The Unveiling of Lhasa

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 détour 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.

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 élan, 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 reveillé 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.