In the night a large number of horsemen arrived. There was a great commotion in the place, the people running about shouting.
Tibet is farmed out to officials who have practically become small feudal kings, and who are constantly quarrelling with one another.
To royal jealousy, and to disputes over the rights of the road, was due the appearance of the new army. There were altogether some hundred and fifty men armed with matchlocks and swords. The chieftain of this band came to me with eight or ten other officers. He spoke so excitedly that I feared there was trouble in store for us. There was indeed. These new arrivals were officers and soldiers from the districts of Gyanema, Kardam, and Barca. They had come with strict orders from the Barca Tarjum that we were on no account to traverse his province or to cross into India by the Lumpiya Pass. This was both amusing and tantalizing, for we had now no way across the frontier open to us. Our guard and some of the Jong Pen's men who had remained behind, finding they were in the minority, thought it prudent to disappear. Anxious as I naturally was to get out of the country as quickly as possible, I approved of all the Gyanema men said, and urged them to fight in case the Jong Pen insisted on my going through the Tarjum's province. All ways out of the country were now barred to us, and unless we resorted to force, I felt we would never escape at all.
The Gyanema men asked me whether I would lead them in case of a fight with the Jong Pen's soldiers. Though not overconfident in their courage, I accepted the post of general-in-chief pro tem., Chanden Sing and Mansing being elected there and then as my aides-de-camp. We spent the greater part of the night in arranging our plan of attack on the Jong Pen's troops. When all was properly settled, the Tibetans, to show their gratitude, brought me a leg of mutton, some tsamba, and two bricks of tea.
Morning came. I was given a beautiful pony to ride. Chanden Sing and Mansing were mounted on equally handsome animals. Then followed my Tibetan troops—a grand cavalcade. We started gayly toward Taklakot. We had been informed that the Jong Pen was concentrating his men at a certain point on the road, where he intended to bar our way. It was this point that we must force. My Tibetans said that they hated the Jong Pen's men, and swore they would slaughter them all if they dared to stand before us and prevent our passage.
"But they are such cowards," declared one of the Tibetan officers, "they will run away."
All this talk suddenly stopped when we heard the distant tinkling of our enemies' horse-bells. I encouraged my men as best I could, but a panic began to spread among them. The Jong Pen's men came in sight. I witnessed the strange spectacle of two armies face to face, each in mortal terror of the other.
Notwithstanding my remonstrances, matchlocks and swords were deposited on the ground with anxious eagerness by both parties, in order to show that only peaceful intentions prevailed. Then a conference was held, in which everybody seemed ready to oblige everybody else except me.
While this was still proceeding, a horseman arrived with a message from the Jong Pen, and at last, to everybody's satisfaction, permission was granted for us to proceed into Taklakot.
My army retraced its steps toward the north-west. Deposed from the high military post, which I had occupied only for a few hours, I became again a private individual and a prisoner. A large escort took us along a rocky road following the course of the Gakkon River along barren cliffs. We passed hundreds of choktens, large and small, mostly painted red, and mani walls. Then, having descended by a precipitous track on whitish clay-soil, we reached a thickly inhabited district, where stone houses were scattered all over the landscape. We saw on our left the large monastery of Delaling, and, a little way off, the Gomba of Sibling. Describing a sweeping curve among rocks and bowlders, we rounded the high, graceful cliff, on the top of which towered the fort and monasteries of Taklakot.