocent of ornament outside and in. It
+was the only clean and simple place devoted to religion I had seen in
+Tibet.
+
+In every house and monastery we entered on the road there were gilded
+images, tawdry paintings, demons and she-devils, garish frescoes on the
+wall, hideous grinning devil-masks, all the Lama's spurious apparatus of
+terrorism.
+
+These were the outward symbols of demonolatry and superstition invented
+by scheming priests as the fabric of their sacerdotalism. But this was
+the resting-place of the Reformer, the true son of Buddha, who came
+over the Himalayas to preach a religion of love and mercy.
+
+I entered the building out of the glare of the sun, expecting nothing
+but the usual monsters and abortions--just as one is dragged into a
+church in some tourist-ridden land, where, if only for the sake of
+peace, one must cast an apathetic eye at the lions of the country. But
+as the tomb gradually assumed shape in the dim light, I knew that there
+was someone here, a priest or a community, who understood Atisa, who
+knew what he would have wished his last resting-place to be; or perhaps
+the good old monk had left a will or spoken a plain word that had been
+handed down and remembered these thousand years, and was now, no doubt,
+regarded as an eccentric's whim, that there must be no gods or demons by
+his tomb, nothing abnormal, no pretentiousness of any kind. If his
+teaching had lived, how simple and honest and different Tibet would be
+to-day!
+
+The tomb was not beautiful--a large square plinth, supporting layers of
+gradually decreasing circumference and forming steps two feet in height,
+the last a platform on which was based a substantial vat-like structure
+with no ornament or inscription except a thin line of black pencilled
+saints. By climbing up the layers of masonry I found a pair of slant
+eyes gazing at nothing and hidden by a curve in the stone from gazers
+below. This was the only painting on the tomb.
+
+Never in the thousand years since the good monk was laid to rest at
+Nethang had a white man entered this shrine. To-day the courtyard was
+crowded with mules and drivers; Hindus and Pathans in British uniform:
+they were ransacking the place for corn. A transport officer was
+shouting:
+
+'How many bags have you, babu?'
+
+'A hundred and seven, sir.'
+
+'Remember, if anyone loots, he will get fifty _beynt_' (stripes with the
+cat-o'-nine-tails).
+
+Then he turned to me.
+
+'What the devil is that old thief doing over there?' he said, and nodded
+at a man with archaeological interests, who was peering about in a dark
+corner by the tomb. 'There is nothing more here.'
+
+'He is examining Atisa's tomb.'
+
+'And who the devil is Atisa?'
+
+And who is he? Merely a name to a few dry-as-dust pedants. Everything
+human he did is forgotten. The faintest ripple remains to-day from that
+stone cast into the stagnant waters so many years ago. A few monks drone
+away their days in a monastery close by. In the courtyard there is a
+border of hollyhocks and snapdragon and asters. Here the unsavoury
+guardians of Atisa's tomb watch me as I write, and wonder what on earth
+I am doing among them, and what spell or mantra I am inscribing in the
+little black book that shuts so tightly with a clasp.
+
+
+ TOILUNG.
+
+To-morrow we reach Lhasa.
+
+A few hours ago we caught the first glimpse of the Potala Palace, a
+golden dome standing out on a bluff rock in the centre of the valley.
+The city is not seen from afar perched on a hill like the great
+monasteries and jongs of the country. It is literally 'hidden.' A rocky
+promontory projects from the bleak hills to the south like a screen,
+hiding Lhasa, as if Nature conspired in its seclusion. Here at a
+distance of seven miles we can see the Potala and the Lamas' Medical
+College.
+
+Trees and undulating ground shut out the view of the actual city until
+one is within a mile of it.
+
+To-morrow we camp outside. It is nearly a hundred years since Thomas
+Manning, the only Englishman (until to-day) who ever saw Lhasa, preceded
+us. Our journey has not been easy, but we have come in spite of
+everything.
+
+The Lamas have opposed us with all their material and spiritual
+resources. They have fought us with medieval weapons and a medley of
+modern firearms. They have held Commination Services, recited mantras,
+and cursed us solemnly for days. Yet we have come on.
+
+They have sent delegates and messengers of every rank to threaten and
+entreat and plead with us--emissaries of increasing importance as we
+have drawn nearer their capital, until the Dalai Lama despatched his own
+Grand Chamberlain and Grand Secretary, and, greater than these, the Ta
+Lama and Yutok Shape, members of the ruling Council of Five, whose
+sacred persons had never before been seen by European eyes. To-morrow
+the Amban himself comes to meet Colonel Younghusband. The Dalai Lama has
+sent him a letter sealed with his own seal.
+
+Every stretch of road from the frontier to Lhasa has had its symbol of
+remonstrance. Cairns and chortens, and _mani_ walls and praying-flags,
+demons painted on the rock, writings on the wall, white stones piled
+upon black, have emitted their ray of protest and malevolence in vain.
+
+The Lamas knew we must come. Hundreds of years ago a Buddhist saint
+wrote it in his book of prophecies, Ma-ong Lung-Ten, which may be bought
+to-day in the Lhasa book-shops. He predicted that Tibet would be invaded
+and conquered by the Philings (Europeans), when all of the true religion
+would go to Chang Shambula, the Northern Paradise, and Buddhism would
+become extinct in the country.
+
+And now the Lamas believe that the prophecy will be fulfilled by our
+entry into Lhasa, and that their religion will decay before foreign
+influence. The Dalai Lama, they say, will die, not by violence or
+sickness, but by some spiritual visitation. His spirit will seek some
+other incarnation, when he can no longer benefit his people or secure
+his country, so long sacred to Buddhists, from the contamination of
+foreign intrusion.
+
+The Tibetans are not the savages they are depicted. They are civilized,
+if medieval. The country is governed on the feudal system. The monks are
+the overlords, the peasantry their serfs. The poor are not oppressed.
+They and the small tenant farmers work ungrudgingly for their spiritual
+masters, to whom they owe a blind devotion. They are not discontented,
+though they give more than a tithe of their small income to the Church.
+It must be remembered that every family contributes at least one member
+to the priesthood, so that, when we are inclined to abuse the monks for
+consuming the greater part of the country's produce, we should remember
+that the laymen are not the victims of class prejudice, the plebeians
+groaning under the burden of the patricians, so much as the servants of
+a community chosen from among themselves, and with whom they are
+connected by family ties.
+
+No doubt the Lamas employ spiritual terrorism to maintain their
+influence and preserve the temporal government in their hands; and when
+they speak of their religion being injured by our intrusion, they are
+thinking, no doubt, of another unveiling of mysteries, the dreaded age
+of materialism and reason, when little by little their ignorant serfs
+will be brought into contact with the facts of life, and begin to
+question the justness of the relations that have existed between
+themselves and their rulers for centuries. But at present the people
+are medieval, not only in their system of government and their religion,
+their inquisition, their witchcraft, their incantations, their ordeals
+by fire and boiling oil, but in every aspect of their daily life.
+
+I question if ever in the history of the world there has been another
+occasion when bigotry and darkness have been exposed with such
+abruptness to the inroad of science, when a barrier of ignorance created
+by jealousy and fear as a screen between two peoples living side by side
+has been demolished so suddenly to admit the light of an advanced
+civilization.
+
+The Tibetans, no doubt, will benefit, and many abuses will be swept
+away. Yet there will always be people who will hanker after the medieval
+and romantic, who will say: 'We men are children. Why could we not have
+been content that there was one mystery not unveiled, one country of an
+ancient arrested civilization, and an established Church where men are
+still guided by sorcery and incantations, and direct their mundane
+affairs with one eye on a grotesque spirit world, which is the most real
+thing in their lives--a land of topsy-turvy and inverted proportions,
+where men spend half their lives mumbling unintelligible mantras and
+turning mechanical prayers, and when dead are cut up into mincemeat and
+thrown to the dogs and vultures?'
+
+To-morrow, when we enter Lhasa, we will have unveiled the last mystery
+the of the East. There are no more forbidden cities which men have not
+mapped and photographed. Our children will laugh at modern travellers'
+tales. They will have to turn again to Gulliver and Haroun al Raschid.
+And they will soon tire of these. For now that there are no real
+mysteries, no unknown land of dreams, where there may still be genii and
+mahatmas and bottle-imps, that kind of literature will be tolerated no
+longer. Children will be sceptical and matter-of-fact and disillusioned,
+and there will be no sale for fairy-stories any more.
+
+But we ourselves are children. Why could we not have left at least one
+city out of bounds?
+
+
+ LHASA,
+ _August 3._
+
+We reached Lhasa to-day, after a march of seven miles, and camped
+outside the city. As we approached, the road became an embankment across
+a marsh. Butterflies and dragon-flies were hovering among the rushes,
+clematis grew in the stonework by the roadside, cows were grazing in the
+rich pastureland, redshanks were calling, a flight of teal passed
+overhead; the whole scene was most homelike, save for the bare scarred
+cliffs that jealously preclude a distant view of the city.
+
+Some of us climbed the Chagpo Ri and looked down on the city. Lhasa lay
+a mile in front of us, a mass of huddled roofs and trees, dominated by
+the golden dome of the Jokhang Cathedral.
+
+It must be the most hidden city on earth. The Chagpo Ri rises bluffly
+from the river-bank like a huge rock. Between it and the Potala hill
+there is a narrow gap not more than thirty yards wide. Over this is
+built the Pargo Kaling, a typical Tibetan chorten, through which is the
+main gateway into Lhasa. The city has no walls, but beyond the Potala,
+to complete the screen, stretches a great embankment of sand right
+across the valley to the hills on the north.
+
+[Illustration]
+
+
+ LHASA,
+ _August 4._
+
+An epoch in the world's history was marked to-day when Colonel
+Younghusband entered the city to return the visit of the Chinese Amban.
