The following day we marched down the Tsangpo or Brahmaputra to Chaksam Ferry. A small column of mounted infantry had ridden ahead of us and captured the local flotilla, which consisted of two large rectangular ferry boats, capable each of holding about twenty mules, a hundred men, or two hundred maunds of stores. Each boat was decorated with a roughly carved figure-head representing a horse. One horse had lost one of its ears, which rather detracted from its otherwise imposing appearance. The party that had preceded us to capture the ferry had also, by the time the main column arrived, penetrated the monastery which overlooked the river, made friends with the monks, and engaged the services of the local ferrymen, who all belonged to the monastery. The monks also placed at our disposal several skin boats. These were curious craft. They resembled the Welsh coracle in shape, being quite square, but were a great deal larger, and capable of holding several people at a time. They consisted merely of skins stretched over thin stays of wood, were very light, and drew very little water. A man rowed them from one end, sitting on the gunwale, any old bit of rope being used in place of rowlocks to attach the rough peel-shaped oars to the sides of the boat. Sometimes two boats were tied together to make one, in which case one boatman would row at one end of the now oblong craft, while another, sitting opposite him and facing him on the gunwale at the far end, would assist by 'backing water.' Progress was slow in any case.
We had brought with us several 'Berthon' boats, which, consisting as they did only of canvas stretched on to a wooden framework, and being divisible into two halves, had been carried along on the backs of coolies without much difficulty. We had with us also a useful gang of Attock boatmen, men who knew how to circumvent the eddies and currents of the Indus in its upper reaches, and who did not fail us on the Tsangpo. With the two large ferry boats, the skin boats, the Berthon boats, the Attock boatmen, and the contingent of Tibetan boatmen from the monastery, all ready to hand, it was possible to begin the crossing of the river without a moment's delay. Meanwhile, in order to reduce the number of mules that would otherwise be largely monopolising the large ferry boats, it was decided to swim some mules across—a work which was taken in hand at once. At the same time the sappers, who in the field-park had brought up various appliances for facilitating ferry work, made haste to set hawsers, 'travellers,' and wires in position for immediate use. As soon as these contrivances were in working order, which was not long, the crossing proceeded at a pace which exceeded our expectations.
But, before the crossing had well begun, the saddest event of the Tibet Expedition had occurred. We had lost a good many men in action on various occasions, and a few officers. In the preceding winter there had been deaths more or less frequent from such ills as flesh is heir to. But to fall in action is a special contingency which all soldiers have to face, and to die by disease is the usual lot of mankind. At the loss of comrades in these ways we grieve, but do not grieve with any amazement. Far different from this normal grief was our feeling when we heard that some sepoys, and with them Major Bretherton, our chief Supply and Transport officer, had, while crossing the river, been caught by one of several eddies formed by the sharp jutting out of a certain rocky headland into midstream, been capsized, sucked down by the eddies, and drowned.
The gloom that was cast was, as I have said, greater than that cast by the loss of comrades in action. The ill luck in the case of Major Bretherton seemed cruel. A moment before we had seen him full of health, cheery and active, confident of seeing in a few days a happy termination to the anxieties which in this march to Lhassa, with necessarily slender commissariat, had been largely borne by himself. We had known him not only as decorated for past services, but as having, during these past few months, by his able and perpetual and unsparing work, ever daily enhanced a reputation that was already assured. Thus here was one, full of life and ripe for honour, cut off in his prime. Upon the Kamba-Là, a day ago, we had thought with a laugh of him as Moses viewing the promised land, and now, as a lump came into the throat, the same thought recurred, but this time full of sadness, for Lhassa, the promised land, to help us to reach which he had striven for nearly a year, was the land which he himself was not to see.
His body was carried down the Tsangpo, and we grieved at this, for we could not pay it the honour we desired. But why should we have grieved? For there, a pioneer always, who had ever gloried in exploring the confines of the Indian Empire, he had but followed his bent, pursuing the mysterious course of that river whose outlet still baffles us.
A melancholy sequel to the death of an officer on field service, whether occurring in this or in any other way, is the inevitable auction of his effects, for the conveyance of few of which to the base is transport likely to be available. A committee of adjustment assembles, and, after reserving only such articles as will be obviously acceptable to his relations as mementoes and can easily be carried, puts up the remainder to auction. To be auctioneer of the effects of a comrade is not an enviable post. I had to auction Major Bretherton's things, and found that the adoption of the correct, breezy, businesslike auctioneer's manner was up-hill work. A man so stamps his individuality on his belongings that often some well-worn familiar garment, as for instance the 'coat-warm British' with fur-lined collar that the officer had been used to wear on cold mornings, brings, as you hold it up to sale, many sad associations. And yet you must look round inquiringly, you must snatch on to the first bid, and appeal loudly for a higher. When the topmost bid is reached and no other is forthcoming, you must throw the coat to the buyer with a careless air and collect his rupees.
The prices that different articles fetch at these auctions is often amazing. The demand of course depends on whether the force as a whole has grown short of the particular article now for sale, and whether it can or cannot be obtained by the individual through the post. Beyond Gyantse there was no regular parcels post, so that of many articles we were feeling a keen want. Accordingly, a few sheets of note paper and a few envelopes held up in the hand as one enticing 'lot' would on that occasion fetch two rupees. At another similar auction I remember half-pounds of tobacco going for five rupees each, and one-rupee packets of 'Three Castles' cigarettes also for five rupees.
The Sappers and Miners, the coolis, the boatmen, the various units employed on fatigue, and the mule drivers must have been heartily glad when the crossing was all over. We were leaving both yaks and donkeys behind here (to work with convoys between Gyantse and Chaksam), so that we did not have to accomplish the feat of embarking and disembarking these somewhat clumsy animals; but even so, the amount of labour that had been involved was immense. I am told that, at any rate in Indian frontier warfare, there has hitherto been no instance of a force of this size crossing a river of this dimension without the aid of a pontoon bridge (the materials for which it would have been impossible on this occasion to carry with us). Further, the actual breadth of the river gave no idea of the difficulty of crossing it. The swiftness of the current, the whirlpools, and the speed with which the river, fed as it was by mountain streams, rose and fell, constituted the main difficulties. Further, in addition to the main channel which was the chief obstacle, there was a second channel beyond it, which, though not wide and sometimes fordable, constituted an additional delay to the crossing. As the last boatload crossed, the river was rising fast, and I am told that the amount of spare material left at the ends of the long rope, which was the main factor in swinging the large boats across without letting them drift down-stream, could be measured by the inch. Another inch or so in the rise of the river, and a corresponding widening of the stream, would have left that rope all too short for the work it had to accomplish, and our crossing might have been indefinitely delayed, for afterwards the river still continued rising.
