To Lhassa at Last

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...

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 o...

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...

Suddenly the order came that we were to march to Lhassa forthwith. Who should and who should not form the Lhassa column must have been a difficult question to settle. To perform...

After a week of Gnatong I was ordered to Chumbi, where the reinforcements and a portion of the old force had been concentrating preparatory to what is officially described as 't...

The ten days or so spent at Gyantse were occupied in fighting, in waiting, through periodical armistices, for the result of negotiations which came to nothing, in sightseeing an...

We left Nagartse in very wretched weather, and for the next few days marched in rain and camped in rain. A spell of bad weather like this, bad enough as it is for every one, man...

The 'second advance' began in due course. The first few camping grounds were small, so that we had to proceed on the three days' march to Phari in several columns, two columns a...

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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...

All our little columns concentrated at Phari. Our camp was just outside the 'jong' or fort. Phari-jong was quite typical of the genus 'jong,' looking from the outside like the s...

We were all halted a day or two at Kangma. There was some truth after all in the yarn of the first two mounted infantrymen whom we had met on the road, for some of the enemy had...

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, th...

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 c...

From Gyantse to Ralung is a steady upward incline, and took us three days. It rained most of the time, both day and night; it was difficult to get dry again when once you were w...

Next day we reached Nagartse. This is a village surmounted by a jong which is perched at the end of a rocky ridge which runs from higher hills close down to a corner of the Lake...

The next day was Sunday--not a good day on which to start preparations. I had a great many things to do. The first was to visit the civil surgeon, and be examined for fitness fo...

I marched to Gnatong as a passenger--that is to say, though I accompanied troops, I yet did no duty with them. The camping grounds _en route_ were small clearings in the jungle,...

The next day brought us just under the Karo-Là pass, and we camped at a height of 16,600 feet, with a great mass of snow so near us on the hillside that, while the sun was still...

Those ailments which are described by the word sickness, joined to a prefix, are of two kinds. Either the prefix is the cause of the disease, as in the case of sea sickness, or...

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...

It really was rather nice. It had been quite hot in the plains, and was pleasantly cool up here. My wife and family had preceded me and had been settled for some weeks in the ho...

I have been too long describing the preliminaries that were necessary before joining the Expedition, but there is some excuse for doing so. For after all those preliminaries, wi...

About a thousand feet of zig-zag climbing were to bring us to the top of the pass, where we would again for the moment stand over 16,000 feet. The morning was fairly fine, and t...