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But even more ominous against the day when our troops should be called upon to take the jong were the defensive preparations mentioned above. Nearly every morning we found that during the night the enemy had built up a new wall or covered way somewhere on the jong or about the village that fringed the base of the rock. When the fortress was fortified as strongly as Tibetan wit could devise, the jong Commandant began to fortify and place in a position of defence the villages and monasteries on his right and left. It was calculated that, from the small monastery perched on the hills to his left to Tsechen Monastery on a ridge to his right, the Tibetan General had occupied and fortified a position with nearly seven miles of front.

Whilst the Tibetans were engaged in making these preparations, our garrison was busy collecting forage for the enormous number of animals coming up with the relief column. Our rear being absolutely open, small parties with mules were able to collect quantities of hay from villages within a radius of seven miles behind us. It was the fire opened on these parties when they attempted to push to the right or left of the jong which first revealed to us the full extent of the defensive position occupied by the enemy.

On June 6 Colonel Younghusband left the post with a returning convoy, in order to confer with the General at Chumbi. This convoy was attacked whilst halting at the entrenched post at Kangma. The enemy in this instance came down from the Karo la, and it is for this reason that I do not include the Kangma attack amongst the operations at and around Gyantse.

It was not till June 15 that we got definite news of the approaching advance of the relief column. Reinforcements had come up to Chumbi from India in the interval, and the General was accompanied by the 2nd Mounted Infantry under Captain Peterson, No. 7 British Mountain Battery under Major Fuller, a section of No. 30 Native Mountain Battery under Captain Marindin, four companies of the Royal Fusiliers under Colonel Cooper, four companies of the 40th Pathans under Colonel Burn, five companies of the 23rd Pioneers under Colonel Hogge, and the two remaining companies of the 8th Gurkhas under Colonel Kerr, together with the usual medical and other details.

The force arrived at Kangma on June 23. On the 25th a party of mounted infantry from Gyantse met Captain Peterson's mounted infantry reconnoitring at the monastery of Naini, previously mentioned. Whilst greetings were being exchanged a sudden fire was opened on our men from the monastery, which the enemy had apparently occupied and fortified during the night. The position was apparently held in strength, and the mounted infantry had no other course except to retire to their respective camps. Captain Peterson had one man mortally wounded.

On the evening of the 26th the sentries at the mission post saw about twenty mounted men, followed by two or three hundred infantry, issue from the rear of the jong and creep up the hills on our left in the direction of Naini. It was evident that a determined effort was to be made at the monastery to check the advance of the relief column, which was expected at Gyantse next day. Colonel Brander came to the conclusion that he had found an opportunity for catching the Tibetans in a trap. He determined to send out a force which would block the retreat of the enemy when they retired before the advance of the relief column. Accordingly, before dawn four companies of Pioneers, four guns, and the Maxim gun left the post, and ascended the hills overlooking the monastery. Captain Ottley's mounted infantry were directed to close the road leading directly from Gyantse to the monastery.

Colonel Brander's forces were in position some hours before the mounted infantry of the relief column appeared in sight. It was discovered that the enemy not only held the monastery, but some ruined towers on the hill above, and a cluster of one-storied dwellings in a grove below. Captain Peterson with his mounted infantry appeared in front of the monastery at eleven o'clock. He had with him a company of the 40th Pathans, and his orders were to clear the monastery with this small force, if the enemy made no signs of a stubborn resistance. Otherwise he was to await the arrival of more troops with the mountain-guns.

