There was a 'Tommies' gaff' that night, outside the camp, around a roughly erected stage lit up with Chinese candles and decked out with green brushwood that had previously been used to make the jumps at the last gymkhana. We assembled to hear the familiar types of songs that form the programme of a soldiers' sing-song--some witty, some rather vulgar, some modified with topical variations by local poets, and all full of good cheer. CHAPTER XXII THE SIGNING OF THE TREATY A day or two after--that is to say, on the seventh day of September 1904--the treaty was signed. If our peaceful arrival at Lhassa had been the anti-climax of the Expedition, this--the signing of the treaty--though peaceful also, was its true climax. One certainly did have a feeling that day that one was witness of an event of imperial importance. The escort left camp at 1.30 P.M. Over the assembling of the troops outside camp one of those typical--and to the onlooker highly entertaining--muddles arose, which are always either the fault of some one or no one or every one. Eventually we found ourselves, all except a body of mounted infantry who were still unaccountably missing. Their place was, however, adequately filled by a party of Kot-duffadars of mule corps, who, mounted on transport riding ponies, and armed with swords and staves or whatever obsolete weapon is nowadays issued to them, took a prominent place in the procession and made a brave show. We marched past that pleasant country seat known as 'Paradise,' where the political mission had their quarters, and proceeded along a path lined with troops, across a bog into the outskirts of the city, and up the road which leads up the Potá-Là hill into the Potá-Là. We had eventually to dismount, leave our ponies, and climb up a paved pathway, half staircase. This pathway was smeared with the holy grease of ages and was dangerously slippery. At the top we found some of the guard of the Nepalese resident, looking very warlike in red secondhand tunics that had once been the property of British soldiers, but were of a now obsolete pattern. Ushered through a dark passage, we entered at last into the throne-room or audience-hall of the Potá-Là, where the ceremony was to take place. When all that portion of the escort who were allowed within the hall had taken their places Colonel Younghusband and General Macdonald with their respective Staffs arrived. The room already held the various contingents of Eastern officials of different nationalities who were to assist at the function. After we had all stood up, there was a great deal of handshaking between the representatives of East and West. The Chinese Amban shakes hands in a manner that, when last I frequented London drawing-rooms, was, I believe, considered fashionable. One of the lay council of Tibet certainly thought so, for he tried to imitate the particular method, but only partially succeeded. The party then sat down to tea.