This looked as if we were to have another fight. Before we left Gyantse we had heard that the pass was occupied by 2,000 Tibetans, and that there were 2,000 more in support, and the mounted infantry now reported the pass to be strongly held and fresh walls and sangars to have been built. All the villages en route, too, had been deserted, so we fully expected a fight.
Our camp under the pass was right in among a lofty knot of mountains, one of which rose to a height of over 24,000 feet above sea-level. A magnificent glacier descended a side valley to within 500 yards of the camp. The whole scene was desolate in the highest degree. And though we were on the highroad to Lhasa, the road was nothing but the roughest little mountain pathway rubbed out by the traffic of mules and men across it.
The afternoon and evening of the 17th were occupied in reconnoitring the position of the Tibetans. They were very strongly posted at a narrow gorge three miles from our camp on the north side of the pass, and their position was flanked by impassable snow mountains. The old wall of Colonel Brander’s time had been extended on either hand till it touched precipices immediately under the snow-line. Behind this lay a second barrier of sangars. Like all the walls which the Tibetans so skilfully erected at such places, this was built up of heavy stones. The position was manned, according to our latest information, by about 1,500 Tibetans.
At 7 a.m. on the morning of the 18th, when now, even in the height of summer, there was still a nip of frost in the air, the advance troops marched off. The Royal Fusiliers, under Colonel Cooper, were to attack the centre, and on either side parties of the 8th Gurkhas were to turn the flanks.
CAMP NEAR KARO-LA.
While the Gurkhas were slowly plodding up the mountain-sides, I seated myself beside Major Fuller’s mountain battery, and watched the effects of gun-fire at these altitudes. It was most interesting. The pass itself was 16,600 feet, and the battery was a few hundred feet above it, and was for some time firing at groups 5,000 yards away, and some of them on the glacier at about 18,000 feet above the sea. In such a rare atmosphere ordinary sighting and ordinary fuses were quite useless. The shells would cleave through the thin air at very considerably greater velocity than they would pass through the thicker air at sea-level. All the sighting and the timing of the fuses had, therefore, to be completely readjusted by trial and guesswork. Despite this, however, wonderfully accurate shooting was effected by these splendid little guns, and it would have made all the difference to Colonel Brander if he had had them instead of the useless 7-pounders.
The Gurkhas and Pathans, after a long and difficult climb to 18,000 feet, turned the position, but the Tibetans in the centre had not waited. They knew that the dreaded mounted infantry would be after them, so each determined that he, at any rate, would not be the last to leave the position, and all had cleared off before our troops arrived. Most, indeed, had retreated in the night, and in reality only about 700 Kham men were left to hold the position. Many of these escaped high up over the snows, pursued only by our shrapnel shells. Our mounted infantry reconnoitred up to within two miles of Nagartse Jong, which was found to be occupied, while reports came in that 1,300 more men from Kham were expected.
Nagartse was reached on the 19th, and close to it I was met by a deputation from Lhasa. Here were signs of negotiations at last. I said I would have a full interview at three that afternoon, but must warn them at once that it would be necessary for me to occupy the jong, and to advance to Lhasa, though I was ready to negotiate on the way. The deputation, which consisted of the Yutok Sha-pé, the Ta Lama, the Chief Secretary, and some monks, arrived in my camp shortly before the time appointed. The Yutok Sha-pé took the chief place. He was a genial, gentlemanly official of good family and pleasant manners. But it soon became apparent that both he and the Ta Lama were in the hands of the Chief Secretary, the monk official who, from our first meeting at Khamba Jong, had ever been an obstacle in our way. This latter official, acting as spokesman, said they had heard from the Tongsa Penlop that we wished to negotiate at Gyantse, and they had set out to meet us when they heard that we were advancing. They were quite willing to negotiate if we returned to Gyantse, and in that case they would accompany us and make a proper settlement with us there.
I repeated for the fiftieth time that I had waited for more than a year to negotiate; that even at Gyantse I had given them many opportunities; that when I had first arrived there I had announced my desire to negotiate; that after the attack upon me I had still declared my willingness to negotiate up to June 25; that on the intercession of the Tongsa Penlop the Viceroy had extended that term for some days; that even after the capture of the jong I had sent messengers over the country to find them, and waited for another week at Gyantse; but that eventually the patience of the Viceroy had become completely exhausted, and His Excellency had ordered me to advance to Lhasa forthwith, as he had reluctantly become convinced that only there could a settlement be made. We were now advancing to Lhasa. I would be quite ready to negotiate with them on the way, and if the Tibetan troops did not oppose us we would not fight against them; but as our troops had on the previous day been fired at from the jong, we must send our troops in to occupy it. We would, however, allow the delegates to remain unmolested, and would see that their property was not disturbed, and that they themselves were accorded proper marks of respect.