Peterson delivered his attack from the left, having dismounted his troopers, who, together with the 40th Pathans, were soon very hotly engaged. The troops came under a heavy fire both from the monastery and from a ruined tower above it, but advanced most gallantly. When under the walls of the monastery, they were checked for some time by the difficulty of finding a way in. In the meanwhile, hearing the heavy firing, the General and his Staff, followed by Major Fuller's battery and the rest of the 40th, had hastened up. The battery came into action against the tower, and the 40th rushed up in support of their comrades. Colonel Brander's guns and Maxim on the top of the hill were also brought into play. For nearly an hour a furious cannonade and fusillade raged. Then the Pathans and Peterson's troopers, circling round the walls of the monastery, found a ramp up which they could climb. They swarmed up, and were quickly inside the building. But the Tibetans had realized that their retreat was cut off, and, instead of making a clean bolt for it, only retired slowly from room to room and passage to passage. Two companies of the 23rd were sent up to assist in clearing the monastery. It proved a perfect warren of dark cells and rooms. The Tibetan resistance lasted for over two hours. Bands of desperate swordsmen were found in knots under trap-doors and behind sharp turnings. They would not surrender, and had to be killed by rifle shots fired at a distance of a few feet.

While the monastery was being cleared, another fight had developed in the cluster of dwellings outside it to the right. From this spot Tibetan riflemen were enfilading our troops held in reserve. The remaining companies of the 23rd were sent to clear away the enemy. They took three houses, but could not effect an entrance into the fourth, which was very strongly barricaded. Lieutenant Turnbull, walking up to a window with a section, had three men hit in a few seconds. One man fell directly under the window. Turnbull carried him into safety in the most gallant fashion. Then the General ordered up the guns, which fired into the house at a range of a few hundred yards. But not till it was riddled with great gaping holes made by common shell did the fire from the house cease.

At about three o'clock the Tibetan resistance had completely died away, and the column resumed its march towards Gyantse, which was not reached till dark. But as the transport was making its slow way past Naini, about half a dozen Tibetans who had remained in hiding in the monastery and village opened fire on it. The Gurkha rearguard had a troublesome task in clearing these men out, and lost one man killed.

In this affair at Naini our casualties were six killed and nine wounded, including Major Lye, 23rd Pioneers, who received a severe sword-cut in the hand.

The General's camp was pitched about a mile from the mission post, well out of range of the jong, though our troops whilst crossing the river came under fire from some of the bigger jingals. The next day was one of rest, which the troops badly needed after their long march from Chumbi. The Tibetans in the jong also refrained from firing. On the 29th the General began the operations intended to culminate in the capture of the jong. His objective was Tsechen Monastery, on the extreme left. But before the monastery could be attacked, some twelve fortified villages between it and the river had to be cleared. It proved a difficult task, not so much on account of the resistance offered by the enemy – for after a few idle shots the Tibetans quickly retired on the monastery – as because of the nature of the ground that had to be traversed. The whole country was a network of deep irrigation channels and water-cuts, in the fording and crossing of which the troops got wet to the skin. However, by four in the afternoon all the villages had been cleared, and the Fusiliers were lying in a long grove under the right front of the monastery.

It was then discovered that not only was Tsechen very strongly held, but that masses of the enemy were lying behind the rocks on the top of the ridge, on the summit of which there was a ruined tower, also held by fifty or sixty men. The General sent two companies of Gurkhas to scale the ridge from the left, whilst the 40th Pathans were ordered to make a direct assault on the monastery. A hundred mounted infantry made their way to the rear to cut off the retreat of the enemy. Fuller and Marindin with their guns covered the advance of the infantry. Four Maxims were also brought into action. Our guns made splendid practice on the top of the ridge, and time and again we could see the enemy bolting from cover. But with magnificent bravery they would return to oppose the advance of the Gurkhas creeping round their flank. The guns had presently to cease fire to enable the Gurkhas to get nearer. A series of desperate little fights then took place on the top of the ridge, the Tibetans slinging and throwing stones when they found they could not load their muskets quickly enough. But as the Gurkhas would not be stopped, the Tibetans had to move. In the meanwhile the Pathans worked through the monastery below, only meeting with small resistance from a band of men in one house. The Tibetans fled in a mass over the right edge of the ridge into the jaws of the mounted infantry lying in wait below. Slaughter followed.

It was now quite dark, and the troops made their way back to camp. Next morning a party went up to Tsechen, found it entirely deserted, and set fire to it. The taking of the monastery cost us the lives of Captain Craster, 40th Pathans, and two sepoys. Our wounded numbered ten, including Captains Bliss and Humphreys, 8th Gurkhas.