We left the Tsangpo fairly well stocked with provisions. During the march of forty-five miles to Lhassa we were informed that we should come across all that we required. The road from North Chaksam followed the course of the river for three miles; then, taking a sharp turn to the left, entered another wide valley watered by another river, the course of which we were to trace up-stream as far as Lhassa.
On the first day out of Chaksam I had rather an amusing experience of the value set by a Tibetan on a 'chit' written by a British officer. In this respect the Tibetan out-herods Herod. India is the land of the 'chit.' The word is an abbreviation of 'chitthi,' a letter, and in its shortened form is specially applied to a certificate of good character given to a servant or to any pass in guarantee of respectability on any simple recognition of services rendered. A native barber in India who has cut your hair three times will ask for a 'chit' as a guarantee that he has done so. But the Tibetan, whether sophisticated lama or simple peasant, was even more susceptible to the charms of a 'chit,' those charms of course possessing for him something of the mystical, since he never understood its contents. Any 'chit' was apparently regarded as a sort of talisman, and was displayed by the owner with pride and confidence to every one, especially the next British officer who came his way.
On that day I was sent ahead with the advance guard to see what supplies each village contained. I had no transport with me nor means of collecting the supplies, and through an oversight had taken no one with me to send back with messages to the rear as to the result of my discoveries in each village. There was no use in telling a villager to point out to the officer who would come after me what stores I had unearthed; for the villagers, though well paid, would always evade supplying stores if possible. The only expedient left was to make use of those charms which were possessed by the 'chit.' In the first village I found fifty maunds of tsampa; so, solemnly taking out my pocket book, I wrote on a leaf of it 'fifty maunds of tsampa in a top-room of the house with the big red door,' and, tearing this out of the book, presented it with grave dignity to the owner of the house. At the next villages I acted similarly. Some hours after I reached camp the officer in charge of the transport that had been detailed for foraging reached camp in due possession of my fifty maunds of tsampa and all the other articles that I had enumerated in the subsequent chits. It had turned out exactly as I had hoped. That officer had entered the various villages in turn, and the proud possessors of the chits, innocent of their real purport, had come up to him and presented them with childlike simplicity for him to read, and of course they had given him just the information which they did not want to give him, but which he required, and which I had had no other means of conveying to him.
It was playing it rather low down perhaps, but, after all, we wanted the supplies.
There were at least two fair-sized monasteries which during the next few days we visited to obtain supplies. Monasteries seem to vary in character as they vary in size. Buddhism seems, in fact, to have left its mark upon Tibet in the manner of some great flood. Here on a lone hilltop stands a tiny monastery stagnant, like some small pool left by the flood, the monks few in number, their persons sordid, their minds vacant, and what remains of their religion stale or even polluted; while elsewhere in larger monasteries religion is clearer and more vital, and life less stagnant. This is a pure generalisation, and doubtless men, holy after their lights, often live in remote hovels, and in the chiefer centres religion may often be dreamy or callous, and sordid vices be not unknown. But perhaps, merely as a generalisation, the above may hold good.
A foraging visit to a monastery was often marked by several phases, in which the relations between visitor and visited underwent considerable change. The officer in charge of the foraging party would ride up to the monastery with his escort. They would have been seen coming, and after a few signs of hurrying and preparation and the fluttering of several red monastic skirts in the breeze, a small select deputation of monks would descend from the main building to meet the intruders. This deputation would first and foremost bring with it a white muslin rag as an emblem of peace. Along with the rag would be carried peace-offerings, of which the most common would be a tray of whole-wheat parched and salted, or a small basket of eggs, which, on nearer acquaintance later in the day, would usually be found to be neither new-laid nor fresh, but simply 'eggs.'
With the aid of an interpreter a pleasant conversation would ensue. The officer would then probably produce his hand-camera and snapshot the head lama, after which he would try to get to business. He would ask how much of such and such article the monastery could sell us. The monks would shake their heads, flutter their skirts, jerk up their thumbs, and in a shrill falsetto repeat the word 'Menduk' (which means 'nothing'). After a little more parley they would confess to having, say, twenty bagfuls of tsampa or whatever was required. Even the naming of a high rate and the jingling of a bag of rupees in their faces would not make them raise the above figure. You would then, if you were the officer, proceed within the monastery and demand to be shown the said twenty bagfuls. You would be led with great pomp and circumstance upstairs and along dark passages and past rows of cells till you were ushered into a small pantry or storeroom, where, with a gesture of pompous satisfaction at having so completely fulfilled your requirements, the head monk would point to a few handfuls of tsampa lying at the bottom of a small elongated wooden trough. You would feel a little annoyance at this, and show signs of it. The head monk, as by a happy inspiration, would suddenly beckon you to accompany him, and, after another long meandering through the monastery, would lead you to a large doorway into a large darkened hall, which, when your eyes became accustomed to the dim light, you would recognise as the main 'gompa' or temple of the monastery. Here his hand would steal into yours, which he would caress, while with his free hand he pointed to the chief image of Buddha, which he was apparently wishing you to admire. Of course you admired him, but you wanted tsampa, and this was obviously merely a ruse to detain you from your quest. British choler would then rise, and, going out of the temple with somewhat irreverent haste, you would begin to express yourself forcibly in terms which you made the interpreter translate. The interpreter had probably an axe of his own to grind, and it was doubtful how many of your trenchant phrases, even if fit to repeat in a monastery, got actually translated. But after a great show of meaning business, and a few threats of stronger measures in the background, you probably got, say, fifty maunds of tsampa from a proper storeroom which the lamas had previously refrained from showing you. A little later a few more threats and the threatening crack of a whip round the head of a 'chela' or two would send the monks all skipping about in trepidation, and the door of the main storeroom would be opened to you, in which you would find, it might be, two hundred maunds (or three days' supply for the force) of the desired article. After this you were all friends. No ill-will was borne on either side. The junior monks or 'chelas' would assist in bagging the flour, and in carrying it down to the place where the mules were waiting for it. The money would be doled out and counted with the greatest good humour, there would be another proffer of parched wheat and rotten eggs, and you would depart with the head lama's blessing.
