Late in the afternoon, our pride of conquest somewhat chastened by the pangs of hunger, we marched onwards to Gyantse. As we drew nearer we heard what seemed like a very irregular artillery salute fired by very drunken gunners in honour of some personage entitled to a very large number of guns. It was only the jingals in the Gyantse-jong firing away at us patiently and solemnly, in the pious hope that they one day might hit something. Their main objective was a ricketty bridge across the Gyantse river which we had to cross before reaching our camp. Some jingal bullets did on occasion fall fairly near the bridge, and one mule was actually hit in the act of crossing. The crossing of that bridge took till late into the night. All the way from Naini the path was intersected with irrigation nullahs, of which most were full of water. This caused many checks, which culminated in the block at the bridge. The latter began to fall to pieces before all the transport was over, some animals occasionally falling off into the water. The last of the rearguard reached camp about midnight. CHAPTER X AT GYANTSE: FIGHTING: FORAGING: TIBETAN RELIGIOUS ART The ten days or so spent at Gyantse were occupied in fighting, in waiting, through periodical armistices, for the result of negotiations which came to nothing, in sightseeing and in foraging for our present needs, and for the advance to Lhassa. The two fights here alluded to were the taking of Tsechin and the taking of Gyantse-jong. At the former I again had a front seat in the stalls, watching the show in company with the headquarters' Staff, but had to leave, with some aggravating message to camp, just as the curtain was rising on the last act. During that long day, at the end of which Gyantse-jong was taken, I saw very little of the fighting till just the very climax, when certain duties took me to the village Pálá, where the Staff were watching the final phase. No boredom on this occasion, but intense excitement. The final assault on the jong was a sight well worth remembering, coming as it did at the close of so tedious an action. The artistic effect of the Maxim on what one might call spectacular warfare is, I think, greater than that of artillery. Shells going off at intervals of course bring out the tragedy of war by the awful noise which they make, but the rapid ping-ping-ping of the Maxim sets your blood tingling and really excites you. It was a glorious spectacle, that last assault. The rush through the breach of those Ghurkhas and their comrades into that frowning impregnable-looking jong to the tune of artillery, dynamite, and Maxims would have appealed to the veriest man of peace. And as the jong became ours, the cheer that went up from every point where troops and followers stood in knots, watching the outcome, was a glorious climax to that long day.