ny country inhabited by a
people with the rudiments of sense or spirit. The difficulties of
transport were so great that the escort had to be cut down to the finest
possible figure. There were barely enough men for pickets, and many of
the ordinary precautions of field manoeuvres were out of the question.
But the Tibetan failed to realize his opportunities. He avoided the
narrow forest-clad ravines of Sikkim and Chumbi, and made his first
stand on the open plateau at Guru. Fortunately for us, he never learnt
what transport means to a civilized army. A bag of barley-meal, some
weighty degchies, and a massive copper teapot slung over the saddle are
all he needs; evening may produce a sheep or a yak. His movements are
not hampered by supplies. If the importance of the transport question
had ever entered his head, he would have avoided the Tuna camp, with its
Maxims and mounted infantry, and made a dash upon the line of
communications. A band of hardy mountaineers in their own country might
very easily surprise and annihilate an ill-guarded convoy in a narrow
valley thickly forested and flanked by steep hills. To furtively cut an
artery in your enemy's arm and let out the blood is just as effective as
to knock him on the head from in front. But in this first phase of the
operations the Tibetans showed no strategy; they were badly led, badly
armed, and apparently devoid of all soldier-like qualities. Only on one
or two occasions they displayed a desperate and fatal courage, and this
new aspect of their character was the first indication that we might
have to revise the views we had formed sixteen years ago of an enemy who
has seemed to us since a unique exception to the rule that a hardy
mountain people are never deficient in courage and the instinct of
self-defence.

The most extraordinary aspect of the fighting up to our arrival at
Gyantse was that we had only one casualty from a gunshot wound--the Sikh
who was shot in the hand at the Dzama Tang affair by a Tibetan whose
jezail was almost touching him. Yet at the Hot Springs the Tibetans
fired off their matchlocks and rifles into the thick of us, and at Guru
an hour afterwards the Gurkhas walked right up to a house held by the
enemy, under heavy fire, and took it without a casualty. The mounted
infantry were exposed to a volley at Samando at 100 yards, and again in
the Red Idol Gorge they rode through the enemy's fire at an even
shorter range. In the same action the 32nd m