lavish of sign-posts. The Gnatong post
was placarded everywhere on the inside with the names of its tiny
streets. It appeared that we were occupying what was on the whole a
straggling but quite a fashionable part of London. I myself lived at
'Hyde Park Corner.' The post commandant, if I remember right, occupied a
mansion in 'Carlton Gardens.' We went for constitutionals up and down
'Rotten Row,' and found 'Buckingham Palace' used as a supply depot.

This art of writing mildly amusing notice-boards was not confined to
Gnatong. On a bit of the military road near Chumbi, where the roadmakers
had to revet it carefully to prevent it falling into the river, there
was a neat little sign-board describing this strip of roadway as 'The
Embankment.' Outside the dak bungalow at Rangpo was a large placard on
which was printed 'Mount Nelson Hotel. No Ragging allowed.' On the top
of the Natu-La--one of the passes dividing Sikkim from Tibet--there is
the following:

[Illustration]

Poor jokes all of them, aren't they? but just as poor fare can be eaten
with a relish after a hard day's marching; so poor jokes tickle the
mental palate of the simple soldier and the stupid officer on service,
just as effectively as do good ones.

CHAPTER VI

OVER THE JALAP-LA: CHUMBI: BEARDS

After a week of Gnatong I was ordered to Chumbi, where the
reinforcements and a portion of the old force had been concentrating
preparatory to what is officially described as 'the second advance to
Gyantse.'

My way lay through Kapap over the Jalap-La, and down through Langram and
Rinchingong, and thence to Chumbi. The _piece de resistance_ was the
part between Kapap and Langram. There is an easy uninteresting pass
between Gnatong and Kapap. Kapap itself looked a bleak dismal spot,
lying all in the clouds at the end of a long dark lake. From here you
rise to the top of the Jalap-La, which is about 14,900 feet high. The
suffix 'La' denotes a 'pass.' There was snow on the pass which covered
the road in some places. I got into a small drift once, my pony flopping
down suddenly till his girths were in the snow. He knew nothing about
snow in those days, and must have been very much astonished. One's first
acquaintance with so high an altitude impresses one greatly. There is
something so strange about the atmosphere that one feels as though one
were in another planet. The effect of the atmosphere on distances is
most curious. You see the details of a hill