After one such visit I dreamed a dream. I knocked in a boisterous swash-buckling manner at Tom Gate, the main gate of my old college—Christ Church. Behind me, stretching up St. Aldate's to Carfax, were a string of pack mules, fitted with empty bags, forage nets, and loading ropes. The gate was opened by those of the porters whom I knew years ago. One, an old soldier, saluted me. Then it occurred to me that I was a Japanese officer, and that in the year 2004 the Japanese army were invading England. I was at the head of a foraging party, and we had come to loot the House. We had a fine time. We started of course by ringing up the Dean. He too blessed me, and when I asked him for some of that old Burgundy that I know was a speciality of the senior common-room cellar, he showed me round the cathedral and pointed out the restored shrine of St. Frideswide. This was not what I wanted, and I told him so. I brought the mules in from outside, and set them to graze on the neat plots of turf that encircle 'Mercury' the fountain, and told him they must all go away laden with the good things of the Christ Church larder and cellar, at which he protested. Some undergraduates emerged in cap and gown from a lecture room and began to show fight. We drove them into Peckwater at the point of the bayonet.
Then the Steward and the Junior Censor appeared, and the latter began to reason with us in what I considered a tone unbecoming to a private person resident in an invaded country. I raised a heavy knout which I carried, and was going to flog the Junior Censor where he stood, when the Steward intervened, and, giving hurried orders to all the scouts and porters that stood around watching the scene, soon produced the finest store of provisions that we had met with in all our campaigning. The mules were marched out of Tom Gate, up St. Aldate's, along the Corn and out to Port Meadow, where we were encamped, laden with sirloins of beef, with turkeys, with geese and ducks and fowls and pheasants, with beer in the barrel and port wine in the case, while I remember taking special personal possession of a mould of 'aspic of larks' which I fancied for my supper.
But then I woke, and by doing so felt done out of that aspic of larks, which would have been a pleasant change from the fare of those days.
Quite a silly dream of course; but on recalling it with my waking thoughts, and feeling sympathy for the Dean and students of Christ Church, I felt some too for those poor lamas whom we had invaded the day before.
The mode of our arrival in the environs of Lhassa was something of an anti-climax. We had marched four hundred miles, fought a few fights, and provided ourselves throughout our journey with the necessaries of life, much against the will of the enemy, and here we were at Lhassa, where an exciting climax to our march, such as a good fight in the Lhassa plain, would have been highly artistic. Here stood the Debun monastery, and there further on the Sara monastery, full of monks who at that time hated us. A few good shells in those monasteries would have set the monks buzzing in consternation like swarming bees disturbed. There glistened in the sun the gilded roof of the chief astrologer's house, that would have made grand loot and have looked so well in the British Museum. There ahead of us rose majestically on its conical hill the Potá-Là, that pièce de résistance which would have really taxed our efforts, and by its side on a similar hill the Medical College, challenging us by its proud eminence to seize it. But such wild schemes were not to be realised. These ways were not our ways. We marched quietly into a swampy camp, sat down, and began to negotiate. Those that negotiated were busy men, for the amount of talking that the representatives of the Tibetan Government got through, and that needed listening to, before anything was settled, must have been immense. The rest of us were not often very busy. 'Those also serve who only stand and wait' was our motto.
There was reluctance at first on the part of the monasteries to sell us supplies, but this was shortly overcome. We had for one day to feed the natives of the force on peas soaked overnight in water as a substitute for tsampa, while waiting for supplies to come in; but from the time when the latter began to do so till we left Lhassa we felt no pinch. The large monasteries were our chief purveyors, but besides these the Chinese community of Lhassa comprised certain considerable merchants who at the instigation of the Amban placed their wares at our disposal from the very first. A Chinese market was a great boon to us, for the Chinaman, especially if at all influenced by other civilisations, has ideas on dietetics more nearly approximating to both those of the British and of the native of India than do the Tibetan's ideas. To the ordinary Tibetan the sucking of mouthfuls of tsampa at irregular intervals from a dirty leather bag which he hangs from his neck represents an adequate idea of diet. The monks and richer laymen of course do themselves better; but such dainties as they indulge in did not appeal to our palates, nor to those of Indian natives. Their butter, for instance, which at times both British and native had to make use of, had always a special flavour of its own—a flavour which in an indefinable way suggests Tibet and its many associations, being allied to a blend of such smells as that of Tibetan fuel, of joss-stick incense, and of temple floors smeared with grease. Few Europeans and fewer natives could eat Tibetan butter with relish. The Chinaman, on the other hand, provided us with flour sufficiently fine to bake with, with white and brown sugar, with that solidified form of molasses called 'goor,' and with dried fruits. Latterly we had often had to mix tsampa with flour to eke out our stock of the latter when baking bread for British troops. The result, though not unwholesome, was of a deep brown colour, and hardly palatable. If once cut into overnight, a tsampa loaf would have subsided into something very stodgy by morning, though, if all consumed at a sitting, it would not be found so heavy.
During the latter part of our march we had run out of most of such delicacies as a supply column usually carries, and, as I have already mentioned, no arrangement could be made to bring up the loads and loads of parcels which were now accumulating at Gyantse for most individuals and messes belonging to the column. In those days, in our attitude towards food, we reverted very much to the proverbial school-boy. We were frankly greedy in thought, word, and deed. The most favourite of interesting conversations was to discuss the ideal menu at a first-rate London restaurant. But sometimes these imaginings grew too painful. I remember well a case of two officers at noon on a comparatively hot day, sitting by the wayside at a halt.
'Ah,' said one, 'what I should really like now would be a large tumblerful of good iced hock-cup.'
These idle words touched a tender spot in the other officer, to whom hock-cup happened to be the beau-ideal of drinks.
'Shut up!' the latter answered angrily, a fierce light in his eye; 'if you mention hock-cup again, I'll break your head!'
Jam, as we marched to Lhassa, though not a necessity, was our primary desideratum. With long days in the open air and also with considerable fatigue to undergo, you craved for the sustenance of sweet things. Till sugar also began to run short, we used to make treacle from it. Like the school-boy, we, as a rule, thought little of alcohol. Just as water at that altitude boils at a low temperature, so did it need only a little fiery spirit to give the desired tingle to the blood. Most messes had soon run out of whiskey, and rum in small quantities from the supply column took its place.
