and his little force | they had taken a course which
was hidden behind the edge of the rock and ice
above us.
Nothing in Tibet is more curiously deceptive than the
little upright boulders which stand, for all the world like
men, against the sky line of the hills, and time after time
a false alarm was given that the Pioneers had at last
reached the mountain brow from which they could
enfilade the enemy. At last, however, one of the stones
upon which our glasses had been fixed for so long seemed
to move and, half-fainting over it, a tiny figure halted
and unslung the miniature rifle into its right hand. He
was joined in a moment by another, and his comrades
in the valley below gave the first warning to the
defenders of the sangar by raising a thin distant cheer.
The enemy did not w a it; not more than four or five
of the escalading force had reached their goal before
the Tibetans bolted from their advanced post and
ran back across the open coverless slopes of the mountain
side to the protection of the great wall. In a
moment the fire was concentrated upon the fugitives,
not only from three points of the compass, but from
angles which must have varied nearly i8o°. There
may have been about twenty-five men in the sangar :
of these two or three were hit at once, and the remainder,
clambering and sprawling over the slippery
shale, made their way back in a rain of bullets. Rifle
fire is one of the most unaccountable things in the world.
Judging by the standards of the shooting range it would
seem impossible that even one man should have escaped
from this converging battery ; as a matter of fact, though
the aim was fairly good, that of Lieut. Hadow’s maxim
being especially well managed, I|do not think that of the
THE COMING o f d a w n a t 16,600 f e e t . Grit and darkness,
smoke," ultramarine ash, sky white-blue; pear y tg on
tents and snow.