+He was accompanied by all the members of the mission, the war
+correspondents, and an escort of two companies of the Royal Fusiliers
+and the 2nd Mounted Infantry. Half a company of mounted infantry, two
+guns, a detachment of sappers, and four companies of infantry were held
+ready to support the escort if necessary.
+
+In front of us marched and rode the Amban's escort--his bodyguard,
+dressed in short loose coats of French gray, embroidered in black, with
+various emblems; pikemen clad in bright red with black embroidery and
+black pugarees; soldiers with pikes and scythes and three-pronged
+spears, on all of which hung red banners with devices embroidered in
+black.
+
+We found the city squalid and filthy beyond description, undrained and
+unpaved. Not a single house looked clean or cared for. The streets after
+rain are nothing but pools of stagnant water frequented by pigs and dogs
+searching for refuse. Even the Jokhang appeared mean and squalid at
+close quarters, whence its golden roofs were invisible. There was
+nothing picturesque except the marigolds and hollyhocks in pots and the
+doves and singing-birds in wicker cages.
+
+The few Tibetans we met in the street were strangely incurious. A baker
+kneading dough glanced at us casually, and went on kneading. A woman
+weaving barely looked up from her work.
+
+The streets were almost deserted, perhaps by order of the authorities to
+prevent an outbreak. But as we returned small crowds had gathered in the
+doorways, women were peering through windows, but no one followed or
+took more than a listless interest in us. The monks looked on sullenly.
+But in most faces one read only indifference and apathy. One might think
+the entry of a foreign army into Lhasa and the presence of English
+Political Officers in gold-laced uniform and beaver hats were everyday
+events.
+
+The only building in Lhasa that is at all imposing is the Potala.
+
+It would be misleading to say that the palace dominated the city, as a
+comparison would be implied--a picture conveyed of one building standing
+out signally among others. This is not the case.
+
+The Potala is superbly detached. It is not a palace on a hill, but a
+hill that is also a palace. Its massive walls, its terraces and bastions
+stretch upwards from the plain to the crest, as if the great bluff rock
+were merely a foundation-stone planted there at the divinity's nod. The
+divinity dwells in the palace, and underneath, at the distance of a
+furlong or two, humanity is huddled abjectly in squalid smut-begrimed
+houses. The proportion is that which exists between God and man.
+
+If one approached within a league of Lhasa, saw the glittering domes of
+the Potala, and turned back without entering the precincts, one might
+still imagine it an enchanted city, shining with turquoise and gold. But
+having entered, the illusion is lost. One might think devout Buddhists
+had excluded strangers in order to preserve the myth of the city's
+beauty and mystery and wealth, or that the place was consciously
+neglected and defaced so as to offer no allurements to heretics, just
+as the repulsive women one meets in the streets smear themselves over
+with grease and cutch to make themselves even more hideous than Nature
+ordained.
+
+The place has not changed since Manning visited it ninety years ago, and
+wrote:--'There is nothing striking, nothing pleasing, in its appearance.
+The habitations are begrimed with smut and dirt. The avenues are full of
+dogs, some growling and gnawing bits of hide that lie about in
+profusion, and emit a charnel-house smell; others limping and looking
+livid; others ulcerated; others starved and dying, and pecked at by
+ravens; some dead and preyed upon. In short, everything seems mean and
+gloomy, and excites the idea of something unreal.' That is the Lhasa of
+to-day. Probably it was the same centuries ago.
+
+Above all this squalor the Potala towers superbly. Its golden roofs,
+shining in the sun like tongues of fire, are a landmark for miles, and
+must inspire awe and veneration in the hearts of pilgrims coming from
+the desert parts of Tibet, Kashmir, and Mongolia to visit the sacred
+city that Buddha has blessed.
+
+The secret of romance is remoteness, whether in time or space. If we
+could be thrown back to the days of Agincourt we should be enchanted at
+first, but after a week should vote everything commonplace and dull.
+Falstaff, the beery lout, would be an impossible companion, and Prince
+Hal a tiresome young cub who wanted a good dressing-down. In travel,
+too, as one approaches the goal, and the country becomes gradually
+familiar, the husk of romance falls off. Childe Roland must have been
+sadly disappointed in the Dark Tower; filth and familiarity very soon
+destroyed the romance of Lhasa.
+
+But romance still clings to the Potala. It is still remote. Like Imray,
+its sacred inmate has achieved the impossible. Divinity or no, he has at
+least the divine power of vanishing. In the material West, as we like to
+call it, we know how hard it is for the humblest subject to disappear,
+in spite of the confused hub of traffic and intricate network of
+communications. Yet here in Lhasa, a city of dreamy repose, a King has
+escaped, been spirited into the air, and nobody is any the wiser.
+
+When we paraded the city yesterday, we made a complete circuit of the
+Potala. There was no one, not even the humblest follower, so
+unimaginative that he did not look up from time to time at the frowning
+cliff and thousand sightless windows that concealed the unknown. Those
+hidden corridors and passages have been for centuries, and are, perhaps,
+at this very moment, the scenes of unnatural piety and crime.
+
+Within the precincts of Lhasa the taking of life in any form is
+sacrilege. Buddha's first law was, 'Thou shalt not kill'; and life is
+held so sacred by his devout followers that they are careful not to
+kill the smallest insect. Yet this palace, where dwells the divine
+incarnation of the Bodhisat, the head of the Buddhist Church, must have
+witnessed more murders and instigations to crime than the most
+blood-stained castle of medieval Europe.
+
+Since the assumption of temporal power by the fifth Grand Lama in the
+middle of the seventeenth century, the whole history of the Tibetan
+hierarchy has been a record of bloodshed and intrigue. The fifth Grand
+Lama, the first to receive the title of Dalai, was a most unscrupulous
+ruler, who secured the temporal power by inciting the Mongols to invade
+Tibet, and received as his reward the kingship. He then established his
+claim to the godhead by tampering with Buddhist history and writ. The
+sixth incarnation was executed by the Chinese on account of his
+profligacy. The seventh was deposed by the Chinese as privy to the
+murder of the regent. After the death of the eighth, of whom I can learn
+nothing, it would seem that the tables were turned: the regents
+systematically murdered their charge, and the crime of the seventh Dalai
+Lama was visited upon four successive incarnations. The ninth, tenth,
+eleventh, and twelfth all died prematurely, assassinated, it is
+believed, by their regents.
+
+There are no legends of malmsey-butts, secret smotherings, and hired
+assassins. The children disappeared; they were absorbed into the
+Universal Essence; they were literally too good to live. Their regents
+and protectors, monks only less sacred than themselves, provided that
+the spirit in its yearning for the next state should not be long
+detained in its mortal husk. No questions were asked. How could the
+devout trace the comings and goings of the divine Avalokita, the Lord of
+Mercy and Judgment, who ordains into what heaven or hell, demon, god,
+hero, mollusc, or ape, their spirits must enter, according to their
+sins?
+
+So, when we reached Lhasa the other day, and heard that the thirteenth
+incarnation had fled, no one was surprised. Yet the wonder remains. A
+great Prince, a god to thousands of men, has been removed from his
+palace and capital, no one knows whither or when. A ruler has
+disappeared who travels with every appanage of state, inspiring awe in
+his prostrate servants, whose movements, one would think, were watched
+and talked about more than any Sovereign's on earth. Yet fear, or
+loyalty, or ignorance keeps every subject tongue-tied.
+
+We have spies and informers everywhere, and there are men in Lhasa who
+would do much to please the new conquerors of Tibet. There are also
+witless men, who have eyes and ears, but, it seems, no tongues.
+
+But so far neither avarice nor witlessness has betrayed anything. For
+all we know, the Dalai Lama may be still in his palace in some hidden
+chamber in the rock, or maybe he has never left his customary
+apartments, and still performs his daily offices in the Potala,
+confident that there at least his sanctity is inviolable by unbelievers.
+
+The British Tommy in the meanwhile parades the streets as indifferently
+as if they were the New Cut or Lambeth Palace Road. He looks up at the
+Potala, and says: 'The old bloke's done a bunk. Wish we'd got 'im; we
+might get 'ome then.'
+
+
+ LHASA,
+ _August --._
+
+We had been in Lhasa nearly three weeks before we could discover where
+the Dalai Lama had fled. We know now that he left his palace secretly in
+the night, and took the northern road to Mongolia. The Buriat, Dorjieff
+met him at Nagchuka, on the verge of the great desert that separates
+inhabited Tibet from Mongolia, 100 miles from Lhasa. On the 20th the
+Amban told us that he had already left Nagchuka twelve days, and was
+pushing on across the desert to the frontier.
+
+I have been trying to find out something about the private life and
+character of the Grand Lama. But asking questions here is fruitless; one
+can learn nothing intimate. And this is just what one might expect. The
+man continues a bogie, a riddle, undivinable, impersonal, remote. The
+people know nothing. They have bowed before the throne as men come out
+of the dark into a blinding light. Scrutiny in their view would be vain
+and blasphemous. The Abbots, too, will reveal nothing; they will not and
+dare not. When Colonel Younghusband put the question direct to a head
+Lama in open durbar, 'Have you news of the Dalai Lama? Do you know where
+he is?' the monk looked slowly to left and right, and answered, 'I know
+nothing.' 'The ruler of your country leaves his palace and capital, and
+you know nothing?' the Commissioner asked. 'Nothing,' answered the monk,
+shuffling his feet, but without changing colour.
+
+From various sources, which differ surprisingly little, I have a fairly
+clear picture of the man's face and figure. He is thick-set, about five
+feet nine inches in height, with a heavy square jaw, nose remarkably
+long and straight for a Tibetan, eyebrows pronounced and turning upwards
+in a phenomenal manner--probably trained so, to make his appearance more
+forbidding--face pockmarked, general expression resolute and sinister.