On July 1 the General intended assaulting the jong, but in the interval the jong Commandant sent in a flag of truce. He prayed for an armistice pending the arrival of three delegates who were posting down from Lhasa with instructions to make peace. As Colonel Younghusband had been directed to lose no opportunity of bringing affairs to an end at Gyantse, the armistice was granted, and two days afterwards the delegates, all Lamas, were received in open durbar in a large room in the mission post. Colonel Younghusband, after having satisfied himself that the delegates possessed proper credentials, made them a speech. He reviewed the history of the mission, pointing out that we had only come to Gyantse because of the obstinacy and evasion of the Tibetan officials, who could easily have treated with us at Khamba Jong and again at Tuna, had they cared to. We were perfectly willing to come to terms here, and it rested with the peace delegates whether we went on to Lhasa or not. Younghusband then informed the delegates that he was prepared to open negociations on the next day. The delegates were due at eleven next morning, but they did not put in an appearance till three. They were then told that as a preliminary they must surrender the jong by noon on the succeeding day. They demurred a great deal, but the Commissioner was quite firm, and they went away downcast, with the assurance that if the jong was not surrendered we should take it by force. Younghusband, however, added that after the capture of the fort he was perfectly willing to open negociations again.

Next day, shortly after noon, a signal gun was fired to indicate that the armistice was at an end, and the General forthwith began his preparations to storm the formidable hill fortress. The Tibetans had taken advantage of the armistice to build more walls and sangars. No one could look at the bristling jong without realizing how difficult was the task before our troops, and without anxiety as to the outcome of the assault in killed and wounded. But we all knew that the jong had to be taken, whatever the cost.

Operations began in the afternoon, the General making a demonstration against the left face of the jong and Palkhor Choide Monastery. Fuller's battery took up a position about 1,600 yards from the jong. Five companies of infantry were extended on either flank. Both the jong and monastery opened fire on our troops, and we had one man mortally wounded. The General's intention, however, was only to deceive the Tibetans into thinking that we intended to assault from that side. As soon as dusk fell, the troops were withdrawn and preparations made for the real assault.

The south-eastern face of the rock on which the jong is built is most precipitous, yet this was exactly the face which the General decided to storm. His reasons, I imagine, were that the fringe of houses at the base of the rock was thinnest on this side, and that the very multiplicity of sangars and walls that the enemy had built prevented their having the open field of fire necessary to stop a rush. Moreover, down the middle of the rock ran a deep fissure or cleft, which was commanded, the General noticed, by no tower or loopholed wall. At two points, however, the Tibetans had built walls across the fissure. The first of these the General believed could be breached by our artillery. Our troops through that could work their way round to either flank, and so into the heart of the jong.

The plan of operations was very simple. Before dawn three columns were to rush the fringe of houses at the base. Then was to follow a storm of artillery fire directed on all the salient points of the jong, after which our guns were to make a breach in the lower wall across the cleft up which the storming-party was later on to climb.

The action turned out exactly as was planned, with the exception that the fighting lasted much longer than was expected, for the Tibetans made a heroic resistance. The troops were astir shortly after midnight. The night was very dark, and the necessary deployment of the three columns took some hours. However, an hour before dawn the troops had begun their cautious advance, the General and his Staff taking up their position at Palla. The alarm was not given till our leading files were within twenty yards of the fringe of houses at the base of the rock. The storm of fire which then burst from the jong was an alarming indication of the strength in which it was held. The heavy jingals were all directed on Palla, and the General and his Staff had many narrow escapes. As on the previous occasion when the jong bombarded us at night, there were moments when every building in it seemed outlined in flame.

Of the three columns, only that on the extreme left, Gurkhas under Major Murray, was able to get in at once. The other two columns were for the time being checked, so bullet-swept was the open space they had to cross. From time to time small parties of two or three dashed across in the dark, and gained the shelter of the walls of the houses in front. There were barely twenty men and half a dozen officers across when Captain Shepherd blew in the walls of the house most strongly held. The storming-party came under a most heavy fire from the jong above. Among those hit was Lieutenant Gurdon, of the 32nd. He was shot through the head, and died almost immediately. The breach made by Shepherd was the point to which most of the men of the centre and right columns made, but their progress became very slow when daylight appeared and the Tibetans could see what they were firing at. It was not till nearly nine o'clock that the whole fringe of houses at the base of the front face of the rock was in our possession.

