. The book of the long trail. masonry on a precipi-tous rock, and had 5000 to 6000 Tibetans inside looked impregnable, but was breached by shell fire,and then after maxim and rifle fire it was gallantlystormed by the Gurkhas and Royal Fusiliers. TheTongsa Penlop, who had been rather nervous aboutthe result, came next morning to congratulate, andwas taken over the fort. He was astonished, and sowere our men. To look down from it on to the tinyMission post, says Younghusband, was like lookingdown from the Round Tower of Windsor Castle upona house and garden in the fields about Eton. It was
. The book of the long trail. masonry on a precipi-tous rock, and had 5000 to 6000 Tibetans inside looked impregnable, but was breached by shell fire,and then after maxim and rifle fire it was gallantlystormed by the Gurkhas and Royal Fusiliers. TheTongsa Penlop, who had been rather nervous aboutthe result, came next morning to congratulate, andwas taken over the fort. He was astonished, and sowere our men. To look down from it on to the tinyMission post, says Younghusband, was like lookingdown from the Round Tower of Windsor Castle upona house and garden in the fields about Eton. It was now a whole year since the Mission hadarrived at Khamba Jong—a whole year wasted by thefutile tactics of the monks of Lhasa—and everyonewas glad when the final march began on July 14. TheTibetans were not tired of the game yet; once morethey barricaded the Karo-la, and once more they were FRANCIS YOUNGHUSBAND 219 outflanked by the Gurkhas at 18,000 feet on the pass itself was 16,COO feet high, and over this the. The Tibetans then sent in an enormous flag of truce. whole force marched. No sooner were they over itthan the Ta Lama appeared again, with another person-age called the Yutok Sha-pe, and offered to negotiateif Younghusband would only go back to Gyantse. 220 THE BOOK OF THE LONG TRAIL Some days were lost in this kind of talk, and then thepersonages decamped suddenly in the night. Next morning, July 21, the expedition started onthe final stage. The first days march was a verypleasant one, along the shore of a marvellous lake,the Yamdok Tso, which the Tibetans call the TurquoiseLake because of its wonderful colour, though it is farmore translucent than turquoise, and varies throughevery shade of colour from violet to green. On the22nd another stone wall was encountered, but there wereno Tibetans behind it, and the expedition soon reachedthe Kamba-la, the last pass before Lhasa. On the otherside the pass they came down to a great river, theTsang-po, supposed t
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Keywords: ., bookcentury1900, bookdecade1910, booksubjectexplorers, bookyear19