+He goes out very little, and is rarely seen by the people, except on his
+annual visit to Depung, and during his migrations between the Summer
+Palace and the Potala. He was at the Summer Palace when the messenger
+brought the news that our advance was inevitable, but he went to the
+Potala to put his house in order before projecting himself into the
+unknown.
+
+His face is the index of his character. He is a man of strong
+personality, impetuous, despotic, and intolerant of advice in State
+affairs. He is constantly deposing his Ministers, and has estranged from
+himself a large section of the upper classes, both ecclesiastical and
+official, owing to his wayward and headstrong disposition. As a child he
+was so precociously acute and resolute that he survived his regent, and
+so upset the traditional policy of murder, being the only one out of the
+last five incarnations to reach his majority. Since he took the
+government of the country into his own hands he has reduced the Chinese
+suzerainty to a mere shadow, and, with fatal results to himself,
+consistently insulted and defied the British. His inclination to a
+rapprochement with Russia is not shared by his Ministers.
+
+The only glimpse I have had into the man himself was reflected in a
+conversation with the Nepalese Resident, a podgy little man, very ugly
+and good-natured, with the manners of a French comedian and a face
+generally expanded in a broad grin. He shook with laughter when I asked
+him if he knew the Dalai Lama, and the idea was really intensely funny,
+this mercurial, irreverent little man hobnobbing with the divine. 'I
+have seen him,' he said, and exploded again. 'But what does he do all
+day?' I asked. The Resident puckered up his brow, aping abstraction, and
+began to wave his hand in the air solemnly with a slow circular
+movement, mumbling '_Om man Padme om_' to the revolutions of an
+imaginary praying-wheel. He was immensely pleased with the effort and
+the effect it produced on a sepoy orderly. 'But has he no interests or
+amusements?' I asked. The Resident could think of none. But he told me a
+story to illustrate the dulness of the man, for whom he evidently had no
+reverence. On his return from his last visit to India, the Maharaja of
+Nepal had given him a phonograph to present to the Priest-King. The
+impious toy was introduced to the Holy of Holies, and the Dalai Lama
+walked round it uneasily as it emitted the strains of English band
+music, and raucously repeated an indelicate Bhutanese song. After
+sitting a long while in deep thought, he rose and said he could not live
+with this voice without a soul; it must leave his palace at once. The
+rejected phonograph found a home with the Chinese Amban, to whom it was
+presented with due ceremonial the same day. 'The Lama is _gumar_,' the
+Resident said, using a Hindustani word which may be translated,
+according to our charity, by anything between 'boorish' and
+'unenlightened.' I was glad to meet a man in this city of evasiveness
+whose views were positive, and who was eager to communicate them.
+Through him I tracked the shadow, as it were, of this impersonality, and
+found that to many strangers in Lhasa, and perhaps to a few Lhasans
+themselves, the divinity was all clay, a palpable fraud, a pompous and
+puritanical dullard masquerading as a god.
+
+For my own part, I think the oracle that counselled his flight wiser
+than the statesmen who object that it was a political mistake. He has
+lost his prestige, they say. But imagine him dragged into durbar as a
+signatory, gazed at by profane eyes, the subject of a few days' gossip
+and comment, then sunk into commonplace, stripped of his mystery like
+this city of Lhasa, through which we now saunter familiarly, wondering
+when we shall start again for the _wilds_.
+
+To escape this ordeal he has fled, and to us, at least, his flight has
+deepened the mystery that envelops him, and added to his dignity and
+remoteness; to thousands of mystical dreamers it has preserved the
+effulgence of his godhead unsoiled by contact with the profane world.
+
+From our camp here the Potala draws the eye like a magnet. There is
+nothing but sky and marsh and bleak hill and palace. When we look out of
+our tents in the morning, the sun is striking the golden roof like a
+beacon light to the faithful. Nearly every day in August this year has
+opened fine and closed with storm-clouds gathering from the west,
+through which the sun shines, bathing the eastern valley in a soft,
+pearly light. The western horizon is dark and lowering, the eastern
+peaceful and serene. In this division of darkness and light the Potala
+stands out like a haven, not flaming now, but faintly luminous with a
+restful mystic light, soothing enough to rob Buddhist metaphysics of its
+pessimism and induce a mood, even in unbelievers, in which one is
+content to merge the individual and become absorbed in the universal
+spirit of Nature.
+
+No wonder that, when one looks for mystery in Lhasa, one's thoughts
+dwell solely on the Dalai Lama and the Potala. I cannot help dwelling on
+the flight of the thirteenth incarnation. It plunges us into
+medievalism. To my mind, there is no picture so romantic and engrossing
+in modern history as that exodus, when the spiritual head of the
+Buddhist Church, the temporal ruler of six millions, stole out of his
+palace by night and was borne away in his palanquin, no one knows on
+what errand or with what impotent rage in his heart. The flight was
+really secret. No one but his immediate confidants and retainers, not
+even the Amban himself, knew that he had gone. I can imagine the awed
+attendants, the burying of treasure, the locking and sealing of chests,
+faint lights flickering in the passages, hurried footsteps in the
+corridors, dogs barking intermittently at this unwonted bustle--I feel
+sure the Priest-King kicked one as he stepped on the terrace for the
+last time. Then the procession by moonlight up the narrow valley to the
+north, where the roar of the stream would drown the footsteps of the
+palanquin-bearers.
+
+A month afterwards I followed on his track, and stood on the Phembu Pass
+twelve miles north of Lhasa, whence one looks down on the huge belt of
+mountains that lie between the Brahmaputra and the desert, so packed
+and huddled that their crests look like one continuous undulating plain
+stretching to the horizon. Looking across the valley, I could see the
+northern road to Mongolia winding up a feeder of the Phembu Chu. They
+passed along here and over the next range, and across range after range,
+until they reached the two conical snow-peaks that stand out of the
+plain beside Tengri Nor, a hundred miles to the north. For days they
+skirted the great lake, and then, as if they feared the Nemesis of our
+offended Raj could pursue them to the end of the earth, broke into the
+desert, across which they must be hurrying now toward the great mountain
+chain of Burkhan Buddha, on the southern limits of Mongolia.
+
+
+ LHASA,
+ _August 19._
+
+The Tibetans are the strangest people on earth. To-day I discovered how
+they dispose of their dead.
+
+To hold life sacred and benefit the creatures are the laws of Buddha,
+which they are supposed to obey most scrupulously. And as they think
+they may be reborn in any shape of mammal, bird, or fish, they are kind
+to living things.
+
+During the morning service the Lamas repeat a prayer for the minute
+insects which they have swallowed inadvertently in their meat and drink,
+and the formula insures the rebirth of these microbes in heaven.
+Sometimes, when a Lama's life is despaired of, the monks will ransom a
+yak or a bullock from the shambles, and keep him a pensioner in their
+monastery, praying the good Buddha to spare the sick man's life for the
+life ransomed. Yet they eat meat freely, all save the Gelug-pa, or
+Reformed Church, and square their conscience with their appetite by the
+pretext that the sin rests with the outcast assassin, the public
+butcher, who will be born in the next incarnation as some tantalized
+spirit or agonized demon. That, however, is his own affair.
+
+But it is when a Tibetan dies that his charity to the creatures becomes
+really practical. Then, by his own tacit consent when living, his body
+is given as a feast to the dogs and vultures. This is no casual or
+careless gift to avoid the trouble of burial or cremation. All creatures
+who have a taste for these things are invited to the ceremony, and the
+corpse is carved to their liking by an expert, who devotes his life to
+the practice.
+
+When a Tibetan dies he is left three days in his chamber, and a slit is
+made in his skull to let his soul pass out. Then he is rolled into a
+ball, wrapped in a sack, or silk if he is rich, packed into a jar or
+basket, and carried along to the music of conch shells to the ceremonial
+stone. Here a Lama takes the corpse out of its vessel and wrappings, and
+lays it face downwards on a large flat slab, and the pensioners prowl or
+hop round, waiting for their dole. They are quite tame. The Lamas stand
+a little way apart, and see that strict etiquette is observed during
+the entertainment. The carver begins at the ankle, and cuts upwards,
+throwing little strips of flesh to the guests; the bones he throws to a
+second attendant, who pounds them up with a heavy stone.
+
+I passed the place to-day as I rode in from a reconnaissance. The slab
+lies a stone's-throw to the left of the great northern road to Tengri
+Nor and Mongolia, about two miles from the city.
+
+A group of stolid vultures, too demoralized to range in search of
+carrion, stood motionless on a rock above, waiting the next dispenser of
+charity.
+
+A few ravens hopped about sadly; they, too, were evidently pauperized.
+One magpie was prying round in suspicious proximity, and dogs conscious
+of shame slunk about without a bark in them, and nosed the ground
+diligently. They are always there, waiting.
+
+There was hardly a stain on the slab, so quick and eager are the
+applicants for charity. Only a few rags lay around, too poor to be
+carried away.
+
+I have not seen the ceremony, and I have no mind to. My companion this
+morning, a hardened young subaltern who was fighting nearly every day in
+April, May, and June, and has seen more bloodshed than most veterans,
+saw just as much as I have described. He then felt very ill, dug his
+spurs into his horse, and rode away.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XIV
+
+THE CITY AND ITS TEMPLES
+
+
+By the first week in September I had visited all the most important
+temples and monasteries in Lhasa. We generally went in parties of four
+and five, and a company of Sikhs or Pathans was left in the courtyard in
+case of accidents. We were well armed, as the monks were sullen, though
+I do not think they were capable of any desperate fanaticism. If they
+had had the abandon of dervishes, they might have rushed our camp long
+before. They missed their chance at Gyantse, when a night attack pushed
+home by overwhelming numbers could have wiped out our little garrison.