Then followed several hours of cannonading and small-arms fire. The position the troops had now won was commanded almost absolutely from the jong. It was found impossible to return the Tibetan fire from the roofs of the houses we had occupied without exposing the troops in an unnecessary degree, but loopholes were hastily made in the walls of the rooms below, and the 40th Pathans were sent into a garden on the extreme right, where some cover was to be had. Colonel Campbell, commanding the first line, was able to show the enemy that our marksmen were still in a position to pick off such Tibetans as were rash enough to unduly expose themselves. In the meanwhile, Luke's guns on the extreme right, Fuller's battery at Palla, and Marindin's guns at the Gurkha outpost threw a stream of shrapnel on all parts of the jong.

But it was not till four o'clock in the afternoon that the General decided that the time had come to make the breach aforementioned. The reserve companies of Gurkhas and Fusiliers were sent across from Palla in the face of very heavy jingal and rifle fire, and took cover in the houses we had occupied. In the meanwhile Fuller was directed to make the breach. So magnificent was the shooting made by his guns that a dozen rounds of common shell, planted one below the other, had made a hole large enough for active men to clamber through. The enemy quickly saw the purport of the breach. Dozens of men could be distinctly seen hurrying to the wall above it.

Then the Gurkhas and Fusiliers began their perilous ascent. The nimble Gurkhas, led by Lieutenant Grant, soon outpaced the Fusiliers, and in ten brief minutes forty or fifty of them were crouching under the breach. The Tibetans, finding their fire could not stop us, tore great stones from the walls and rolled them down the cleft. Dozens of men were hit and bruised. Presently Grant was through the breach, followed by fifteen or twenty flushed and shouting men. The breach won, the only thought of the enemy was flight. They made their way by the back of the jong into the monastery. By six o'clock every building in the great fortress was in our possession.

Our casualties in this affair were forty-three – Lieutenant Gurdon and seven men killed, and twelve officers, including the gallant Grant, and twenty-three men wounded. These casualties exclude a number of men cut and bruised with stones.

Next morning the monastery was found deserted. It was reported that the bulk of the enemy had fled to Dongtse, about ten miles up the Shigatze road. A column was sent thither, but found the place empty, except for a very humble and submissive monk.

On the 14th, having waited for over a week in the hope of the peace delegates putting in an appearance, the force started on its march to Lhasa.

CHAPTER XI
GOSSIP ON THE ROAD TO THE FRONT

Ari, Sikkim,

June 24.

I write in an old forest rest-house on the borders of British Bhutan.

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

The forest has encroached, and it is hard to say where Nature's hand or Art's begins and ends. Beside a rose-bush there has sprung up the solid pink club of the wild ginger, and from a bed of amaryllis a giant arum raises itself four feet in its dappled, snake-like sheath. Gardens have most charm in spots like this, where their mingled trimness and neglect contrast with the insolent unconcern of an encroaching forest.

At Ari I am fifty miles from Darjeeling, on the road to Lhasa.

On June 21 I set my face to Lhasa for the second time. I took another route to Chumbi, viâ Kalimpong and Pedong in British Bhutan. The road is no further, but it compasses some arduous ascents. On the other hand it avoids the low, malarious valleys of Sikkim, where the path is constantly carried away by slips. There is less chance of a block, and one is above the cholera zone. The Jelap route, which I strike to-morrow, is closed, owing to cholera and land-slips, so that I shall not touch the line of communications until within a few miles of Chumbi, in which time my wound will have had a week longer to heal before I risk a medical examination and the chance of being sent back. The relief column is due at Gyantse in a few days; it depends on the length of the operations there whether I catch the advance to Lhasa.