I am inclined to think that, delightful as messing in a large mess is, something is lost by having no personal share in your own catering. A mess president, of course, especially on service, has a vast weight upon his shoulders. He has to foresee the wants of many hungry mouths months ahead, and fit them in to a scanty allowance of transport. But his function is of a special kind. The ordinary member of a mess simply eats what is put before him, notes whether it is good, bad, or indifferent, and thinks no more about it. On the other hand, if, with the aid of a purely experimental cook, you run your own messing, quite a new vista of energy is at once opened out to you. It becomes intensely interesting. You become very greedy, of course, and a good dinner becomes the mark of a successful day, and a bad dinner that of an unsuccessful one; but even so the arts of catering and of the supervision of cooking, when practised in difficulties, are not in themselves sordid, but demand skill and forethought of a high order. One wants company of course. I messed on the method of Mr. and Mrs. Jack Spratt with another officer. He was of the lean, I the fat kind. He breakfasted at eleven, or (if on the march) when he reached camp. I ate a huge breakfast the moment I was out of bed, and ran to a lunch later, which my messmate scorned. So, after all, we only met at dinner, but then that is the only meal at which company is a necessity. He dined usually on curry and rice, which I have always disliked, while I had roast meat served up to me in chunks on a dish, much as my dog gets it at home. Thus we got all the mutual advantages of each other's company when that was desirable, without the effort of subscribing to each other's tastes. We found it a most workmanlike arrangement. When, on reaching Lhassa, we had ample leisure, we began to grow fastidious, and to insist upon our cooks enlarging the culinary horizon. A little harsh treatment soon taught the youth who fed me to turn out a passable omelette, and a little more coercion resulted in quite eatable rissoles. In the end, when he came to take orders for dinner, he would rattle off a string of high-sounding dishes with French names, which would have really made a fine feast, if served otherwise than on enamelled iron plates, set upon a table cloth of advertisement sheets from a stale newspaper. Once I had a comrade to lunch on a sunny day, and, thinking to do him well, produced somewhere from the bottom of my kit a long disused but spotless bed sheet, and made use of this as a table cloth. My friend asked for its removal before the second course, complaining of incipient snow-blindness. When I got to India and to polite society, and began wiping my mouth with a table napkin, I discovered that on the first few occasions the napkin used to come away in my pocket. Of course, on making use of it, one thought subconsciously that it was one's handkerchief, and so tucked it away as such.
Tobacco, without a parcels post to bring it to us, became very scarce. The Sahib missed his pipe or cheroot, and the native his 'hubble-bubble,' and both alike took to the 'Pedro' cigarette, the produce of an enterprising firm whose custom extended to Lhassa. Vendors of Pedros had followed us on the march, and, apart from this, the Lhassa bazaar abounded in the article, getting it, I suppose, through China or by the trade route that lies through Nepal. By a rough estimate it would appear that for two months at least four thousand souls smoked an average of ten Pedros daily. The rate grew very much enhanced with the constant demand, and I know of one needy officer who, in view of the fortune thus doubtless made by the firm, has announced his intention of going head-down for home and offering his hand and heart to Miss Pedro, if he finds such a person existing.
Shopping in the camp bazaar was the ladylike way in which we often spent our mornings. We had only been in camp at Lhassa for twenty-four hours, when a bazaar was formed just outside camp by Tibetan, Chinese, and Nepali traders. It needed a little supervision to prevent disputes and disorder, but the provost-marshal quickly had it in hand. An attempt to fix rates for various more necessary articles was not wholly successful, human nature on the buyer's part crying out for the article at all cost, and human nature on the seller's seizing an easy chance of profit. There were vegetables in that bazaar and sticks of wild rhubarb. There was 'ata,' in small quantities, which the sepoy would buy greedily as a change from his tsampa. There were packets of white loaf sugar fetching exorbitant prices, and thick Chinese candles with bits of stick for wicks. Later on, when we had moved from our first camp to that which we occupied for the greater part of the time, the bazaar developed. The vendors by that time had discovered our childish mania for curios, and brought with them each morning such trinkets as would attract our fancy. Skins of all kinds would be brought for sale; the skins of very young lambs, almost as curly as real Astrakan, which, made up together in winter linings for lamas' robes, seemed equally adaptable to the opera cloaks of our sisters and cousins and aunts at home; skins too of the lynx, the marmot, the wolf, and the snow fox. And women would come wearing heavy earrings set with turquoises and 'charm boxes' similarly set, which they wore as lockets at the neck. They would take these off to sell to you and haggle, like the veritable Eastern traders that they were, with you for the price.
Besides the Tibetan or Chinese candle, we also found imported candles of European manufacture. But most imports for household use appeared to be Japanese, as, for instance, soap and matches; neither of these were of good quality, and Japan does not seem to take pains to appear at her best in the Lhassa market. But to get a new cake of soap, even if it did crumble away quickly, was a luxury, and the return to a land of matches was a great relief. I remember an officer who on the march had latterly possessed himself of a Tibetan flint and steel and learnt to light a cigarette with them.
There are just about half a dozen prime necessities of no great bulk which always seem to run out sooner than expected on field service. A reserve in a supply column of the following would always come in useful: of matches, three mule loads; of wax candles, seven mule loads; of soap, ten mule loads; of some strong forbidding kind of tobacco that in times of privation would go a very long way, ten mule loads; of chocolate creams and barley sugar, thirty mule loads. Sixty such mules laid out per brigade would be much blessed.
When relations with the Tibetans had become less strained, we used to go in organised parties to visit the bazaar in Lhassa city itself. These parties reminded one of a Sunday-school treat. The part of curate would be played by some field-officer who would collect his school children outside camp. These would consist of those officers, soldiers, sepoys, and followers whose turn it was to go. He would conduct us with careful supervision from the camp to the city, and there let us loose for two hours to play in the bazaar. The bazaar was one circular street, surrounding the cathedral which, though once or twice entered by favoured individuals, was out of bounds for us.
In the city the same kinds of things were for sale as were brought to the camp bazaar, but there was a larger variety of imported goods. How some of those things ever got to Lhassa was a mystery. In one shop I saw a whole row of small looking-glasses 'made in Austria,' and beside them a score or so of penknives 'made in Germany.' The British tradesman's pictorial almanac will, I suppose, be found hanging on the gates of the new Jerusalem; it had certainly penetrated Lhassa, usually in the form of a royal family group. One coronation group on the wall of a Kashmiri shop was especially fine. Strangest of all to find was a bicycle of the Rover pattern—quite out of gear, but doubtless interesting to the Tibetan as a Western curio. He may have thought it was a species of Christian prayer-wheel.
I was short of dinner plates, and bought one. It was of tin, and had stamped on it a comprehensive lesson in both political and physical geography. All round the rim faces of clocks were stamped. Each face was encircled with a scroll containing the name and the number of the population of some large city of the world, while the clock in the centre showed what the time was in that city when the clock in London stood at twelve noon. The population of London as stamped on the plate stood at quite a low figure, but London was selected as the honoured city whose clock should stand at the precise hour of noon, and the whole geography lesson was in English. One would therefore come to the conclusion that the plate was a British product, dating back to the period of some not very recent census. To have traced that plate from Birmingham to Lhassa would have been interesting.