+In Lhasa there was the one case of the Lama who ran amuck outside the
+camp with the coat of mail and huge paladin's sword concealed beneath
+his cloak, a medieval figure who thrashed the air with his brand like a
+flail in sheer lust of blood. He was hanged medievally the next day
+within sight of Lhasa. Since then the exploit has not been repeated, but
+no one leaves the perimeter unarmed.
+
+I have written of the squalor of the Lhasa streets. The environs of the
+city are beautiful enough--willow groves intersected by clear-running
+streams, walled-in parks with palaces and fish-ponds, marshes where the
+wild-duck flaunt their security, and ripe barley-fields stretching away
+to the hills. In September the trees were wearing their autumn tints,
+the willows were mostly a sulphury yellow, and in the pools beneath the
+red-stalked _polygonum_ and burnished dock-leaf glowed in brilliant
+contrast. Just before dusk there was generally a storm in the valley,
+which only occasionally reached the city; but the breeze stirred the
+poplars, and the silver under the leaves glistened brightly against the
+background of clouds. Often a rainbow hung over the Potala like a
+nimbus.
+
+On the Lingkhor, or circular road, which winds round Lhasa, we saw
+pilgrims and devotees moving slowly along in prayer, always keeping the
+Potala on their right hand. The road is only used for devotion. One
+meets decrepit old women and men, halting and limping and slowly
+revolving their prayer-wheels and mumbling charms. I never saw a healthy
+yokel or robust Lama performing this rite. Nor did I see the pilgrims
+whom one reads of as circumambulating the city on their knees by a
+series of prostrations, bowing their heads in the dust and mud. All the
+devotees are poor and ragged, and many blind. It seems that the people
+of Lhasa do not begin to think of the next incarnation until they have
+nothing left in this.
+
+When one leaves the broad avenues between the walls of the groves and
+pleasure-gardens, and enters the city, one's senses are offended by
+everything that is unsightly and unclean. Pigs and pariah dogs are
+nosing about in black oozy mud. The houses are solid but dirty. It is
+hard to believe that they are whitewashed every year.
+
+Close to the western entrance are the huts of the Ragyabas, beggars,
+outcasts, and scavengers, who cut up the dead. The outer walls of their
+houses are built of yak-horns.
+
+Some of the houses had banks of turf built up outside the doors, with
+borders of English flowers. The dwellings are mostly two or three
+storied. Bird-cages hang from the windows.
+
+The outside of the cathedral is not at all imposing. From the streets
+one cannot see the golden roof, but only high blank walls, and at the
+entrance a forest of dingy pillars beside a massive door. The door is
+thrown open by a sullen monk, and a huge courtyard is revealed with more
+dingy pillars that were once red. The entire wall is covered with
+paintings of Buddhist myth and symbolism. The colours are subdued and
+pleasing. In the centre of the yard are masses of hollyhocks, marigolds,
+nasturtiums, and stocks. Beside the flower-borders is a pyramidical
+structure in which are burnt the leaves of juniper and pine for
+sacrifice.
+
+The cloisters are two-storied; on the upper floor the monks have their
+cells. Looking up, one can see hundreds of them gazing at us with
+interest over the banisters. The upper story, as in every temple in
+Tibet, is coated with a dark red substance which looks like rough paint,
+but is really sacred earth, pasted on to evenly-clipped brushwood so as
+to seem like a continuation of the masonry. On the face of the wall are
+emblems in gilt, Buddhist symbols, like our Prince of Wales's feathers,
+sun and crescent moon, and various other devices. A heavy curtain of
+yak-hair hangs above the entrance-gate. On the roof are large cylinders
+draped in yak-hair cloth topped by a crescent or a spear. Every
+monastery and jong, and most houses in Tibet, are ornamented with these.
+When one first sees them in the distance they look like men walking on
+the roof.
+
+Generally one ascends steps from the outer courtyard to the temple, but
+in the Jokhang the floors are level. We enter the main temple by a dark
+passage. The great doorway that opens into the street has been closed
+behind us, but we leave a company of Pathans in the outer yard, as the
+monks are sullen. Our party of four is armed with revolvers.
+
+Service is being held before the great Buddhas as we enter, and a
+thunderous harmony like an organ-peal breaks the interval for
+meditation. The Abbot, who is in the centre, leans forward from his
+chair and takes a bundle of peacock-feathers from a vase by his side. As
+he points it to the earth there is a clashing of cymbals, a beating of
+drums, and a blowing of trumpets and conch shells.
+
+Then the music dies away like the reverberation of cannon in the hills.
+The Abbot begins the chant, and the monks, facing each other like
+singing-men in a choir, repeat the litany. They have extraordinary deep,
+devotional voices, at once unnatural and impressive. The deepest bass of
+the West does not approach it, and their sense of time is perfect.
+
+The voice of the thousand monks is like the drone of some subterranean
+monster, musically plaintive--the wail of the Earth God praying for
+release to the God of the Skies.
+
+The chant sounds like the endless repetition of the same formula; the
+monks sway to it rhythmically. The temple would be dark if it were not
+for the flickering of many thousands of votive candles and butter lamps.
+Rows upon rows of them are placed before every shrine.
+
+In an inner temple we found the three great images of the Buddhist
+trinity--the Buddhas of the past, present, and future. The images were
+greater than life-size, and set with jewels from foot to crown. As in
+the cloisters of an English cathedral, there were little side-chapels,
+which held sacred relics and shrines.
+
+There were lamps of gold, and solid golden bowls set on altars, and
+embossed salvers of copper and bronze.
+
+A hanging grille of chainwork protected the precincts from sacrilege,
+and an extended hand, bloody and menacing, was stretched from the wall,
+terrible enough when suddenly revealed in that dim light to paralyze and
+strike to earth with fright any profane thief who would dare to enter.
+
+In the upper story we found a place which we called 'Hell,' where some
+Lamas were worshipping the demon protectress of the Grand Lama. The
+music here was harsh and barbaric. There were displayed on the pillars
+and walls every freak of diabolical invention in the shape of scrolls
+and devil-masks. The obscene object of this worship was huddled in a
+corner--a dwarfish abortion, hideous and malignant enough for such
+rites.
+
+All about the Lamas' feet ran little white mice searching for grain.
+They are fed daily, and are scrupulously reverenced, as in their frail
+white bodies the souls of the previous guardians of the shrine are
+believed to be reincarnated.
+
+In another temple we found the Lamas holding service in worship of the
+many-handed Buddha, Avalokitesvara. The picture of the god hung from
+pillars by the altar. The chief Lamas were wearing peaked caps
+picturesquely coloured with subdued blue and gold, and vestments of the
+same hue. The lesser Lamas were bare-headed, and their hair was cropped.
+
+When we first entered, an acolyte was pouring tea out of a massive
+copper pot with a turquoise on the spout. Each monk received his tea in
+a wooden bowl, and poured in barley-flour to make a paste.
+
+During this interval no one spoke or whispered. The footsteps of the
+acolytes were noiseless. Only the younger ones looked up at us
+self-consciously as we watched them from a latticed window in the
+corridor above.
+
+Centuries ago this service was ordained, and the intervals appointed to
+further the pursuit of truth through silence and abstraction. The monks
+sat there quiet as stone. They had seen us, but they were seemingly
+oblivious.
+
+One wondered, were they pursuing truth or were they petrified by ritual
+and routine? Did they regard us as immaterial reflexes, unsubstantial
+and illusory, passing shadows of the world cast upon them by an
+instant's illusion, to pass away again into the unreal, while they were
+absorbed in the contemplation of changeless and universal truths? Or
+were we noted as food for gossip and criticism when their self-imposed
+ordeal was done?
+
+The reek of the candles was almost suffocating. 'Thank God I am not a
+Lama!' said a subaltern by my side. An Afridi Subadar let the butt of
+his rifle clank from his boot to the pavement.
+
+At these calls to sanity we clattered out of this unholy atmosphere of
+dreams as if by an unquestioned impulse into the bright sunshine
+outside.
+
+In the bazaar there is a gay crowd. The streets are thronged by as
+good-natured a mob as I have met anywhere. Sullenness and distrust have
+vanished. Officers and men, Tommies, Gurkhas, Sikhs, and Pathans, are
+stared at and criticised good-humouredly, and their accoutrements
+fingered and examined. It is a bright and interesting crowd, full of
+colour. In a corner of the square a street singer with a guitar and
+dancing children attracts a small crowd. His voice is a rich baritone,
+and he yodels like the Tyrolese. The crowd is parted by a Shape riding
+past in gorgeous yellow silks and brocades, followed by a mounted
+retinue whose head-gear would be the despair of an operatic hatter. They
+wear red lamp-shades, yellow motor-caps, exaggerated Gainsboroughs,
+inverted cooking-pots, coal-scuttles, and medieval helmets. And among
+this topsy-turvy, which does not seem out of place in Lhasa, the most
+eccentrically-hatted man is the Bhutanese Tongsa Penlop, who parades the
+streets in an English gray felt hat.
+
+The Mongolian caravan has arrived in Lhasa, after crossing a thousand
+miles of desert and mountain tracks. The merchants and drivers saunter
+about the streets, trying not to look too rustic. But they are easily
+recognisable--tall, sinewy men, very independent in gait, with faces
+burnt a dark brick red by exposure to the wind and sun. I saw one of
+their splendidly robust women, clad in a sheepskin cloak girdled at the
+waist, bending over a cloth stall, and fingering samples as if shopping
+were the natural business of her life.
+
+On fine days the wares are spread on the cobbles of the street, and the
+coloured cloth and china make a pretty show against the background of
+garden flowers. At the doors of the shops stand pale Nuwaris, whose
+ancestors from Nepal settled in Lhasa generations ago. They wear a flat
+brown cap, and a dull russet robe darker than that of the Lamas. The
+Cashmiri shopkeepers are turbaned, and wear a cloak of butcher's blue.