Through avoiding the Nathu-la route to Chumbi I had to arrange my own transport. In Darjeeling my coolies bolted without putting a pack on their backs. More were secured; these disappeared in the night at Kalimpong without waiting to be paid. Pack-ponies were hired to replace them, but these are now in a state of collapse. Arguing, and haggling, and hectoring, and blarneying, and persuading are wearisome at all times, but more especially in these close steamy valleys, where it is too much trouble to lift an eyelid, and the air induces an almost immoral state of lassitude, in which one is tempted to dole out silver indifferently to anyone who has it in his power to oil the wheels of life. I could fill a whole chapter with a jeremiad on transport, but it is enough to indicate, to those who go about in vehicles, that there are men on the road to Tibet now who would beggar themselves and their families for generations for a macadamized highway and two hansom cabs to carry them and their belongings smoothly to Lhasa. Before I reached Kalimpong I wished I had never left the 'radius.' No one should embark on Asiatic travel who is not thoroughly out of harmony with civilization.

The servant question is another difficulty. No native bearer wishes to join the field force. Why should he? He has to cook and pack and do the work of three men; he has to make long, exhausting marches; he is exposed to hunger, cold, and fatigue; he may be under fire every day; and he knows that if he falls into the hands of the Tibetans, like the unfortunate servants of Captain Parr at Gyantse, he will be brutally murdered and cut up into mincemeat. In return for which he is fed and clothed, and earns ten rupees more a month than he would in the security of his own home. After several unsuccessful trials, I have found one Jung Bir, a Nepali bearer, who is attached to me because I forget sometimes to ask for my bazaar account, and do not object to his being occasionally drunk. In Tibet the poor fellow will have little chance of drinking.

My first man lost his nerve altogether, and, when told to work, could only whine out that his father and mother were not with him. My next applicant was an opium-eater, prematurely bent and aged, with the dazed look of a toad that has been incarcerated for ages in a rock, and is at last restored to light and the world by the blow of a mason's hammer. He wanted money to buy more dreams, and for this he was willing to expose his poor old body to hardships that would have killed him in a month. Jung Bir was a Gurkha and more martial. His first care on being engaged was to buy a long and heavy chopper – 'for making mince,' he said; but I knew it was for the Tibetans.

To reach Ari one has to descend twice, crossing the Teesta at 700 feet, and the Russett Chu at 1,500 feet. These valleys are hotter than the plains of India. The streams run east and west, and the cliffs on both sides catch the heat of the early morning sun and hold it all day. The closeness, the refraction from the rocks, and the evaporation of the water, make the atmosphere almost suffocating, and one feels the heat the more intensely by the change from the bracing air above. Crossing the Teesta, one enters British Bhutan, a strip of land of less than 300 square miles on the left bank of the river. It was ceded to us with other territories by the treaty of 1865; or, in plain words, it was annexed by us as a punishment for the outrage on Sir Ashley Eden, the British Envoy, who was captured and grossly insulted by the Bhutanese at Punakha in the previous year. The Bhutanese were as arrogant, exclusive, and impossible to deal with, in those days, as the Tibetans are to-day. Yet they have been brought into line, and are now our friends. Why should not the Tibetans, who are of the same stock, yield themselves to enlightenment? Their evolution would be no stranger.

Nine miles above the Teesta bridge is Kalimpong, the capital of British Bhutan, and virtually the foreign mart for what trade passes out of Tibet. The Tomos of the Chumbi Valley, who have the monopoly of the carrying, do not go further south than this. At Kalimpong I found a horse-dealer with a good selection of 'Bhutia tats.' These excellent little beasts are now well known to be as strong and plucky a breed of mountain ponies as can be found anywhere. I discovered that their fame is not merely modern when I came across what must be the first reference to them in history in the narrative of Master Ralph Fitch, England's pioneer to India. 'These northern merchants,' says Fitch, speaking of the Bhutia, 'report that in their countrie they haue very good horses, but they be litle.' The Bhutias themselves, equally ubiquitous in the Sikkim Himalayas, but not equally indispensable, Fitch describes to the letter. At Kalimpong I found them dirty, lazy, good-natured, independent rascals, possessed, apparently, of wealth beyond their deserts, for hard work is as alien to their character as straight dealing. Even the drovers will pay a coolie good wages to cut grass for them rather than walk a mile downhill to fetch it themselves.

