d be no more gentlemanly
way of getting your baptism of fire than on a Tibetan battlefield. The
jingal, for instance, is a delightful weapon at that range. Of course,
if a jingal bullet hit you (a heavy rough-hewn thing of about three
inches diameter), it would make a hole that it would take a lot of
surgery to fill up. But normally, in the latter stages of its flight,
the jingal bullet lets you know it is coming. Furthermore, except at
close range, it is very inaccurate. So if what you desire on the
battlefield is mild excitement, with the minimum of risk, I would
recommend exposing yourself to jingal-fire at, say, from six to twelve
hundred yards.

A very different tale would be that of the fighter in the firing line.
Most of the fights in Tibet involved not only street-fighting but
house-fighting, and this species of fun generally began immediately
after a steep climb of several hundred feet. I can imagine few greater
physical and moral trials in modern warfare than that endured by those
officers and men of ours, who, while gasping for breath after a race up
a steep slope in that rare air, penetrated in small parties first
through narrow streets, then into dingy courtyards, and lastly into
byres and store-rooms and living-rooms that were generally pitch dark,
not knowing from what hole or corner, or with what murderous form of
clumsy firearm, they might not at any moment be fired upon by an unseen
foe at close quarters. For the sake of those who went through this trial
and were not found wanting, Tibetan warfare should not be despised.

The fight at Naini was waged for many weary hours. Its spectacular charm
had soon worn off. The juxtaposition of fierce excitement and deadly
boredom is a strange feature of warfare. There, two hundred yards away,
men were killing one another, and here were some of us positively
yawning!

Late in the afternoon, our pride of conquest somewhat chastened by the
pangs of hunger, we marched onwards to Gyantse. As we drew nearer we
heard what seemed like a very irregular artillery salute fired by very
drunken gunners in honour of some personage entitled to a very large
number of guns. It was only the jingals in the Gyantse-jong firing away
at us patiently and solemnly, in the pious hope that they one day might
hit something. Their main objective was a ricketty bridge across the
Gyantse river which we had to cross before reaching our camp. Some
jingal bullets did on occasion fall fairly n