The Chinese do not seem to have suffered greatly, to judge from the promptness of their pursuit, which was made with such rapidity that the Goorkhas were overtaken and again defeated before they had reached the Kirong pass, they being now obliged to abandon most of their baggage and spoil. The pursuit continued with an energy remarkable for a Chinese army, the Goorkhas, bold as they were by nature, growing demoralized under this unlooked-for persistence. Every encounter resulted in a defeat, the forts which commanded the mountain passes and defiles were taken in succession by Sund Fo's army, and he still pressed relentlessly on. At a strong point called Rassoa the Goorkhas defended for three days a passage over a chasm, but they had grown faint-hearted through their successive defeats, and this post too fell into the hands of their enemy.
The triumphs of the Chinese had not been won without severe loss, both in their frequent assaults upon mountain strongholds and a desperate foe, and from the passage of the snow-clad mountains, but they finally succeeded in reaching the southern slopes of the Himalayas with an effective force of forty thousand men. Khatmandu, the Goorkha capital, lay not far away, and with a last effort of courage and despair the retreating army made a stand for the defence of the seat of their government.
Their position was a strong one, their courage that of desperation, and their valor and resolution so great that for a time they checked the much stronger battalions of their foes. The Chinese troops, disheartened by the courage with which the few but brave mountaineers held their works, were filled with dismay, and might have been repulsed but for the ruthless energy of their leader, who was determined at any cost to win. Turning the fire of his artillery upon his own troops, he drove them relentlessly upon the foe, forcing them to a charge that swept them like a torrent over the Goorkha works. The fire of the guns was kept up upon the mingled mass of combatants until the Goorkhas were driven over a precipice into the stream of the Tadi that ran below. By this decisive act of the Chinese commander many of his own men were slain, but the enemy was practically annihilated and the war brought to an end.
The Goorkhas now humbly solicited peace, which Sund Fo was quite ready to grant, for his own losses had been heavy and it was important to recross the mountains before winter set in. He therefore granted them peace on humiliating terms, though these were as favorable as they could expect under the circumstances. Any further attempt at resistance against the overwhelming army of their foes might have ended in the complete destruction of their state. They took an oath to keep the peace with Thibet, to acknowledge themselves vassals of China, to send an embassy with tribute to Peking every five years, and to restore all the plunder taken from Teshu Lumbo.
Of the later history of the Goorkhas some words may be said. Their raids into India led to a British invasion of their country in 1814, and in 1816 they were forced to make peace. The celebrated Jung Bahadur became their ruler in 1846 through the summary process of killing all his enemies, and in 1857, during the Indian mutiny, he came with a strong force to the aid of the British, whose friend he had always remained. In more recent wars the Goorkhas have proved themselves among the bravest soldiers in the Indian army, and in the late war with the hill-tribes showed an intrepidity which no part of the army surpassed. The independence of their state is still maintained.
CHAIR AND CAGO CARRIERS.
HOW EUROPE ENTERED CHINA.
For four or five thousand years China remained isolated from the rest of the civilized world, its only relations being with the surrounding peoples of its own race, notably with the Tartars of the steppes. Then, in the nineteenth century, the wall of isolation suddenly broke down, and it was forced to enter into relations of trade and amity with Europe and America. This revolution did not come about peacefully. The thunder of cannon was necessary to break down the Chinese wall of seclusion. But the result seems likely to prove of the greatest advantage to the so-called Celestial Kingdom. It has swung loose from its moorings in the harbor of conservatism, and it is not safe to predict how far it will drift, but it is safe to say that a few years of foreign war have done as much for it as hundreds of years of peace and isolation.