at an end, and the General forthwith began his
preparations to storm the formidable hill fortress. The Tibetans had
taken advantage of the armistice to build more walls and sangars. No one
could look at the bristling jong without realizing how difficult was
the task before our troops, and without anxiety as to the outcome of the
assault in killed and wounded. But we all knew that the jong had to be
taken, whatever the cost.

Operations began in the afternoon, the General making a demonstration
against the left face of the jong and Palkhor Choide Monastery. Fuller's
battery took up a position about 1,600 yards from the jong. Five
companies of infantry were extended on either flank. Both the jong and
monastery opened fire on our troops, and we had one man mortally
wounded. The General's intention, however, was only to deceive the
Tibetans into thinking that we intended to assault from that side. As
soon as dusk fell, the troops were withdrawn and preparations made for
the real assault.

The south-eastern face of the rock on which the jong is built is most
precipitous, yet this was exactly the face which the General decided to
storm. His reasons, I imagine, were that the fringe of houses at the
base of the rock was thinnest on this side, and that the very
multiplicity of sangars and walls that the enemy had built prevented
their having the open field of fire necessary to stop a rush. Moreover,
down the middle of the rock ran a deep fissure or cleft, which was
commanded, the General noticed, by no tower or loopholed wall. At two
points, however, the Tibetans had built walls across the fissure. The
first of these the General believed could be breached by our artillery.
Our troops through that could work their way round to either flank, and
so into the heart of the jong.

The plan of operations was very simple. Before dawn three columns were
to rush the fringe of houses at the base. Then was to follow a storm of
artillery fire directed on all the salient points of the jong, after
which our guns were to make a breach in the lower wall across the cleft
up which the storming-party was later on to climb.

The action turned out exactly as was planned, with the exception that
the fighting lasted much longer than was expected, for the Tibetans made
a heroic resistance. The troops were astir shortly after midnight. The
night was very dark, and the necessary deployment of the three columns
took some hours. However, an hour before