Author of 'A Vagabond in Asia' WITH ILLUSTRATIONS AND MAP LONDON EDWARD ARNOLD Publisher to H.M. India Office 41 & 43 MADDOX STREET, BOND STREET, W. 1905 [ All rights reserved ] THESE PAGES, WRITTEN MOSTLY IN THE DRY COLD WIND OF TIBET, OFTEN WHEN INK WAS FROZEN AND ONE'S HAND TOO NUMBED TO FEEL A PEN, ARE DEDICATED TO COLONEL HOGGE, C.B., AND THE OFFICERS OF THE 23 rd SIKH PIONEERS, WHOSE GENIAL SOCIETY IS ONE OF THE MOST PLEASANT MEMORIES OF A RIGOROUS CAMPAIGN. The recent expedition t

It must be remembered that Tibet has not always been closed to strangers. The history of European travellers in Lhasa forms a literature to itself. Until the end of the eighteenth century only physical obstacles stood in the way of an entry to the capital. Jesuits and Capuchins reached Lhasa, made long stays there, and were even encouraged by the Tibetan Government. The first [1] Europeans to visit the city and leave an authentic record of their journey were the Fathers Grueber and d'Orville, wh

There is a good military road from Siliguri, the base station in the plains to Rungpo, forty-eight miles along the Teesta Valley. By following the river-bed it avoids the two steep ascents to Kalimpong and Ari. The new route saves at least a day, and conveys one to Rungli, nearly seventy miles from the base, without compassing a single tedious incline. It has also the advantage of being practicable for bullock-carts and ekkas as far as Rungpo. After that the path is a 6-foot mule-track, at its b

The Tomos are merry people, hearty, and good-natured. They are wonderfully hardy and enduring. In the coldest winter months, when the thermometer is 20° below zero, they will camp out at night in the snow, forming a circle of their loads, and sleep contentedly inside with no tent or roofing. The women would be comely if it were not for the cutch that they smear over their faces. The practice is common to the Tibetans and Bhutanese, but no satisfactory reason has been found for it. The Jesuit Fat

Five miles above Gautsa is Dotah, the most cheerless camp on the march. The wind blows through the gorge unceasingly, and penetrates to the bone. On the left bank of the stream is the frozen waterfall, which might be worshipped by the fanciful and superstitious as embodying the genius of the place, hard and resistless, a crystallized monument of the implacable spirit of Nature in these high places. At Kamparab, where we camped, two miles higher up the stream, the thermometer fell to 14° below ze

Besides the natural difficulties of the road, the severity of climate, and the scarcity of fodder and fuel, the Transport Corps had to contend with every description of disease and misfortune—anthrax, rinderpest, foot and mouth disease, aconite and rhododendron poisoning, falling over precipices, exhaustion from overwork and underfeeding. The worst fatalities occurred on the Khamba Jong side in 1903. The experiments with the transport were singularly unsuccessful. Out of two hundred buffaloes em

I doubt if ever an advance was more welcome to waiting troops than that which led to the engagement at the Hot Springs. For months, let it be remembered, we had been marking time. When a move had to be made to escort a convoy, it was along narrow mountain-paths, where the troops had to march in single file. There was no possibility of an attack this side of Phari. The ground covered was familiar and monotonous. One felt cooped in, and was thoroughly bored and tired of the delay, so that when Gen

One morning the roof of the Sun-god's palace was clear and cloudless, but about its base hung little clouds of snow-dust, as though the Olympians had been holding tourney, and the dust had risen in the tracks of their chariots. All this was seen over galvanized iron roofs. The Sun-god had thrown open his palace, and we were playing pitch and toss on the steps. While I was so engrossed I looked up. Columns of white cloud were rising to obscure the entrance. Then a sudden shaft of sunlight broke t

On April 8, owing to the delay in reconnoitring the wall, we made only about eight miles, and camped. The next morning we had marched about two miles, when we found the high ridge on the left flank occupied by the enemy, and the mounted infantry reported them in the gorge beyond. Two companies of the 8th Gurkhas under Major Row were sent up to the hill on the left to turn the enemy's right flank, and the mountain battery (No. 7) came into action on the right at over 3,000 yards. The enemy kept u

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 o

With the same prompt decision that marked his action with regard to the gathering on the Karo la, Colonel Brander determined on the very next day to clear the villages found occupied by the mounted infantry. As far as could be discovered, the villages were five in number, all on the right bank of the river, and occupying a position which could be roughly outlined as an equilateral triangle. Captain Ottley was sent round to the rear of the villages to cut off the retreat of the enemy; Captain Luk

The place is quiet and pastoral; climbing roses overhang the roof and invade the bedrooms; martins have built their nests in the eaves; cuckoos are calling among the chestnuts down the hill. Outside is a flower-garden, gay with geraniums and petunias and familiar English plants that have overrun their straggling borders and scattered themselves in the narrow plot of grass that fringes the forest. Some Government officer must have planted them years ago, and left them to fight it out with Nature

The first three marches to Ralung were a repetition of the country between Kalatso and Gyantse—in the valley a strip of irrigated land, green and gold, with alternate barley and mustard fields between hillsides bare and verdureless save for tufts of larkspur, astragalus, and scattered yellow poppies. To Gyantse one descends 2,000 feet from a country entirely barren of trees to a valley of occasional willow and poplar groves; while from Gyantse, as one ascends, the clusters of trees become fewer,

For many miles the road is cut out of a precipitous cliff above the river. A few hundred men could have destroyed it in an afternoon, and delayed our advance for another week. Newly-built sangars at the entrance of the gorge showed that the Tibetans had intended to hold it. But they left the valley in a disorganized state the day we reached the Tsangpo. Had they fortified the position, they might have made it stronger than the Karo la. The heat of the valley was almost tropical. Summer by the Ky

When one leaves the broad avenues between the walls of the groves and pleasure-gardens, and enters the city, one's senses are offended by everything that is unsightly and unclean. Pigs and pariah dogs are nosing about in black oozy mud. The houses are solid but dirty. It is hard to believe that they are whitewashed every year. Close to the western entrance are the huts of the Ragyabas, beggars, outcasts, and scavengers, who cut up the dead. The outer walls of their houses are built of yak-horns.

The highest officials in Tibet visited Colonel Younghusband, expressed their eagerness to see differences amicably settled, and, when asked to arrange the simplest matter, said they were afraid to take on themselves the responsibility. And this was not merely astute evasiveness. It was really a fact that there was no one in Lhasa who dared commit himself by an action or assurance of any kind. Yet there existed some kind of irresponsible disorganized machine of administration which sometimes arri