Beggars swarmed in the bazaar. One man earned an obviously ample livelihood by carrying his grandfather on his back through the streets. The grandfather was certainly the quintessence of decrepitude, and as such would appeal to the benevolent, who apparently never thought of suggesting to the young man that it would be better to leave grandfather at home in bed, and go out unencumbered to earn an honest living. Malefactors in chains are also seen crawling about, a peripatetic prison being apparently less felt by the Lhassa exchequer than one of bricks and mortar.
Since I reached India, I have been told that every moment I spent in the romantic environs of Lhassa must have been intensely interesting, and that to have been to Lhassa is the envy of the world. I suppose, like the brute one is, one got blasé and indifferent to one's good fortune, but it is certain that those 'crowded hours of glorious life' began to pall. We did the best we could to while away the time. An energetic race committee provided gymkhanas and a 'sky meeting' (just, says the intelligent foreigner, what a British army would indulge in, on arrival at such a place). A football tournament followed. Football at thirteen thousand feet is like playing the game at an ordinary level—with an eighty-pound load on your back. Less strain on the lungs was a rifle meeting. To escort our military or political betters to the city on a state visit was another mild form of entertainment. The Chinese Amban often received such visits. The ordinary officer who formed part of the escort did not take part in the actual visit. He stayed outside on the doorsteps. Sometimes he was known to go into the Amban's kitchen, where an elderly matron gave him a cup of tea.
Luckily, though it rained generally once in the twenty-four hours, it did so mostly at night, so that we were seldom confined to our tents in the daytime. Even so, we felt rather like prisoners. Going out beyond the vicinity of the camp meant going out armed, and proceeding to any distance meant being accompanied by an escort, such precautions having been specially indicated by the attack made on two officers by a certain fanatical lama.
It is not surprising that the life we led left many gaps which it was hard to fill. I was glad when one day I got orders to go on a ten days' trip down the line as far as Pete-jong and back.
These ten days initiated me into the life of those portions of the force who had been left to man posts on the line of communications.
The native soldier soon makes himself very much at home in his post. He has deeply regretted not going to the front, but with a useful belief in 'kismet' makes the best of things. The relief from marching and the ample leisure to cook food are redeeming features. The post-commandant, if the only British officer on the spot, feels his circumstances more acutely. Not only does he grieve at being left behind, but since in ordinary times no life is more social than that of a British officer, he at first feels his loneliness greatly. He may love his men, he may be—in the wording of that common Hindustani metaphor—veritably their 'father and mother,' but still he cannot go to them for company. He can exchange few ideas with them, and as regards social intercourse, he is almost as much alone as if he were on a desert island. If, however, by any chance there are two officers together in one post, they should enjoy themselves. For though ordinary regimental life is, as I said above, the most social in the world, it yet also suffers from the disabilities of its own sociability. In a regimental mess you know twenty men well, and may go on knowing them so for twenty years, but perhaps you will never know any one of them really intimately. To share a post on the line of communications with one other officer for a few months should result in an intimacy. That is almost a new military experience.
If a post-commandant had shooting or fishing within reach of his post, he usually, even though alone, soon found life bearable. Sometimes foraging to collect a reserve of rations for the march down was his only recreation, and this soon palled. He was not necessarily always alone, for the traffic up and down the line was sometimes brisk, and he would perhaps once or twice in a week be invaded by some officer who was travelling up or down with the post or with a convoy.
It was my lot to be often such an invader, and for sheer genuine hospitality commend me to the officers in charge of the posts on the Sikkim-Tibet line of communications. It shames me to think of the way they have entertained me, and of my utter inability to return their hospitality. May I have a chance some time!
I had to go down to Chaksam with the mounted infantry postal escort which travelled the whole distance in one day, going as light as possible, my syce on one mule, my bedding on a second, and a mule driver on a third, and without either cook or orderly. It was a case of 'sponging' wherever I went, for I knew those kind hosts down the line would forbid me to live off bully-beef and biscuits. Looking over my belongings before I left, I found a tinned oxtongue, which by an oversight had remained unregarded and uneaten somewhere at the bottom of a kit bag for many months. A convoy too had just come in, and from it I seized one of a few pots of jam. Thus armed I visited Chaksam and Pete-jong. These two articles were all that I could proffer in return for hospitality, but both under present conditions were dainty rarities, and, my hosts assured me, quite paid for my keep. At Chaksam, where the tongue was left, and where there was a doctor as well as a post-commandant, I was afterwards informed that the doctor, as soon as I was gone, promptly found the post-commandant suffering from acute enteritis, so put him on to milk diet and wolfed all the tongue himself!
The postal service from Gyantse to Lhassa was performed by mounted infantry, each garrison en route containing a detachment of mounted infantrymen, who took the post from stage to stage. The stages were pretty far apart. The first was from Gyantse to Ralung, over thirty miles; the second over the Karo-Là to Nagartse, a distance of nearly thirty; the third from Nagartse to Pete-jong, eighteen miles; the fourth from Pete-jong to Chaksam, thirty-two; and the fifth and last from Chaksam to Lhassa, about forty-five. The work thus done by the mounted infantry between Lhassa and Gyantse was considerable. A fairly hefty sepoy, carrying rifle and accoutrements and a few mail bags, is no mean weight to put on the back of a thirteen-hand pony, even for a short distance, and it is surprising how well the ponies, some of them ordinary country-breds from the plains of India, stood those long marches. Keeping them shod was a considerable difficulty, for the combination of damp weather and stony roads knocked the shoes off very quickly, and the stock of the latter was limited.
Having done my work at Chaksam and Pete-jong, I returned to the former place with the post, prepared to proceed to Lhassa the next day; but it had been raining in torrents for some days past, and, though mail bags and the like could be taken across the river in skin boats, there was no chance of taking my pony and mules across till the flood subsided. After three days it was found possible to take the animals over at Parte (the crossing which the column subsequently used on the march down), ten miles up the river, and the following day I was able to reach Lhassa with the upward post.
