themselves, at all the encampments, so that we travelled fast. In the
first five days we covered one hundred and seventy-eight miles, the two
longest marches being, respectively, forty-two and forty-five miles.
Afterward we did not march quite so quickly.

We suffered considerably on these long marches. The soldiers ill-treated
us, and would not allow us to eat every day for fear we should get too
strong. They let us have food only every two or three days. Our
exhaustion and the pain caused by riding those wretched yaks in our
wounded condition were terrible.

All our property had been taken away from us. Our clothes, in rags, were
swarming with vermin. We were barefooted and almost naked. The first few
days we generally marched from before sunrise till an hour or two after
sunset. As soon as we reached camp we were torn off our yaks, and our
jailers fastened heavy rings round our ankles, in addition to those we
already had round our wrists. Thus hampered with chains, the Tibetans
knew we could not possibly escape. We were left to sleep out in the open
without a covering of any kind. Some nights we were lying on snow; other
nights we were drenched in rain. Our guard generally pitched a tent
under which they slept. Even when they did not have a shelter, they
usually went to brew their tea some fifty yards or so from us.

Helped by my two servants, who sat by me to keep watch and to screen me,
I managed, at considerable risk, to keep a rough record of the return
journey, on a small piece of paper that had remained in my pocket when I
had been searched by the Tibetans. My hands being supple, I was able to
draw my right hand out of its cuff. Using as a pen a small piece of bone
I had picked up, and my blood as ink, I drew brief cipher notes and a
rough map of the entire route back.

Necessarily I had to content myself with taking my bearings by the sun,
the position of which I got fairly accurately by constantly watching the
shadow projected by my body on the ground. Of course, when it rained or
snowed, I had to reckon my bearings by the observations of the previous
day. We travelled first west, then successively west-north-west,
north-west, west, and north-west, following the Brahmaputra along a
course south of the outward journey, until we reached the boundary of
the Yutzang (the Lhassa) province. The soldiers of our guard were severe
with us. They ill-treated us in every possible way. Only one or two of
the soldiers s