n at
Siliguri, show the absurdity of the idea of a Russian advance on Lhasa.
The nearest Russian outpost is over 1,000 miles distant, and the country
to be traversed is even more barren and inhospitable than on our
frontier.

Up to the present the route to Chumbi has been via Siliguri and the
Jelap and Nathu Passes, but the natural outlet of the valley is by the
Ammo Chu, which flows through Bhutan into the Dooars, where it becomes
the Torsa. The Bengal-Dooars Railway now extends to Madhari Hat, fifteen
miles from the point where the Torsa crosses the frontier, whence it is
only forty-eight miles as the crow flies to Rinchengong in the Chumbi
Valley. When the projected Ammo Chu cart-road is completed, all the
difficulty of carrying stores into Chumbi will be obviated. Engineers
are already engaged on the first trace, and the road will be in working
order within a few months. It avoids all snow passes, and nowhere
reaches an elevation of more than 9,000 feet. The direct route will
shorten the journey to Chumbi by several days, bring Lhasa within a
month's journey of Calcutta, and considerably improve trade facilities
between Tibet and India.

CHAPTER VI

THE ACTION AT THE HOT SPRINGS

The village of Tuna, which lies at the foot of bare yellow hills,
consists of a few deserted houses. The place is used mainly as a
halting-stage by the Tibetans. The country around is sterile and
unproductive, and wood is a luxury that must be carried from a distance
of nearly fifty miles.

It was in these dismal surroundings that Colonel Younghusband's mission
spent the months of January, February, and March. The small garrison
suffered all the discomforts of Phari. The dirt and grime of the squalid
little houses became so depressing that they pitched their tents in an
open courtyard, preferring the numbing cold to the filth of the Tibetan
hovels. Many of the sepoys fell victims to frost-bite and pneumonia, and
nearly every case of pneumonia proved fatal, the patient dying of
suffocation owing to the rarefied air.

Colonel Younghusband had not been at Tuna many days before it became
clear that there could be no hope of a peaceful solution. The Tibetans
began to gather in large numbers at Guru, eight miles to the east, on
the road to Lhasa. The Depon, or Lhasa General, whom Colonel
Younghusband met on two occasions, repeated that he was only empowered
to treat on condition that we withdrew to Yatung. Messages were sent
from