+They and the Nuwaris and the Chinese seem to monopolize the trade of the
+city.
+
+British officers haunt the bazaars searching for curios, but with very
+little success. Lhasa has no artistic industries; nearly all the
+knick-knacks come from India and China. Cloisonne ware is rare and
+expensive, as one has to pay for the 1,800 miles of transport from
+Peking. Religious objects are not sold. Turquoises are plentiful, but
+coarse and inferior. Hundreds of paste imitations have been bought.
+There is a certain sale for amulets, rings, bells, and ornaments for the
+hair, but these and the brass and copper work can be bought for half the
+price in the Darjeeling bazaar. The few relics we have found of the West
+must have histories. In the cathedral there was a bell with the
+inscription 'Te Deum laudamus,' probably a relic of the Capuchins. In
+the purlieus of the city we found a bicycle without tyres, and a
+sausage-machine made in Birmingham.
+
+With the exception of the cathedral, most of the temples and monasteries
+are on the outskirts of the city. There is a sameness about these places
+of worship that would make description tedious. Only the Ramo-che and
+Moru temples, which are solely devoted to sorcery, are different. Here
+one sees the other soul-side of the people.
+
+The Ramo-che is as dark and dingy as a vault. On each side of the
+doorway are three gigantic tutelary demons. In the vestibule is a
+collection of bows, arrows, chain-armour, stag-horns, stuffed animals,
+scrolls, masks, skulls, and all the paraphernalia of devil-worship. On
+the left is a dark recess where drums are being beaten by an unseen
+choir.
+
+A Lama stands, chalice in hand, before a deep aperture cut in the wall
+like a buttery hatch, and illumined by dim, flickering candles, which
+reveal a malignant female fiend. As a second priest pours holy water
+into a chalice, the Lama raises it solemnly again and again, muttering
+spells to propitiate the fury.
+
+In the hall there are neither ornaments, gods, hanging canopies, nor
+scrolls, as in the other temples. There is neither congregation nor
+priests. The walls are apparently black and unpainted, but here and
+there a lamp reveals a Gorgon's head, a fiend's eye, a square inch or
+two of pigment that time has not obscured.
+
+The place is immemorially old. There are huge vessels of carved metal
+and stone, embossed, like the roof, with griffins and skulls, which
+probably date back to before the introduction of Buddhism into Tibet,
+and are survivals of the old Bon religion. There is nothing bright here
+in colour or sound, nothing vivid or animated.
+
+Stricken men and women come to remove a curse, vindictive ones to
+inflict one, bereaved ones to pay the initiated to watch the adventures
+of the soul in purgatory and guide it on its passage to the new birth,
+while demons and furies are lurking to snatch it with fiery claws and
+drag it to hell.
+
+All these beings must be appeased by magic rites. So in the Ramo-che
+there is no rapture of music, no communion with Buddha, no beatitudes,
+only solitary priests standing before the shrines and mumbling
+incantations, dismal groups of two or three seated Buddha-fashion on the
+floor, and casting spells to exercise a deciding influence, as they
+hope, in the continual warfare which is being waged between the tutelary
+and malignant deities for the prize of a soul.
+
+In the chancel of the temple, behind the altar, is a massive pile of
+masonry stretching from floor to roof, under which, as folk believe, an
+abysmal chasm leads down to hell. Round this there is a dark and narrow
+passage which pilgrims circumambulate. The floor and walls are as
+slippery as ice, worn by centuries of pious feet and groping hands. One
+old woman in some urgent need is drifting round and round abstractedly.
+
+Elsewhere one might linger in the place fascinated, but here in Lhasa
+one moves among mysteries casually; for one cannot wonder, in this
+isolated land where the elements are so aggressive, among these deserts
+and wildernesses, heaped mountain chains, and impenetrable barriers of
+snow, that the children of the soil believe that earth, air, and water
+are peopled by demons who are struggling passionately over the destinies
+of man.
+
+I will not describe any more of the Lhasa temples. One shrine is very
+like another, and details would be tedious. Personally, I do not care
+for systematic sightseeing, even in Lhasa, but prefer to loiter about
+the streets and bazaars, and the gardens outside the city, watch the
+people, and enjoy the atmosphere of the place. The religion of Tibet is
+picturesque enough in an unwholesome way, but to inquire how the layers
+of superstition became added to the true faith, and trace the growth of
+these spurious accretions, I leave to archaeologists. Perhaps one reader
+in a hundred will be interested to know that a temple was built by the
+illustrious Konjo, daughter of the Emperor Tai-Tsung and wife of King
+Srong-btsan-gombo, but I think the other ninety and nine will be
+devoutly thankful if I omit to mention it.
+
+Yet one cannot leave the subject of the Lhasa monasteries without
+remarking on the striking resemblance between Tibetan Lamaism and the
+Romish Church. The resemblance cannot be accidental. The burning of
+candles before altars, the sprinkling of holy water, the chanting of
+hymns in alternation, the giving alms and saying Masses for the dead,
+must have their origin in the West. We know that for many centuries
+large Christian communities have existed in Western China near the
+Tibetan frontier, and several Roman Catholic missionaries have
+penetrated to Lhasa and other parts of Tibet during the last three
+centuries. As early as 1641 the Jesuit Father Grueber visited Lhasa, and
+recorded that the Lamas wore caps and mitres, that they used rosaries,
+bells, and censers, and observed the practice of confession, penance,
+and absolution. Besides these points common to Roman Catholicism, he
+noticed the monastic and conventual system, the tonsure, the vows of
+poverty, chastity, and obedience, the doctrine of incarnation and the
+Trinity, and the belief in purgatory and paradise.[18]
+
+ [18] It is interesting to compare Grueber's account with the journal
+ of Father Rubruquis, who travelled in Mongolia in the thirteenth
+ century. In 1253 he wrote of the Lamas:
+
+ 'All their priests had their heads shaven quite over, and they are
+ clad in saffron-coloured garments. Being once shaven, they lead an
+ unmarried life from that time forward, and they live a hundred or
+ two of them in one cloister.... They have with them also,
+ whithersoever they go, a certain string, with a hundred or two
+ hundred nutshells thereupon, much like our beads which we carry
+ about with us; and they do always mutter these words, "Om mani
+ pectavi (om mani padme hom)"--"God, Thou knowest," as one of them
+ expounded it to me; and so often do they expect a reward at God's
+ hands as they pronounce these words in remembrance of God.... I
+ made a visit to their idol temple, and found certain priests
+ sitting in the outward portico, and those which I saw seemed, by
+ their shaven beards, as if they had been our countrymen; they wore
+ certain ornaments upon their heads like mitres made of paper.'
+
+We occasionally saw a monk with the refined ascetic face of a Roman
+Cardinal. Te Rinpoche, the acting regent, was an example. One or two
+looked as if they might be humane and benevolent--men who might make one
+accept the gentle old Lama in 'Kim' as a not impossible fiction; but
+most of them appeared to me to be gross and sottish. I must confess that
+during the protracted negociations at Lhasa I had little sympathy with
+the Lamas. It is a mistake to think that they keep their country closed
+out of any religious scruple. Buddhism in its purest form is not
+exclusive or fanatical. Sakya Muni preached a missionary religion. He
+was Christlike in his universal love and his desire to benefit all
+living creatures. But Buddhism in Tibet has become more and more
+degenerate, and the Lamaist Church is now little better than a political
+mechanism whose chief function is the uncompromising exclusion of
+foreigners. The Lamas know that intercourse with other nations must
+destroy their influence with the people.
+
+And Tibet is really ruled by the Lamas. Outside Lhasa are the three
+great monasteries of Depung, Sera, and Gaden, whose Abbots, backed by a
+following of nearly 30,000 armed and bigoted monks, maintain a
+preponderating influence in the national assembly.[19] These men wield a
+greater influence than the four Shapes or the Dalai Lama himself, and
+practically dictate the policy of the country.
+
+ [19] 'It may be asked how the monastic influence is brought to bear
+ on a Government in which three out of the four principal
+ Ministers (Shape) are laymen. The fact seems to be that lying
+ behind the Tak Lama, the Shapes, and all the machinery of the
+ Tibetan Government, as we have hitherto been acquainted with it,
+ there is an institution called the "Tsong-du-chembo," or
+ "Tsong-dugze-tsom," which may reasonably be compared with what we
+ call a "National Assembly," or, as the word implies, "Great
+ Assembly." It is constituted of the Kenpas or Abbots of the three
+ great monasteries, representatives from the four lings or small
+ monasteries actually in Lhasa city, and from all the other
+ monasteries in the province of U; and besides this, all the
+ officials of the Government are present--laymen and ecclesiastics
+ alike--to the number of several hundreds.'--Captain O'Connor's
+ Diary at Khamba Jong (Tibetan Blue-Book, 1904).
+
+The three great monasteries are of ancient foundation, and intimately
+associated with the history of the country. They are, in fact,
+ecclesiastical Universities,[20] and resemble in many ways our
+Universities of Oxford and Cambridge. The Universities are divided into
+colleges. Each has its own Abbot, or Master, and disciplinary staff. The
+undergraduates, or candidates for ordination, must attend lectures and
+chapels, and pass examinations in set books, which they must learn from
+cover to cover before they can take their degree. Failure in
+examination, as well as breaches in discipline and manners, are punished
+by flogging. Corporal punishment is also dealt out to the unfortunate
+tutors, who are held responsible for their pupils' omissions. If a
+candidate repeatedly fails to pass his examination, he is expelled from
+the University, and can only enter again on payment of increased fees.
+The three leading Universities are empowered to confer degrees which
+correspond to our Bachelor and Doctor of Divinity. The monks live in
+rooms in quadrangles, and have separate messing clubs, but meet for
+general worship in the cathedral. If their code is strictly observed,
+which I very much doubt, prayers and tedious religious observances must
+take up nearly their whole day. But the Lamas are adept casuists, and
+generally manage to evade the most irksome laws of their scriptures.