The main street of Kalimpong is laid out in the correct boulevard style, with young trees protected by tubs and iron railings. It is dominated by the church of the Scotch Mission, whose steeple is a landmark for miles. The place seems to be overrun with the healthiest-looking English children I have seen anywhere, whose parents are given over to very practical good works.

I took the Bhutan route chiefly to avoid running the gauntlet of the medicals; but another inducement was the prospect of meeting Father Desgodins, a French Roman Catholic, Vicar Apostolic of the Roman Catholic Mission to Western Tibet, who, after fifty years' intimacy with various Mongol types, is probably better acquainted with the Tibetans than any other living European.

I met Father Desgodins at Pedong. The rest-house here looks over the valley to his symmetrical French presbytery and chapel, perched on the hillside amid waving maize-fields, whose spring verdure is the greenest in the world. Scattered over the fields are thatched Lamas' houses and low-storied gompas, with overhanging eaves and praying-flags – 'horses of the wind,' as the Tibetans picturesquely call them, imagining that the prayers inscribed on them are carried to the good god, whoever he may be, who watches their particular fold and fends off intruding spirits as well as material invaders.

Behind the presbytery are terraced rice-fields, irrigated by perennial streams, and bordered by thick artemisia scrub, which in the hot sun, after rain, sends out an aromatic scent, never to be dissociated in travellers' dreams and reveries from these great southern slopes of the Himalayas.

Père Desgodins is an erect old gentleman with quiet, steely gray eyes and a tawny beard now turning gray. He is known to few Englishmen, but his adventurous travels in Tibet and his devoted, strenuous life are known throughout Europe.

He was sent out from France to the Tibet Mission shortly after the murder of Krick and Bourry by the Mishmis. Failing to enter Tibet from the south through Sikkim, he made preparations for an entry by Ladak. His journey was arrested by the Indian Mutiny, when he was one of the besieged at Agra. He afterwards penetrated Western Tibet as far as Khanam, but was recalled to the Chinese side, where he spent twenty-two perilous and adventurous years in the establishment of the mission at Batang and Bonga. The mission was burnt down and the settlement expelled by the Lamas. In 1888 Father Desgodins was sent to Pedong, his present post, as Pro-vicar of the Mission to Western Tibet.

With regard to the present situation in Tibet, Father Desgodins expressed astonishment at our policy of folded arms.

'You have missed the occasion,' he said; 'you should have made your treaty with the Tibetans themselves in 1888. You could have forced them to treat then, when they were unprepared for a military invasion. You should have said to them' – here Père Desgodins took out his watch – '"It is now one o'clock. Sign that treaty by five, or we advance to-morrow." What could they have done? Now you are too late. They have been preparing for this for the last fifteen years.'

Father Desgodins was right. It is the old story of ill-advised conciliation and forbearance. We were afraid of the bugbear of China. The British Government says to her victim after the chastisement: 'You've had your lesson. Now run off and be good.' And the spoilt child of arrested civilization runs off with his tongue in his cheek and learns to make new arms and friends. The British Government in the meantime sleeps in smug complacency, and Exeter Hall is appeased.

'But why did you not treat with the Tibetans themselves?' Père Desgodins asked. 'China!' – here he made an expressive gesture – 'I have known China for fifty years. She is not your friend.' Of course it is to the interest of China to keep the tea monopoly, and to close the market to British India. Travellers on the Chinese borders are given passports and promises of assistance, but the natives of the districts they traverse are ordered to turn them back and place every obstacle in their way. Nobody knows this better than Father Desgodins. China's policy is the same with nations as with individuals. She will always profess willingness to help, but protest that her subjects are unmanageable and out of hand. Why, then, deal with China at all? We can only answer that she had more authority in Lhasa in 1888. Moreover, we were more afraid of offending her susceptibilities. But that bubble has burst.