thirteen thousand feet is like playing the game at an ordinary
level--with an eighty-pound load on your back. Less strain on the lungs
was a rifle meeting. To escort our military or political betters to the
city on a state visit was another mild form of entertainment. The
Chinese Amban often received such visits. The ordinary officer who
formed part of the escort did not take part in the actual visit. He
stayed outside on the doorsteps. Sometimes he was known to go into the
Amban's kitchen, where an elderly matron gave him a cup of tea.

Luckily, though it rained generally once in the twenty-four hours, it
did so mostly at night, so that we were seldom confined to our tents in
the daytime. Even so, we felt rather like prisoners. Going out beyond
the vicinity of the camp meant going out armed, and proceeding to any
distance meant being accompanied by an escort, such precautions having
been specially indicated by the attack made on two officers by a
certain fanatical lama.

It is not surprising that the life we led left many gaps which it was
hard to fill. I was glad when one day I got orders to go on a ten days'
trip down the line as far as Pete-jong and back.

These ten days initiated me into the life of those portions of the force
who had been left to man posts on the line of communications.

The native soldier soon makes himself very much at home in his post. He
has deeply regretted not going to the front, but with a useful belief in
'kismet' makes the best of things. The relief from marching and the
ample leisure to cook food are redeeming features. The post-commandant,
if the only British officer on the spot, feels his circumstances more
acutely. Not only does he grieve at being left behind, but since in
ordinary times no life is more social than that of a British officer, he
at first feels his loneliness greatly. He may love his men, he may
be--in the wording of that common Hindustani metaphor--veritably their
'father and mother,' but still he cannot go to them for company. He can
exchange few ideas with them, and as regards social intercourse, he is
almost as much alone as if he were on a desert island. If, however, by
any chance there are two officers together in one post, they should
enjoy themselves. For though ordinary regimental life is, as I said
above, the most social in the world, it yet also suffers from the
disabilities of its own sociability. In a regimental mess you know
twenty men well, and may g