+
+ [20] I have derived most of my information regarding the discipline
+ and constitution of Depung from 'Lamaism in Tibet,' by Colonel
+ Augustine Waddell, who accompanied the expedition as Archaeologist
+ and Principal Medical Officer.
+
+Soon after our arrival in Lhasa we had occasion to visit Depung, which
+is probably the largest monastery in the world. It stands in a natural
+amphitheatre in the hillside two miles from the city, a huge collection
+of temples and monastic buildings, larger, and certainly more imposing,
+than most towns in Tibet.
+
+The University was founded in 1414, during the reign of the first Grand
+Lama of the Reformed Church. It is divided into four colleges, and
+contains nearly 8,000 monks, amongst whom there is a large Mongolian
+community. The fourth Grand Lama, a Mongolian, is buried within the
+precincts. The fifth and greatest Dalai Lama, who built the Potala and
+was the first to combine the temporal and spiritual power, was an Abbot
+of Depung. The reigning Dalai Lama visits Depung annually, and a palace
+in the university is reserved for his use. The Abbot, of course, is a
+man of very great political influence.
+
+All these facts I have collected to show that the monks have some reason
+to be proud of their monastery as the first in Tibet. One may forgive
+them a little pride in its historic distinctions. Even in our own alma
+mater we meet the best of men who seem to gather importance from old
+traditions and association with a long roll of distinguished names.
+What, then, can we expect of this Tibetan community, the most
+conservative in a country that has prided itself for centuries on its
+bigotry and isolation--men who are ignorant of science, literature,
+history, politics, everything, in fact, except their own narrow
+priestcraft and confused metaphysics? We call the Tibetan 'impossible.'
+His whole education teaches him to be so, and the more educated he is
+the more 'impossible' he becomes.
+
+Imagine, then, the consternation at Depung when a body of armed men rode
+up to the monastery and demanded supplies. We had refrained from
+entering the monasteries of Lhasa and its neighbourhood at the request
+of the Abbots and Shapes, but only on condition that the monks should
+bring in supplies, which were to be paid for at a liberal rate. The
+Abbots failed to keep their promise, supplies were not forthcoming, and
+it became necessary to resort to strong measures. An officer was sent to
+the gate with an escort of three men and a letter saying that if the
+provisions were not handed over within an hour we would break into the
+monastery and take them, if necessary, by force. The messengers were met
+by a crowd of excited Lamas, who refused to accept the letter, waved
+them away, and rolled stones towards them menacingly, as an intimation
+that they were prepared to fight. As the messengers rode away the tocsin
+was heard, warning the villagers, women and children, who were gathered
+outside with market produce, to depart.
+
+General Macdonald with a strong force of British and native troops drew
+up within 1,300 yards of the monastery, guns were trained on Depung, the
+infantry were deployed, and we waited the expiration of the period of
+grace intimated in the letter. An hour passed by, and it seemed as if
+military operations were inevitable, when groups of monks came out with
+a white flag, carrying baskets of eggs and a complimentary scarf.
+
+Even in the face of this military display they began to temporize. They
+bowed and chattered and protested in their usual futile manner, and
+condescended so far as to say they would talk the matter over if we
+retired at once, and send the supplies to our camp the next day, if they
+came to a satisfactory decision. The Lamas are trained to wrangle and
+dispute and defer and vacillate.[21] They seem to think that speech was
+made only to evade conclusions. The curt ultimatum was repeated, and the
+deputation was removed gently by two impassive sepoys, still chattering
+like a flock of magpies.
+
+ [21] The highest degree which is conferred on the Lamas by their
+ Universities is the Rabs-jam-pa (verbally overflowing
+ endlessly).--Waddell, 'Lamaism in Tibet.'
+
+In the meanwhile we sat and waited and smoked our pipes, and wondered if
+there were going to be another Guru. It seemed the most difficult thing
+in the world to save these poor fools from the effects of their
+obstinate folly. The time-limit had nearly expired, the two batteries
+were advanced 300 yards, the gunners took their sights again, and
+trained the 10-pounders on the very centre of the monastery.
+
+There were only five minutes more, and we were stirred, according to our
+natures, by pity or exasperation or the swift primitive instinct for the
+dramatic, which sweeps away the humanities, and leaves one to the
+conflict of elemental passions.
+
+At last a thin line of red-robed monks was seen to issue from the gate
+and descend the hill, each carrying a bag of supplies. The crisis was
+over, and we were spared the necessity of inflicting a cruel
+punishment. I waited to see the procession, a group of sullen
+ecclesiastics, who had never bowed or submitted to external influence in
+their lives, carrying on their backs their unwilling contribution to the
+support of the first foreign army that had ever intruded on their
+seclusion. It must have been the most humiliating day in the history of
+Depung.
+
+It must be admitted that it was not a moment when the monks looked their
+best. Yet I could not help comparing their appearance with that of the
+simple honest-looking peasantry. Many of them looked sottish and
+degraded; other faces showed cruelty and cunning; their brows were
+contracted as if by perpetual scheming; some were almost simian in
+appearance, and looked as if they could not harbour a thought that was
+not animal or sensual. They waddled in their walk, and their right arms,
+exposed from the shoulder, looked soft and flabby, as if they had never
+done an honest day's work in their life.
+
+One man had the face of an inquisitor--round, beady eyes, puffed cheeks,
+and thin, tightly-shut mouth.
+
+How they hated us! If one of us fell into their hands secretly, I have
+no doubt they would rack him limb from limb, or cut him into small
+pieces with a knife.
+
+The Depung incident shows how difficult it was to make any headway with
+the Tibetans without recourse to arms. We were present in the city to
+insist on compliance with our demands. But an amicable settlement seemed
+hopeless, and we could not stay in Lhasa indefinitely. What if these
+monks were to say, 'You may stay here if you like. We will not molest
+you, but we refuse to accept your terms'? We could only retire or train
+our guns on the Potala. Retreat was, of course, impossible.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XV
+
+THE SETTLEMENT
+
+
+The political deadlock continued until within a week of the signing of
+the treaty.
+
+For a long time no responsible delegates were forthcoming. The Shapes,
+who were weak men and tools of the fugitive Dalai Lama, protested that
+any treaty they might make with us would result in their disgrace. If,
+on the other hand, they made no treaty, and we were compelled to occupy
+the Potala, or take some other step offensive to the hierarchy, their
+ruin would be equally certain. Ruin, in fact, faced them in any case.
+
+The highest officials in Tibet visited Colonel Younghusband, expressed
+their eagerness to see differences amicably settled, and, when asked to
+arrange the simplest matter, said they were afraid to take on themselves
+the responsibility. And this was not merely astute evasiveness. It was
+really a fact that there was no one in Lhasa who dared commit himself by
+an action or assurance of any kind.
+
+Yet there existed some kind of irresponsible disorganized machine of
+administration which sometimes arrived at a decision about matters of
+the moment. The National Assembly was sufficiently of one mind to depose
+and imprison the Ta Lama, the ecclesiastical member of Council. His
+disgrace was due to his failure to persuade us to return to Gyantse.
+
+The National Assembly held long sessions daily, and after more than a
+week of discussion they began to realize that there was at least one aim
+that was common to them all--that the English should be induced to leave
+Lhasa. They then appointed accredited delegates, whose decisions, they
+said, would be entirely binding on the Dalai Lama, should he come back.
+The Dalai Lama had left his seal with Te Rinpoche, the acting regent,
+but with no authority to use it.
+
+The terms of the treaty were disclosed to the Amban, who communicated
+them to the Tsong-du. The Tsong-du submitted the draft of their reply to
+the Amban before it was presented to Colonel Younghusband. The first
+reply of the Assembly to our demands ought to be preserved as a historic
+epitome of national character. The indemnity, they said, ought to be
+paid by us, and not by them. We had invaded their territory, and spoiled
+their monasteries and lands, and should bear the cost. The question of
+trade marts they were obstinately opposed to; but, provided we carried
+out the other terms of the treaty to their satisfaction, they would
+consider the advisability of conceding us a market at Rinchengong, a
+mile and a half beyond the present one at Yatung. They would not be
+prepared, however, to make this concession unless we undertook to pay
+for what we purchased on the spot, to respect their women, and to
+refrain from looting. Road-making they could not allow, as the blasting
+and upheaval of soil offended their gods and brought trouble on the
+neighbourhood. The telegraph-wire was against their customs, and
+objectionable on religious grounds. With regard to foreign relations,
+they had never had any dealings with an outside race, and they intended
+to preserve this policy so long as they were not compelled to seek
+protection from another Power.
+
+The tone of the reply indicates the attitude of the Tibetans. Obstinacy
+could go no further. The document, however, was not forwarded officially
+to the Commissioner, but returned to the Assembly by the Amban as too
+impertinent for transmission. The Amban explained to Colonel
+Younghusband that the Tibetans regarded the negociations in the light of
+a huckster's bargain. They did not realize that we were in a position to
+enforce terms, and that our demands were unconditional, but thought that
+by opening negociations in an unconciliatory manner, and asking for more
+than they expected, they might be able to effect a compromise and escape
+the full exaction of the penalty.
