were the last people to notice the omission. It was a
good piece of work, and Colonel Brander is to be congratulated.
The delay of even twenty-four hours in
capturing this village might have made a serious difference
to the defence of Chang-lo, and when the Tibetans
had once been driven out the fullest use was made by
us of this second point d’appui.
The situation created by the capture of Pala was
briefly this : the English force was placed in a strong
position with regard to the jo n g ; we were enabled to
cut the communications of the Tibetans eastwards,
and, by holding the bridge at Chang-lo itself, communication
with the south was only possible after the river
had risen by going five miles down stream to the bridge
at Tse-chen. We had for some time been able to keep
the Tibetans under cover all the d a y ; a few sharpshooters
and Lieut. Hadow, with an itching thumb upon
the trigger-lever of his maxim, had long made it impossible
for any Tibetan to show himself by daylight on
any part of the jong, or in so much of the town as was
visible from the roof of the Commissioner’s house. But
we had hitherto of course been unable to stop steady
communication with Lhasa by night. Now, however,
we were astride the road, and an occasional patrol was
all that was necessary to prevent the Tibetans holding
any communication with their capital, except by the
circuitous and difficult mountain track, which could
only be followed by retreating thirty miles down the
valley of the Nyang chu. • i I ..
On our side we were still surrounded, and it was a
daily uncertainty every morning whether our thin line of
communications would have continued to exist through
the night. We were therefore in a curious situation,
Gyantse Jong from Chang-lo Bridge.
o n e Ha d h a r d l y t h e q u i e t n e c e s s a r y f o r p a i n t i n g
A P IC TU R E , AS E V E R Y NOW AN D THEN ONE OF THE SMALLER
JIN G A L S WOULD B E L E T O F F IN ONE’ S D IR E C T IO N . THE
PO ST IT SE L F WOULD JU ST B E SE EN O F F TH E SK ETCH TO
TH E RIGHT B EH IN D THE N E AR E R T R E E S .