I shall not easily forget that day. It has been made memorable to me by the vagaries of a certain Bhutya pony ridden by an officer who was accompanying me. To get one's kit and oneself over forty-five miles of indifferent roadway in one day, especially when you have no change of mount, involves early rising. We got up at four o'clock, after sleeping in the domestic temple of a Tibetan farm-house on a sacred but not very clean floor. We sent our kit on ahead, and also my syce, who was mounted on a mule, in charge of part of the mounted infantry postmen. The remainder of the latter accompanied our two selves a little later. My companion had not ridden his pony for some time, and the latter, disliking the process of being mounted, began by suddenly sidling away when his master was only half on his back, with the result that his master came off and tumbled to the ground, still keeping hold of the reins. The pony, anxious to be free, danced a jig on his master's stomach. Luckily, being of a hard-footed hill-breed, his feet were not shod, so that no serious injury resulted, as would have been the case if the trampling had been done in iron shoes. At length the pony broke away from the reins and scampered off, leaving his rider to recover the breath that had been squeezed out of his body and to pick himself up. This was an awkward beginning to the day's march, but, finding no bones broken, and the pony having, for the occasion, allowed himself to be caught, my friend mounted, successfully this time, and we proceeded on our way. After some miles we overtook and passed the other party, and pushed on till, finding we had gone twenty miles from Chaksam, were in a pleasant spot suitable for resting in, and were uncommonly hungry, we dismounted, took our ponies' bridles off, tied the animals up, gave them their grain, and set to work upon our own sandwiches.
We rested an hour, and, thinking our surroundings too pleasant to leave abruptly, we decided on another half-hour's rest. Just as we had done so, and were looking forward to a spell of peaceful contemplation of romantic scenery, as seen through the beautifying haze of tobacco-smoke, one of us noticed that the Bhutya was fidgeting with his head rope. He was on the edge of a field of green peas that were tickling his fancy. As we looked, by some device known only, I should think, to Bhutya ponies, he slipped the neck rope over one ear. Before we could get at him he had slipped it over the other and was free. The only man who had ever been known to catch the pony when he was free was his own syce, whom his master had left at Chaksam. Here we were twenty miles from Chaksam and twenty-five from Lhassa, and my friend with many bruises on his body already contracted that morning, and a sore hip that, though not preventing him riding, yet hurt him every time that he tried to walk.
The party that we had overtaken now came up, and, after sending on most of the escort so as not to detain His Majesty's mails, we proceeded to try all the dodges known to us of catching a refractory pony. I suppose, if we had been cowboys trained to use the lasso, we should have had no trouble. As it was, we experienced much.
A feeding-bag full of grain held out coaxingly at arm's length made the pony laugh. I tried him with a bit of commissariat biscuit, at which—as is often the way of people—he snorted. I tried stalking him from behind my own pony, and got fairly near him, only to find his two heels perilously near our two heads. We laid a grand snare, in the shape of two mule loading ropes joined together, and stretched across a tempting patch of the green-pea field, where not a trace of the rope could be seen, while the men at each end of the rope lounged peacefully and innocently with reassuring looks upon their faces which we thought would not prevent the pony being quietly urged into the space between them. This ruse nearly succeeded. The pony stalked along, grazing as he went, till his feet were against the rope, at which the men holding it, after raising it a little, tried to run to the rear and so encircle the pony. But before they had gone far he was kicking and tugging with his chest against the rope, and in a moment had wrenched it out of the hands of one of the men, and the next minute, after a series of derisive buckjumps, was in the next field munching young wheat.
After fifty minutes of fruitless manœuvring we decided on a new plan. Half a mile further on, the road left the open space where we now were, and, running close to the side of the river, was flanked on the other side by almost precipitous rocks. The road here, therefore, formed a perfect defile, and we decided to proceed on our way, ignoring the Bhutya and trusting to his gregarious instinct and a little wholesome neglect on our part to induce him to follow us of his own initiative. We moved off in a body—mules, ponies, and men. The Bhutya, tired of green peas and young wheat, looked after us and followed us at a gentle trot. We left my syce in ambush just outside the defile, but this proved unnecessary; for the pony, now quite anxious about being left behind, pushed his way in ahead of the last mounted infantryman, so that at last we had him in a trap. But to catch hold of him, now that he was in the trap, still taxed our efforts. A mounted infantryman grabbed him once by the forelock, and nearly got wrenched off his own pony by doing so, while the Bhutya leapt away, leaving in the man's hand enough of his own forelock to stuff a good pincushion. My syce had now come up. He was an elderly man, more intelligent in these matters than any of those present. He tempted the pony with bits of a tsampa chapatti that he drew from his pocket. The pony, forgetful of wheat and green peas, took to these. The syce in an instant had the reins of the bridle round the pony's neck, and would have held him fast had not he been lifted off his feet by the latter's rearing up. The pony was now free again and very indignant. Rampaging about, he tried to find an exit through a batch of mules in one direction and a batch of mounted infantry in the other, but found himself baffled in both. He looked up the rocks and found them impossible to climb, looked at the river beneath him and seemed to contemplate taking a header, but thought better of it, and at last stood sullenly at bay. My syce's next proffer of his own wayside ration brought the pony to terms. A rope-twitch was round his lip in an instant, and a moment later he stood bridled and in his right mind.
So on we hastened to Lhassa at last, glad to have secured the pony, but now somewhat belated. At Trelung bridge, eight miles out of Lhassa, was a small garrison, guarding the bridge. The officer in command fed us with a sumptuous tea. Much refreshed, we sped on our way, getting within sight of camp just as it was turning pitch dark, and having cause to realise the efficacy of our own camp defences by the way we floundered among ditches and abattis when barely twenty yards from the camp perimeter.
There was a 'Tommies' gaff' that night, outside the camp, around a roughly erected stage lit up with Chinese candles and decked out with green brushwood that had previously been used to make the jumps at the last gymkhana. We assembled to hear the familiar types of songs that form the programme of a soldiers' sing-song—some witty, some rather vulgar, some modified with topical variations by local poets, and all full of good cheer.
A day or two after—that is to say, on the seventh day of September 1904—the treaty was signed. If our peaceful arrival at Lhassa had been the anti-climax of the Expedition, this—the signing of the treaty—though peaceful also, was its true climax. One certainly did have a feeling that day that one was witness of an event of imperial importance.