+
+The first concession on the part of the Tibetans was the release of the
+two Lachung men, natives of Sikkim and British subjects, who had been
+captured and beaten at Tashilunpo in July, 1903, while the Commission
+was waiting at Khamba Jong. Their liberation was one of the terms of the
+treaty. Colonel Younghusband made the release the occasion of an
+impressive durbar, in which he addressed a solemn warning to the
+Tibetans on the sanctity of the British subject. The imprisonment of the
+two men from Sikkim, he said, was the most serious offence of which the
+Tibetans had been guilty. It was largely on that account that the Indian
+Government had decided to advance to Gyantse. The prisoners were brought
+straight from the dungeon to the audience-hall. They had been
+incarcerated in a dark underground cell for more than a year, and they
+knew nothing of the arrival of the English in Lhasa until the morning
+when Colonel Younghusband told them they were free by the command of the
+King-Emperor. I shall never forget the scene--the bewilderment and
+delight of the prisoners, their drawn, blanched features, and the sullen
+acquiescence of the Tibetans, who learnt for the first time the meaning
+of the old Roman boast, 'Civis Romanus sum.'
+
+On August 20 Colonel Younghusband received through the Amban the second
+reply to our demands. The tone of the delegates was still impossible,
+though slightly modified and more reasonable. Several durbars followed,
+but they did not advance the negociations. Instead of discussing matters
+vital to the settlement, the Tibetan representatives would arrive with
+all the formalities and ceremonial of durbar to beg us not to cut grass
+in a particular field, or to request the return of the empty grain-bags
+to the monasteries. The Amban said that he had met with nothing but
+shuffling from the 'barbarians' during his term of office. They were
+'dark and cunning adepts at prevarication, children in the conduct of
+affairs.'
+
+The counsellors, however, began to show signs of wavering. They were
+evidently eager to come to terms, though they still hoped to reduce our
+demands, and tried to persuade the Commissioner to agree to conditions
+proposed by themselves.
+
+Throughout this rather trying time our social relations with the
+Tibetans were of a thoroughly friendly character. The Shapes and one or
+two of the leading monks attended race-meetings and gymkanas, put their
+money on the totalizator, and seemed to enjoy their day out. When their
+ponies ran in the visitors' race, the members of Council temporarily
+forgot their stiffness, waddled to the rails to see the finish, and were
+genuinely excited. They were entertained at lunch and tea by Colonel
+Younghusband, and were invited to a Tibetan theatrical performance given
+in the courtyard of the Lhalu house, which became the headquarters of
+the mission. On these occasions they were genial and friendly, and
+appreciated our hospitality.
+
+The humbler folk apparently bore us no vindictiveness, and showed no
+signs of resenting our presence in the city. Merchants and storekeepers
+profited by the exaggerated prices we paid for everything we bought.
+Trade in Lhasa was never brisker. The poor were never so liberally
+treated. One day a merry crowd of them were collected on the plain
+outside the city, and largess was distributed to more than 11,000. Every
+babe in arms within a day's march of Lhasa was brought to the spot, and
+received its dole of a tanka (5d.).
+
+I think the Tibetans were genuinely impressed with our humanity during
+this time, and when, on the eve of our departure, the benign and
+venerable Te Rinpoche held his hands over General Macdonald in
+benediction, and solemnly blessed him for his clemency and moderation in
+sparing the monasteries and people, no one doubted his thankfulness was
+sincere. The golden Buddha he presented to the General was the highest
+pledge of esteem a Buddhist priest could bestow.
+
+When, on September 1, the Tibetans, after nearly a month's palaver, had
+accepted only two of the terms of the treaty,[22] Colonel Younghusband
+decided that the time had come for a guarded ultimatum. He told the
+delegates that, if the terms were not accepted in full within a week, he
+would consult General Macdonald as to what measures it would be
+necessary to take to enforce compliance. Their submission was complete,
+and immediate.
+
+ [22] The liberation of the Lachung men and the destruction of the
+ Yatung and Gob-sorg barriers.
+
+Colonel Younghusband had achieved a diplomatic triumph of the highest
+order. If the ultimatum had been given three weeks, or even a fortnight,
+earlier, I believe the Tibetans would have resisted. When we reached
+Lhasa on August 3, the Nepalese Resident said that 10,000 armed monks
+had been ready to oppose us if we had decided to quarter ourselves
+inside the city, and they had only dispersed when the Shapes who rode
+out to meet us at Toilung returned with assurances that we were going to
+camp outside. At one time it seemed impossible to make any progress with
+negociations without further recourse to arms. But patience and
+diplomacy conquered. We had shown the Tibetans we could reach Lhasa and
+yet respect their religion, and left an impression that our strength was
+tempered with humanity.
+
+The treaty was signed in the Potala on August 7, in the Dalai Lama's
+throne-room. The Tibetan signatories were the acting regent, who affixed
+the seal of the Dalai Lama; the four Shapes; the Abbots of the three
+great monasteries, Depung, Sera, and Gaden; and a representative of the
+National Assembly. The Amban was not empowered to sign, as he awaited
+'formal sanction' from Peking. Lest the treaty should be afterwards
+disavowed through a revolution in Government, the signatories included
+representatives of every organ of administration in Lhasa.
+
+On the afternoon of the 7th our troops lined the causeway on the west
+front of the Potala. Towards the summit the rough and broken road became
+an ascent of slippery steps, where one had to walk crabwise to prevent
+falling, and plant one's feet on the crevices of the age-worn
+flagstones, where grass and dock-leaves gave one a securer foothold.
+Then through the gateway and along a maze of slippery passages, dark as
+Tartarus, but illumined dimly by flickering butter lamps held by aged
+monks, impassive and inscrutable. In the audience-chamber Colonel
+Younghusband, General Macdonald, and the Chinese Amban sat beneath the
+throne of the Dalai Lama. On either side of them were the British
+Political Officer and Tibetan signatories. In another corner were the
+Tongsa Penlop of Bhutan and his lusty big-boned men, and the dapper
+little Nepalese Resident, wreathed in smiles. British officers sat round
+forming a circle. Behind them stood groups of Tommies, Sikhs, Gurkhas,
+and Pathans. In the centre the treaty, a voluminous scroll, was laid on
+a table, the cloth of which was a Union Jack.
+
+When the terms had been read in Tibetan, the signatories stepped forward
+and attached their seals to the three parallel columns written in
+English, Tibetan, and Chinese. They showed no trace of sullenness and
+displeasure. The regent smiled as he added his name.
+
+After the signing Colonel Younghusband addressed the Tibetans:
+
+'The convention has been signed. We are now at peace, and the
+misunderstandings of the past are over. The bases have been laid for
+mutual good relations in the future.
+
+'In the convention the British Government have been careful to avoid
+interfering in the smallest degree with your religion. They have annexed
+no part of your territory, have made no attempt to interfere in your
+internal affairs, and have fully recognised the continued suzerainty of
+the Chinese Government. They have merely sought to insure--
+
+'1. That you shall abide by the treaty made by the Amban in 1890.
+
+'2. That trade relations between India and Tibet, which are no less
+advantageous to you than to us, should be established as they have been
+with every other part of the Chinese Empire, and with every other
+country in the world except Tibet.
+
+'3. That British representatives should be treated with respect in
+future.
+
+'4. That you should not depart from your traditional policy in regard to
+political relations with other countries.
+
+'The treaty which has now been made I promise you on behalf of the
+British Government we will rigidly observe, but I also warn you that we
+will as rigidly enforce it. Any infringement of it will be severely
+punished in the end, and any obstruction of trade, any disrespect or
+injury to British subjects, will be noticed and reparation exacted.
+
+'We treat you well when you come to India. We do not take a single rupee
+in Customs duties from your merchants. We allow any of you to travel and
+reside wherever you will in India. We preserve the ancient buildings of
+the Buddhist faith, and we expect that when we come to Tibet we shall be
+treated with no less consideration and respect than we show you in
+India.
+
+'You have found us bad enemies when you have not observed your treaty
+obligations and shown disrespect to the British Raj. You will find us
+equally good friends if you keep the treaty and show us civility.
+
+'I hope that the peace which has at this moment been established between
+us will last for ever, and that we may never again be forced to treat
+you as enemies.
+
+'As the first token of peace I will ask General Macdonald to release all
+prisoners of war. I expect that you on your part will set at liberty all
+those who have been imprisoned on account of dealings with us.'
+
+At the conclusion of the speech, which was interpreted to the Tibetans
+sentence by sentence, and again in Chinese, the Shapes expressed their
+intention to observe the treaty faithfully.[23]
+
+ [23] The following is a draft of the terms as communicated by _The
+ Times_ Correspondent at Peking. The terms have not yet been
+ disclosed in their final form, but I understand that Dr.
+ Morrison's summary contains the gist of them:
+
+ '1. Tibetans to re-erect boundary-stones at the Tibet frontier.
+
+ '2. Tibetans to establish marts at Gyangtse, Yatung, Gartok, and
+ facilitate trade with India.
+
+ '3. Tibet to appoint a responsible official to confer with the
+ British officials regarding the alteration of any objectionable
+ features of the treaty of 1893.
+
+ '4. No further Customs duties to be levied upon merchandise after
+ the tariff shall have been agreed upon by Great Britain and the
+ Tibetans.
+
+ '5. No Customs stations to be established on the route between the
+ Indian frontier and the three marts mentioned above, where
+ officials shall be appointed to facilitate diplomatic and
+ commercial intercourse.
+
+ '6. Tibet to pay an indemnity of L500,000 in three annual
+ instalments, the first to be paid on January 1, 1906.
+
+ '7. British troops to occupy the Chumbi Valley for three years, or
+ until such time as the trading posts are satisfactorily
+ established and the indemnity liquidated in full.
+
+ '8. All forts between the Indian frontier on routes traversed by
+ merchants from the interior of Tibet to be demolished.
+
+ '9. Without the consent of Great Britain no Tibetan territory
+ shall be sold, leased, or mortgaged to any foreign Power
+ whatsoever; no foreign Power whatsoever shall be permitted to
+ concern itself with the administration of the government of Tibet,
+ or any other affairs therewith connected; no foreign Power shall
+ be permitted to send either official or non-official persons to
+ Tibet--no matter in what pursuit they may be engaged--to assist in
+ the conduct of Tibetan affairs; no foreign Power shall be
+ permitted to construct roads or railways or erect telegraphs or
+ open mines anywhere in Tibet.
