The next day at sunrise Chanden Sing and I were placed on yaks, not on riding-saddles, but on wooden pack-saddles. Poor Mansing was made to walk, and was beaten mercilessly when, tired and worn, he fell or remained behind. Finally they tied a rope round his neck and dragged him along in a most brutal manner. A strong guard prevented our escaping. The soldiers demanded fresh relays of yaks and ponies, and food for 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.