The escort left camp at 1.30 P.M. Over the assembling of the troops outside camp one of those typical—and to the onlooker highly entertaining—muddles arose, which are always either the fault of some one or no one or every one. Eventually we found ourselves, all except a body of mounted infantry who were still unaccountably missing. Their place was, however, adequately filled by a party of Kot-duffadars of mule corps, who, mounted on transport riding ponies, and armed with swords and staves or whatever obsolete weapon is nowadays issued to them, took a prominent place in the procession and made a brave show. We marched past that pleasant country seat known as 'Paradise,' where the political mission had their quarters, and proceeded along a path lined with troops, across a bog into the outskirts of the city, and up the road which leads up the Potá-Là hill into the Potá-Là. We had eventually to dismount, leave our ponies, and climb up a paved pathway, half staircase. This pathway was smeared with the holy grease of ages and was dangerously slippery. At the top we found some of the guard of the Nepalese resident, looking very warlike in red secondhand tunics that had once been the property of British soldiers, but were of a now obsolete pattern. Ushered through a dark passage, we entered at last into the throne-room or audience-hall of the Potá-Là, where the ceremony was to take place. When all that portion of the escort who were allowed within the hall had taken their places Colonel Younghusband and General Macdonald with their respective Staffs arrived. The room already held the various contingents of Eastern officials of different nationalities who were to assist at the function. After we had all stood up, there was a great deal of handshaking between the representatives of East and West. The Chinese Amban shakes hands in a manner that, when last I frequented London drawing-rooms, was, I believe, considered fashionable. One of the lay council of Tibet certainly thought so, for he tried to imitate the particular method, but only partially succeeded. The party then sat down to tea. A great deal of tea was drunk—that milkless tea in handleless china cups with which we had most of us now become acquainted. All sorts of Chinese sweetmeats were provided with it, and these were followed by cigarettes (our old friend the 'Pedro'). These dainties did not extend into the outer circles; those of us who were behind contented ourselves by lighting up our own Pedros.
A glance round the room showed many bright colours and striking contrasts. There, near to the throne, were our political officers in the rich but not gaudy uniform of their service; next them the G.O.C. and his Staff in the sober khaki, while all round the room in less prominent places was more khaki. But next to Colonel Younghusband in robes of bright blue silk sat the Amban. Next to the Amban was the Regent, who, since the disappearance of the Dalai Lama, had been the officiating head of the Tibetan Government, an elderly man with a sad ascetic face, and dressed quite simply in the plain red robes of an ordinary lama. Next to him was a row of Chinese officials, of whose uniform, as in the case of the Amban, bright blue silk formed the chief part. Further away were the seats of the Nepalese contingent, at the head of whom sat the Nepali resident, a fierce-looking old man in a rather shabby and uncommonly short jacket of plum-coloured brocade lined with fur. Alongside, but at a different angle and facing the throne, sat the Tonsil Penlop and his suite. These represented Bhutan and were all clad in striped yellow silk robes, which one can only describe as barbaric. Their millinery was also marvellous, the Tonsil Penlop himself wearing a kind of bonnet, on the top of which was perched a whole stuffed bird, which in the distance appeared to be a parrot. Immediately opposite the throne were the Tibetan lay council of three. They affected plain yellow silk and yellow hats, but the yellow was of a bright shade, and the general effect of their appearance was as magnificent as that of any of the others. In face they struck me as the least attractive of the various Eastern officials present, being unhealthy-looking, rather fat, and wearing what seemed a sulky cowed expression. Behind them stood a whole array of monks.
The process of signing began almost at once. The number of documents seemed never ending. Apparently there were several copies of the treaty in every language spoken by any of the parties directly or remotely concerned with it, and every one of these copies had to be signed, not only by the chief authorities above enumerated, but also by various lesser lights of Tibet, as, for instance, the heads of certain monasteries. At one period the limelight flashed upon us, and we all had our photographs taken from a corner of the room.
We saw many copies of the treaty being signed with great care, but gathered nothing of its contents except from the speech which, when at last the signing was over, Colonel Younghusband addressed to the Tibetans in general, and to the 'council of three' in particular. The latter sat bobbing their heads deferentially at each sentence, and looking thoroughly ashamed while Colonel Younghusband addressed them from his chair. The speech was translated sentence by sentence into Tibetan for Tibetan benefit, and afterwards passed on in Chinese to the Amban.
The speech was emphatically a 'straight talk,' the key-note seeming to be that the Tibetans had been very foolish in opposing and flouting us in the past, but that they were now going to be good boys. They were going to be well treated when they came to visit us, and were not going to misbehave themselves in any way, should we again come near them. There was more said, about trade relations with India, in recognition of the Chinese suzerainty, and in encouragement of the Tibetan traditional methods of treating outsiders, when those outsiders did not happen to be ourselves.
The council of three seemed to take it all 'lying down.'
More tea was drunk: the press correspondents busied themselves with the telegrams that they were sending down by post to Gyantse, bringing the wires there and then to the press censor, whose blue pencil I saw freely wielded: more handshaking, and then the party broke up.
As we left the now close atmosphere of the audience hall, we felt that we had just witnessed a matinée performance in a theatre. The spectacular effects throughout had been impressive. The first act had been brisk, the second had dragged, but the last had been thrilling. It had indeed been a fine play that we had seen enacted—the simple sane perseverance of British diplomacy fighting on its own ground a unique section of the mysterious and gorgeous East, not bluffed by its indignant protests, not deceived by its spurious promises, not wearied by its endless delays, not impatient of its crass ignorance, but gaining its objects slowly and surely, and coming out victorious.
Thereafter, like the man in the sycamore tree, we made haste to come down. Sixteen days later the column left Lhassa. A few functions intervened, such as the formal release of our prisoners and the bestowal of money in charity on the poor of Lhassa. I missed these functions, having been sent on ahead to the Tsangpo, where preparations for the return crossing were now afoot. The column at length arrived at the river. We crossed this time at Parte, where a certain single channel of moderate breadth, but very deep and therefore not very swift, served our purposes far better than the double channel at Chaksam. The Sappers and Miners and coolis had made all things ready, towing the two heavy ferry boats up many miles of swift current, and rigging up the mysterious engineering paraphernalia which were needed to swing us across, our crossing hanging truly and literally by a thread—a thread of thin wire. Wire, at once the lightest and strongest commodity of its kind, had since our last crossing been sent up to us, in great quantities, and was largely used to replace the now rotten rope that had previously been chiefly employed. A great ferry boat, bearing twenty mules, to which was attached a string of skin boats laden with stores, to which again were attached a brace or so of mules swimming in the water, would be swung across that still swift current, suspended from but one or two thin wires.
The speed of the crossing exceeded all hopes. It was accomplished in about forty-eight hours. From South Parte we marched, over a pass that was new to us, straight into Pete-jong. At the top of that pass facing southwards we found a wall, which had obviously been built by the Tibetans in the belief that on our march upwards we would cross the ridge by this route. It was a well-conceived fortification, and might have given us considerable trouble.
From Parte Ferry to Gyantse we marched in two columns. Thinking the crossing of the ferry might occupy several days, and in order to be prepared for all emergencies such as any possible ebullitions of hostility that might delay our march, we had laid in at the ferry and the posts on the way to Gyantse a stock of supplies which now proved larger than our needs, while our spare transport was only sufficient to carry on a portion of the surplus.
