On the 26th June General Macdonald arrived with a relieving force, and soon after came the Tongsa Penlop, the temporal ruler of Bhutan, a genial potentate in rich vari-coloured robes and a Homburg hat. The Tibetan offensive had weakened, but the jong had to be taken before the Mission could advance. Down the middle of the precipitous south-eastern face of the great rock ran a deep fissure, across which walls had been built. It was decided to breach these walls by our gun fire and then to attack by way of the cleft. The actual assault was a brilliant and intrepid exploit, for which Lieutenant Grant of the 8th Gurkhas most deservedly received the Victoria Cross. With our guns battering the walls above, he and his men scrambled up the ravine, while masses of rubble poured down on them, and every now and then carried off a man. Then the Gurkhas' bugles warned the guns to cease, and the last climb began up a face so steep that there was no possible shelter from the enemy's fire. By such desperate mountaineering the invaders at last reached the wreckage of the Tibetan wall. Grant and one of the Gurkhas were the first two men over, and to the observers below their death seemed a certainty. They were two against the whole enemy force in the Jong, and had the Tibetans reserved their fire and waited at the bastions, they could have picked off every man of the assault as his head appeared above the breach. But the bold course proved the wise one, and presently the garrison surrendered. Rarely has the Victoria Cross been better earned, and it is satisfactory to know that Lieutenant Grant reaped the reward of perfect fearlessness and received only a slight wound. III On the 14th July the expedition moved out from Gyangtse along the road to Lhasa. Grass and a glory of flowers covered the glens which led up to the Karo La. The serious fighting was over, and the second crossing of that pass was remarkable only for the fact that some rock platforms and caves had to be cleared by our panting troops at an altitude of over 19,000 feet. In the rest of the story the soldier finds little place, and the interest attaches itself to the durbars of the Commissioner and the treasure-house of natural and artistic wonders which the Mission was approaching. For after Gyangtse the resistance of the Tibetans was at an end. Half-sullenly and half-curiously they permitted our advance, delaying us a little with fruitless negotiations, while in Lhasa the game of high politics which the Dalai Lama had played was turning against him, and, like another deity, he was meditating a pilgrimage.