The effect of all the coin that we took to and left in the country must have had a curious economic effect on Tibet. For a country that trades largely by barter to be suddenly flooded with rupees should, according to the ordinary principles of political economy, raise the current prices of all commodities to an extraordinary extent. However, Tibet, queer country that it is, has probably a political economy all of its very own, and will arrange such a matter entirely differently from Western expectation. Even our rupees, as such, were not always approved, a distinction being sometimes drawn between those enfaced with King Edward's head and those enfaced with Queen Victoria's. The latter were approved on the ground that they were 'Kampani' rupees, the Queen's face being apparently regarded as the trade mark of the East India Company, of which the past generation of Tibetans must have heard and passed on the memory to their children, who still thought it was in existence. A new symbol, such as that of a man's head, was thus naturally viewed at first with suspicion. CHAPTER XIII THE KARO-LÀ The next day brought us just under the Karo-Là pass, and we camped at a height of 16,600 feet, with a great mass of snow so near us on the hillside that, while the sun was still up, it quite hurt our eyes to look in that direction. Avalanches of snow kept falling from the mass, coming down with a great thud that was almost startling. There was a little mountain sickness that night; but, considering the height and the fatigue that had been involved in reaching it, there was remarkably little. A very little reconnoitring to the front in the early afternoon had revealed the enemy in position a mile or so the other side of the pass. They had built two walls, one behind the other, on what appeared to be admirably selected ground. They seemed in fact to have been studying tactics to some purpose. It was pleasant to get up the next morning in a sharp frost, and to get, as it were, one glimpse into winter--a glimpse, however, that only lasted till the sun got up. Cold for the past few months had not been our bugbear, but rain, and to-day there was no rain, the sky was cloudless, and the air crisp and fresh, and as soon as the sun was up, even moderately warm. A few minutes' walk took us to the top of the pass, 16,800 feet. From there the road descended gradually, but the headquarters' Staff, whom for the moment I was accompanying, kept to the hillside at the same level as the top of the pass till they came to a good _coin de vantage_ from which to view the first phase of the fight. For it was obvious that we were to be opposed. The artillery stayed close by us, while two parties of Ghurkhas were sent to scale the heights on either side, and the Fusiliers and some more infantry sent along the valley to attack the formidable-looking walls which the Tibetans had erected ahead of us.