all shot down or
had fled. I lay absolutely still for a while until I thought it safe to
raise my head. Then I looked round, and, seeing no Tibetans near in an
erect position, I got up and walked out of the ring between the rifles
of the Sikhs. The firing line had been formed in the meantime on a mound
about thirty yards behind me, and I had been exposed to the bullets of
our own men from two sides, as well as the promiscuous fire of the
Tibetans.

[13] The reports sent home at the time of the Hot Springs affair were
inaccurate as to the manner in which I was wounded, and also
Major Wallace Dunlop, who was the only European anywhere near me
at the time. Major Dunlop shot his own man, but at such close
quarters that the Tibetan's sword slipped down the barrel of his
rifle and cut off two fingers of his left hand. General Macdonald
and Captain Bignell, who shot several men with their revolvers,
were standing at the corner where the wall joined the ruined
house, and did not see the attack on myself and Dunlop.

The Tibetans could not have chosen a spot more fatal for their stand--a
bluff hill to the north, a marsh and stream on the east, and to the west
a stone wall built across the path, which they had to scale in their
attempted assault on General Macdonald and his escort. Only one man got
over. Inside there was barely an acre of ground, packed so thickly with
seething humanity that the cross-fire which the Pioneers poured in
offered little danger to their own men.

The Lhasa General must have fired off his revolver after I was struck
down. I cannot credit the rumour that his action was a signal for a
general attack, and that the Tibetans allowed themselves to be herded
together as a ruse to get us at close quarters. To begin with, the
demand that they should give up their arms, and the assurance that they
might go off unmolested, must have been quite unexpected by them, and I
doubt if they realized the advantage of an attack at close quarters.

My own impression is that the shot was the act of a desperate man,
ignorant and regardless of what might ensue. To return to Lhasa with his
army disarmed and disbanded, and without a shot having been fired, must
have meant ruin to him, and probably death. When we reached Gyantse we
heard that his property had been confiscated from his family on account
of his failure to prevent our advance.

The Depon was a man of fine prese