estimated at about a thousand men) who were manning
this defence, large bodies of Tibetans were also busy
on the other side of the Bam tso. From the old narratives
of the eighteenth century, one had expected to find
this lake withm sight of Tuna, and it is quite clear
that at no very remote period, Tuna itself was almost
washed by its waters. But not a sign of them was
now to be seen, though the short cut to Lhasa through
the La-tse Karo la just visible across the plain, proved
how recently the ground had at any rate been a swamp
by the wide curve which it took before it started northeast,
from the posting station and village of Hram.*
A typical day followed. From the earliest dawn
till after sunset, a piercing wind swept the camp from
end to end with a hurricane of tingling grit, and the
discomfort of the men was increased by the device
which Brigadier-General Macdonald adopted to deceive
any Tibetan scouts who might be lurking among the
hills which hemmed in the plain to the west. All tents
were struck and the men received strict orders to conceal
themselves. Capt. Ottley, after a reconnaissance
with his mounted infantry, reported that the Tibetans
had temporarily retired from their wall, and from the
string of sangars which led upwards from its western end
over the spurs of the neighbouring hills. But as they
had returned in full force by the morning of the 31st,
it is more probable that they were driven away, not in
any belief that the Mission had retreated, but simply
because even the Tibetans found the discomfort of the
day unbearable.
At twenty minutes past eight on the 31st the column
* This village is supposed to give an alternative name to this sheet of water. It
appears as the Hram tso on many maps, but without any real justification.
moved out.> About a mile and a quarter of the road
ran eastwards immediately under the high spur to
which I have referred. Then, turning sharply to the
north, it makes its way five miles to the little promontory
and ruined house between which the road runs.
Here, as we could see two miles away, the Tibetans had
built their defences. On the plain itself, the wall ran
from the spur to the house, constructed in the shape
of four redans with narrow openings between them.
On the left hand the hills, grassless and stony, rose
steadily until the saddle joined the two-thousand-foot
ridge three miles away to the west. Here there were
seven or eight sangars. But to our right a clear space
of three thousand yards of level plain stretched between
the end of their poor little defences and the nearest
swamp bordering the far but just visible waters of the
lake. The fatuity of the Tibetan scheme of defence
would, one thinks, have been manifest to a child. No
attempt whatever to block this space was made. The
truth is that the whole project had been conceived in
Lhasa. The authorities there were guided by an
obsolete map, or possibly by a mistaken remembrance
of the locality, and the general who came to conduct
operations had no authority to select another field for
his defence. The fact that the lake had retreated about
two miles from its ancient shore was a matter of which the
lamas in the capital were either ignorant or careless.
We tramped steadily across the plain— a mere continuation
of the Tuna plateau, frozen deep, and barely
supporting the scanty growth of thistles that pricked
up here and there through the patches of still lying snow.
Everything under foot or in the distance was grey and
colourless. You will understand more clearly the scene