I shall not easily forget that day. It has been made memorable to me by the vagaries of a certain Bhutya pony ridden by an officer who was accompanying me. To get one's kit and oneself over forty-five miles of indifferent roadway in one day, especially when you have no change of mount, involves early rising. We got up at four o'clock, after sleeping in the domestic temple of a Tibetan farm-house on a sacred but not very clean floor. We sent our kit on ahead, and also my syce, who was mounted on a mule, in charge of part of the mounted infantry postmen. The remainder of the latter accompanied our two selves a little later. My companion had not ridden his pony for some time, and the latter, disliking the process of being mounted, began by suddenly sidling away when his master was only half on his back, with the result that his master came off and tumbled to the ground, still keeping hold of the reins. The pony, anxious to be free, danced a jig on his master's stomach. Luckily, being of a hard-footed hill-breed, his feet were not shod, so that no serious injury resulted, as would have been the case if the trampling had been done in iron shoes. At length the pony broke away from the reins and scampered off, leaving his rider to recover the breath that had been squeezed out of his body and to pick himself up. This was an awkward beginning to the day's march, but, finding no bones broken, and the pony having, for the occasion, allowed himself to be caught, my friend mounted, successfully this time, and we proceeded on our way. After some miles we overtook and passed the other party, and pushed on till, finding we had gone twenty miles from Chaksam, were in a pleasant spot suitable for resting in, and were uncommonly hungry, we dismounted, took our ponies' bridles off, tied the animals up, gave them their grain, and set to work upon our own sandwiches. We rested an hour, and, thinking our surroundings too pleasant to leave abruptly, we decided on another half-hour's rest. Just as we had done so, and were looking forward to a spell of peaceful contemplation of romantic scenery, as seen through the beautifying haze of tobacco-smoke, one of us noticed that the Bhutya was fidgeting with his head rope. He was on the edge of a field of green peas that were tickling his fancy. As we looked, by some device known only, I should think, to Bhutya ponies, he slipped the neck rope over one ear. Before we could get at him he had slipped it over the other and was free. The only man who had ever been known to catch the pony when he was free was his own syce, whom his master had left at Chaksam. Here we were twenty miles from Chaksam and twenty-five from Lhassa, and my friend with many bruises on his body already contracted that morning, and a sore hip that, though not preventing him riding, yet hurt him every time that he tried to walk.