Morning came. I was given a beautiful pony to ride. Chanden Sing and Mansing were mounted on equally handsome animals. Then followed my Tibetan troops--a grand cavalcade. We started gayly toward Taklakot. We had been informed that the Jong Pen was concentrating his men at a certain point on the road, where he intended to bar our way. It was this point that we must force. My Tibetans said that they hated the Jong Pen's men, and swore they would slaughter them all if they dared to stand before us and prevent our passage. "But they are such cowards," declared one of the Tibetan officers, "they will run away." All this talk suddenly stopped when we heard the distant tinkling of our enemies' horse-bells. I encouraged my men as best I could, but a panic began to spread among them. The Jong Pen's men came in sight. I witnessed the strange spectacle of two armies face to face, each in mortal terror of the other. Notwithstanding my remonstrances, matchlocks and swords were deposited on the ground with anxious eagerness by both parties, in order to show that only peaceful intentions prevailed. Then a conference was held, in which everybody seemed ready to oblige everybody else except me. While this was still proceeding, a horseman arrived with a message from the Jong Pen, and at last, to everybody's satisfaction, permission was granted for us to proceed into Taklakot. My army retraced its steps toward the north-west. Deposed from the high military post, which I had occupied only for a few hours, I became again a private individual and a prisoner. A large escort took us along a rocky road following the course of the Gakkon River along barren cliffs. We passed hundreds of _choktens_, large and small, mostly painted red, and _mani_ walls. Then, having descended by a precipitous track on whitish clay-soil, we reached a thickly inhabited district, where stone houses were scattered all over the landscape. We saw on our left the large monastery of Delaling, and, a little way off, the Gomba of Sibling. Describing a sweeping curve among rocks and bowlders, we rounded the high, graceful cliff, on the top of which towered the fort and monasteries of Taklakot. Such was our anxiety, when we reached this point, lest something should happen and we should be taken back again by another route, that as soon as we were across the wooden bridge over the Gakkon River, Chanden Sing and I, on perceiving the large Shoka encampment at the foot of the hill, lashed our ponies and ran away from our guard. Galloping our hardest along the high cliff, riddled with holes and passages in which the natives live, we found ourselves at last among friends again. The Shokas, who had come over to this market to exchange their goods with the Tibetans, were astounded when they saw us. They recognized us with great difficulty.