rbidden cities
are so fascinating, and the idea of assisting in drawing aside a pardah
so appeals to our rude imaginations, that the desire to reach Lhassa
was especially great. Those high passes in front of us, the shores of
the great Palti lake and the upper Brahmaputra, that we knew not how we
should cross, all seemed also to point to a varied adventure, and there
was a spice of excitement in the thought of marching through a country,
on the resources of which we should have largely to maintain ourselves,
while as yet we knew hardly anything of their kind and extent.

We left the sad Gyantse garrison behind us, and marched off one morning
in threatening weather that soon turned to rain, our path for the first
few miles lying across a veritable bog. We consisted of the whole of a
British and a section of a native mountain battery, of a wing of the
Royal Fusiliers, of two companies of mounted infantry (drawn from
various native regiments, and consisting of Sikhs, Ghurkhas, and
Pathans) of the 8th Ghurkha Rifles, several companies of the 32nd Sikh
Pioneers and the 40th Pathans, one company of Sappers and Miners, and
two machine gun detachments. Several field hospitals or sections of
field hospitals accompanied us, besides, of course, many other
miscellaneous necessities such as ammunition column, treasure, supply
column, post-office, veterinary establishment, and field park. The
telegraph department was conspicuous by its absence, it being a feature
of the advance to Lhassa that we left the telegraph behind at Gyantse--a
proceeding which doubtless had both its inconvenient and its convenient
results. Last but not least came the transport. One may divide this into
regular and irregular. The regular transport consisted of the whole or
portions of five Indian mule corps, the 6th, the 7th, the 9th, the 10th,
and the 12th; the irregular of a cooli corps, and two locally raised
corps--one of yaks and the other of donkeys.

Our transport was so big an item and so big a necessity that a short
sketch of it as it ploughed through the sodden fields outside Gyantse
that wet July morning may not come amiss.

The average Indian transport pack mule, aged probably fifteen to
eighteen years old, is the finest old soldier we have got. If, like Lord
Roberts's gray arab, he were allowed to record his services round his
neck, he would display a fine collection of medals and clasps. Allowing
that he is now fifteen and that he joined the ra