t it was all in the day's work, and the subaltern took it
like a picnic. Another supreme test of endurance in man and beast were
the convoys between Chumbi and Tuna in the early part of the year, which
for hardships endured remind me of Skobeleff's dash through the Balkans
on Adrianople. Only our labours were protracted, Skobeleff's the
struggle of a few days. Even in mid-March a convoy of the 12th Mule
Corps, escorted by two companies of the 23rd Pioneers, were overtaken by
a blizzard on their march between Phari and Tuna, and camped in two feet
of snow with the thermometer 18 deg. below zero. A driving hurricane made it
impossible to light a fire or cook food. The officers were reduced to
frozen bully beef and neat spirits, while the sepoys went without food
for thirty-six hours. The fodder for the mules was buried deep in snow.
The frozen flakes blowing through the tents cut like a knife. While the
detachment was crossing a stream, the mules fell through the ice, and
were only extricated with great difficulty. The drivers arrived at Tuna
frozen to the waist. Twenty men of the 12th Mule Corps were frostbitten,
and thirty men of the 23rd Pioneers were so incapacitated that they had
to be carried in on mules. On the same day there were seventy cases of
snow-blindness among the 8th Gurkhas.

Until late in April all the plain was intersected by frozen streams.
Blankets were stripped from the mules to make a pathway for them over
the ice. Often they went without water at night, and at mid-day, when
the surface of the ice was melted, their thirst was so great that many
died from overdrinking.

Had the Tibetans attacked us in January, they would have taken us at a
great disadvantage. The bolts of our rifles jammed with frozen oil. Oil
froze in the Maxims, and threw them out of gear. More often than not the
mounted infantry found the butts of their rifles frozen in the buckets,
and had to dismount and use both hands to extricate them.

I think these men who took the convoys through to Tuna; the 23rd, who
wintered there and supplied most of the escort; and the 8th Gurkhas, who
cut a road in the frost-bound plain, may be said to have broken the back
of the resistance to our advance. They were the pioneers, and the troops
who followed in spring and summer little realized what they owed to
them.

The great difficulties we experienced in pushing through supplies to
Tuna, which is less than 150 miles from our base railway-statio