+
+ 'In the event of Great Britain's consenting to another Power
+ constructing roads or railways, opening mines, or erecting
+ telegraphs, Great Britain will make a full examination on her own
+ account for carrying out the arrangements proposed. No real
+ property or land containing minerals or precious metals in Tibet
+ shall be mortgaged, exchanged, leased, or sold to any foreign
+ Power.
+
+ '10. Of the two versions of the treaty, the English text to be
+ regarded as operative.'
+
+ The ninth clause, which precludes Russian interference and
+ consequent absorption, is of course the most vital article of the
+ treaty.
+
+The next day in durbar a scene was enacted which reminded one of a play
+before the curtain falls, when the characters are called on the stage
+and apprised of their changed fortunes, and everything ends happily.
+Among the mutual pledges and concessions and evidences of goodwill that
+followed we secured the release of the political captives who had been
+imprisoned on account of assistance rendered British subjects. An old
+man and his son were brought into the hall looking utterly bowed and
+broken. The old man's chains had been removed from his limbs that
+morning for the first time in twenty years, and he came in blinking at
+the unaccustomed light like a blind man miraculously restored to sight.
+He had been the steward of the Phalla estate near Dongste; his offence
+was hospitality shown to Sarat Chandra Das in 1884. An old monk of Sera
+was released next. He was so weak that he had to be supported into the
+room. His offence was that he had been the teacher of Kawa Guchi, the
+Japanese traveller who visited Lhasa in the disguise of a Chinese
+pilgrim. We who looked on these sad relics of humanity felt that their
+restitution to liberty was in itself sufficient to justify our advance
+to Lhasa.
+
+On August 14 the Amban posted in the streets of Lhasa a proclamation
+that the Dalai Lama was deposed by the authority of the Chinese Emperor,
+owing to the desertion of his trust at a national crisis. Temporal power
+was vested in the hands of the National Assembly and the regent, while
+the spiritual power was transferred to Panchen Rinpoche, the Grand Lama
+of Tashilunpo, who is venerated by Buddhists as the incarnation of
+Amitabha, and held as sacred as the Dalai Lama himself. The Tashe Lama,
+as he is called in Europe, has always been more accessible than the
+Dalai Lama. It was to the Tashe Lama that Warren Hastings despatched the
+missions of Bogle and Turner, and the intimate friendship that grew up
+between George Bogle and the reigning incarnation is perhaps the only
+instance of such a tie existing between an Englishman and a Tibetan. The
+officials of the Tsang province, where the Tashe Lama resides, are not
+so bigoted as the Lhasa oligarchy. It was a minister of the Tashe Lama
+who invited Sarat Chandra Das to Shigatze, learnt the Roman characters
+from him, and sat for hours listening to his talk about languages and
+scientific developments. The exile of this man, and the execution of the
+Abbot of Dongste, who was drowned in the Tsangpo, for hospitality shown
+to the Bengali explorer, are the most recent marks of the difference in
+attitude between the Lhasans and the people of Tsang.
+
+The present incarnation has not shown himself bitterly anti-foreign.
+During the operations in Tibet he remained as neutral and inactive as
+safety permitted, and it is not impossible that the hope of Mr. Ular may
+be realized, and an Anglophile Buddhist Pope established at Shigatze.
+Herein lies a possible simplification of the Tibetan problem, which has
+already lost some of its complexity by the flight of the Dalai Lama to
+Urga.
+
+In estimating the practical results of the Tibet Expedition, we should
+not attach too much importance to the exact observance of the terms of
+the treaty. Trade marts and roads, and telegraph-wires, and open
+communications are important issues, but they were never our main
+objective. What was really necessary was to make the Tibetans understand
+that they could not afford to trifle with us. The existence of a
+truculent race on our borders who imagined that they were beyond the
+reach of our displeasure was a source of great political danger. We
+went to Tibet to revolutionize the whole policy of the Lhasa oligarchy
+towards the Indian Government.
+
+The practical results of the mission are these: The removal of a ruler
+who threatened our security and prestige on the North-East frontier by
+overtures to a foreign Power; the demonstration to the Tibetans that
+this Power is unable to support them in their policy of defiance to
+Great Britain, and that their capital is not inaccessible to British
+troops.
+
+We have been to Lhasa once, and if necessary we can go there again. The
+knowledge of this is the most effectual leverage we could have in
+removing future obstruction. In dealing with people like the Tibetans,
+the only sure basis of respect is fear. They have flouted us for nearly
+twenty years because they have not believed in our power to punish their
+defiance. Out of this contempt grew the Russian menace, to remove which
+was the real object of the Tibet Expedition. Have we removed it? Our
+verdict on the success or failure of Lord Curzon's Tibetan policy
+should, I think, depend on the answer to this question.
+
+There can be no doubt that the despatch of British troops to Lhasa has
+shown the Tibetans that Russia is a broken reed, her agents utterly
+unreliable, and her friendship nothing but a hollow pretence. The
+British expedition has not only frustrated her designs in Tibet: it has
+made clear to the whole of Central Asia the insincerity of her pose as
+the Protector of the Buddhist Church.
+
+But the Tibetans are not an impressionable people. Their conduct after
+the campaign of 1888 shows us that they forget easily. To make the
+results of the recent expedition permanent, Lord Curzon's original
+policy should be carried out in full, and a Resident with troops left in
+Lhasa. It will be objected that this forward policy is too fraught with
+possibilities of political trouble, and too costly to be worth the end
+in view. But half-measures are generally more expensive and more
+dangerous in the long-run than a bold policy consistently carried out.
+
+We have left a trade agent at Gyantse with an escort of fifty men, as
+well as four or five companies at Chumbi and Phari Jong, at distances of
+100 and 130 miles. But no vigilance at Gyantse can keep the Indian
+Government informed of Russian or Chinese intrigue in Lhasa. Lhasa is
+Tibet, and there alone can we watch the ever-shifting pantomime of
+Tibetan politics and the manoeuvres of foreign Powers. If we are not
+to lose the ground we have gained, the foreign relations of Tibet must
+stand under British surveillance.
+
+But putting aside the question of vigilance, our prestige requires that
+there should be a British Resident in Lhasa. That we have left an
+officer at Gyantse, and none at Lhasa, will be interpreted by the
+Tibetans as a sign of weakness.
+
+Then, again, diplomatic relations with Tibet can only continue a farce
+while we are ignorant of the political situation in Lhasa. Influences in
+the capital grow and decay with remarkable rapidity. The Lamas are
+adepts in intrigue. When we left Lhasa, the best-informed of our
+political officers could not hazard a guess as to what party would be in
+power in a month's time, whether the Dalai Lama would come back, or in
+what manner his deposition would affect our future relations with the
+country. We only knew that our departure from Lhasa was likely to be the
+signal for a conflict of political factions that would involve a state
+of confusion. The Dalai Lama still commanded the loyalty of a large body
+of monks. Sera Monastery was known to support him, while Gaden, though
+it contained a party who favoured the deposed Shata Shape, numbered many
+adherents to his cause. The only political figure who had no following
+or influence of any kind was the unfortunate Amban.[24] Whatever party
+gains the upper hand, the position of the Chinese Amban is not enviable.
+
+ [24] The Amban or Chinese Resident in Lhasa is in the same position
+ as a British Resident in the Court of a protected chief in India.
+ Of late years, however, the Amban's authority has been little
+ more than nominal.
+
+At the moment of writing China has not signed the treaty; she may do so
+yet, but her signature is not of vital importance. The Tibetans will
+decide for themselves whether it is safe to provoke our hostility. If
+they decide to defy us, then of course trouble may arise from their
+refusing to recognise the treaty of 1904 on the pretext that it was not
+signed by the Amban.
+
+It will be remembered that after the campaign of 1888 the convention we
+drew up in Calcutta was signed by China, and afterwards repudiated by
+Tibet. For many years the Tibetans have ignored China's suzerainty, and
+refused to be bound by a convention drawn up by her in their behalf; but
+now the plea of suzerainty is convenient, they may use it as a pretext
+to escape their new obligations.
+
+It is even possible that the Amban advised the Tibetan delegates in
+Lhasa to agree to any terms we asked, if they wanted to be rid of us, as
+any treaty we might make with them would be invalid without the
+acquiescence of China. Thus the 'vicious circle' revolves, and a more
+admirable political device from the Chino-Tibetan point of view cannot
+be conceived.
+
+But the permanence of the new conditions in Tibet does not depend on
+China. If the Tibetans think they are still able to flout us, they will
+do so, and one pretext will serve as well as another. But if they have
+learnt that our displeasure is dangerous they will take care not to
+provoke it again.
+
+The success or failure of the recent expedition depends on the
+impression we have left on the Tibetans. If that impression is to be
+lasting, we must see that our interests are well guarded in Lhasa, or in
+a few months we may lose the ground we gained, with what cost and danger
+to ourselves only those who took part in the expedition can understand.
+
+THE END
+
+BILLING AND SONS LIMITED, GUILDFORD.
+
+
+
+
+Transcriber's Note:
+
+
+The following modifications have been made to the text.
+
+ Contents, Chapter XII: 'Kalimpang' replaced with 'Kalimpong'.
+ British Bhutan--Kalimpong--'The Bhutia tat'
+
+ Page 46: The comma after 'services' replaced with a period.
+ for his good services. When I asked him how he stood with
+ the Tibetan Government
+
+ Page 248: 'the of' replaced with 'of the'.
+ mystery of the East.
+
+ Page 277: 'a' replaced with 'as'.
+ As early as 1641
+
+
+
+
+
+
+End of Project Gutenberg's The Unveiling of Lhasa, by Edmund Candler
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