I accompanied the second column and had the pleasant duty of making away with this surplus. To one whose purse has always been slender, and whose nature is correspondingly extravagant, there can be nothing more agreeable than to dispose in a free-handed way of large amounts of Government property. One enjoys all the delights of extravagance with none of its bitter aftertaste. Of course, even from the strictly economical view, it was far the best policy to make away with these surpluses where they stood. The total value of the stores so made away with, though amounting to a large sum, was far less than, for instance, would have been the cost of retaining the force in the country until they had consumed them.
The British troops were all with this column, but there were several native units as well. One arrived at a post and found it full of many good things that could not be carried on. Restrained only by fear of filling the troops to a tension beyond what the medical officers thought desirable, one accosted commanding officers, and asked with one's best shop-walker's manner what they would like to-day. A few hundredweight of jam and pickles would be doled out for the asking, or, in the case of native troops, similar quantities of tea and ghi and goor. The coolis were my best customers. The amount of tea and goor they took away and consumed with benefit to themselves was surprising. They worked all the better for it and marched into Gyantse carrying record loads.
The stores still left over at each place were solemnly presented to the local peasants who came up, and, regarding the affair as a huge joke, went away laden with bundles selected at random from, as it were, a huge bran-pie. Rum was withheld from them, but I should have liked to see the effect of their consumption of some of the things they got, as, for instance, of an unsuspecting draught of neat lime-juice, or a mouthful of chillies.
So on we marched over that stiff pass into Pete-jong, along Lake Palti shining in this clear-set wintry weather with its true turquoise colours, past Nagartse and up through the barren gorge that leads to the summit of the Karo-Là, down the Karo-Là regretfully, doubting whether we should ever reach such heights again, into the Ralung plain, and down the long glen to Gyantse.
Our appearance in those days was not spick and span. We were very much out at elbows, the breeches of both soldiers and followers were frequently patched with odd bits of Tibetan woollen cloth, or even in some cases with bits of the gunny of gunny bags. I have known the red cloth of the typical lama's robe adapted to these purposes. With wear it turns into a cherry colour. My own orderly, who was fitted out with a complete pair of continuations of this cloth, looked in the distance like a trooper of the 11th Hussars (the overalls of that regiment being famous for that colour).
More curious still were the additions to the wardrobe in the shape of blankets and sentries' cloaks, which we brought from Lhassa, the woollen goods of that town being warm and serviceable, but rather outlandish. The sentries' cloaks were merely oblong pieces of cloth with a hole in the centre, through which the sentry put his head, and of all sorts of colours—quite enough in themselves to frighten the nocturnal miscreant.
But most curious sight of all, if one could have looked on from the outside, would have been the collection of dogs which we brought with us. The dog that Tommy had left at home was of course the familiar type of square-jowled sturdy monster, who, by a process of natural selection and survival of the fittest, has been evolved out of many types, and now rules supreme in cantonment barracks. His master at Lhassa had consoled himself with another sort, and it was a touching sight to see great bearded men sometimes leading, but as often as not carrying, on the march dainty little lap-dogs, of kinds that resembled the Pomeranian, the Skye terrier, or the King Charles' spaniel. One or two Tibetan mastiffs—more like huge Welsh collies than mastiffs—also accompanied us.
At Gyantse we were halted for a few days, upon one of which the G.O.C. held his farewell parade, making us a sympathetic speech which will be remembered by all of us. Then we marched past. My lot was to command a squad of veterans whose duties for years had been confined to the supply of the army. We got along somehow, more by innate intelligence than knowledge of drill, going through various giddy evolutions in no particular formation and by the shortest cut, and arriving at the saluting base aided only by the bump of locality. There of course we braced ourselves and marched past, and turned our eyes sharply to the right as though we had never left the barrack square.
From Gyantse onwards I was in the first column, and thus missed certain hardships. It was nice bracing weather. We had cool fine days, at night twenty degrees of frost and often biting cold winds that took the skin off the nose and chapped the lips and the lobes of the ear, but were on the whole salubrious. The same weather was with us all the way, up through Kangma and the Red Idol gorge to Kalatso, past Dochen and into the Tuna plain, over the Tang-Là, into Phari and down through the Gautsa glens, where the pine-forests smelt of Indian hill stations, and into Chumbi. As we reached Chumbi the clouds were gathering.
That night, with the outer fly of my tent taken out of store and erected over me, I went to bed secure in its extra protection, thinking casually that it might perhaps rain in the night. In the early morning I was woken with a crash, and felt a great weight squeezing my whole body, but leaving my head clear. Striking a light I found the upright tent pole near my feet broken in two. Looking through a corner of the tent I saw the ground all covered with snow, and realised that the weight on my body was the snow that had accumulated on the tent, broken the tent pole, and fallen upon me. It was six o'clock. My orderly and syce came to my rescue. They lifted the snow off me and took away my tent pole to a carpenter to get it mended, while in what space was still left within the tent I found I could still breathe, and so slept peacefully till in an hour my tent pole was brought back mended and the tent reconstructed, and I could get up in comfort.
I had had a very mild experience. Grief of a worse kind had been widespread through the night, many officers and men losing their only shelter irretrievably at two or three in the morning. The second column came in that afternoon rather worn and battered, and the third column—for from Gyantse we had become three—was snowed up for two nights at Phari after a terrible march over the Tang-Là from Tuna. Their eventual march into Chumbi was also a severe ordeal. At Chumbi it remained to await one's day of release. The snow delayed the passage of the troops hardly at all. Leaving Chumbi in small detachments and using both the Jalap-Là and Natu-Là routes, they gradually disappeared. At length my own turn came. Leaving Chumbi one fine morning, and finding myself again a passenger, I hastened by double marches to India across the Natu-Là down to Gangtok, through Sikkim, and into Siliguri. Strange it was to think, as, after that last hot double march from Riang, one sat under the punkah in Siliguri refreshment room, drinking tumbler after tumbler of iced ginger-beer, that three days before one had pulled icicles from one's beard on the top of the Natu-Là.
Pleasant to get into the Darjiling mail that night and speed to Calcutta; pleasant to feel oneself wrapped in the civilisation of the Indian metropolis; pleasanter still to take train at Howrah, and be carried up country to the crisp cool autumn of the Panjab and to one's own fireside.
So the show was over—all over but for its memories, which for my own part were mainly agreeable. As he lays those memories aside, the selfish soldier's wish can hardly be other than that on some convenient date in spring time not too many years distant, ere the person is too stout and the legs too stiff to relish those high passes, some truculent grand lama may necessitate and a kind Government organise another summer trip to Lhassa.
PRINTED BY
SPOTTISWOODE AND CO. LTD., NEW-STREET SQUARE
LONDON