roops forming the line of advance moved into position.
The disposition of the enemy's sangars made a turning movement extremely
difficult, but a frontal attack on the wall, if stubbornly resisted,
could not be carried without severe loss. General Macdonald sent
flanking parties of the 8th Gurkhas on both sides of the valley to scale
the heights and turn the Tibetan position, and despatched the Royal
Fusiliers along the centre of the valley to attack the wall when the
opposition had been weakened.

Stretched on a grassy knoll on the left, enjoying the sunshine and the
smell of the warm turf, we civilians watched the whole affair with our
glasses. It might have been a picnic on the Surrey downs if it were not
for the tap-tap of the Maxim, like a distant woodpecker, in the valley,
and the occasional report of the 10-pounders by our side, which made the
valleys and cliffs reverberate like thunder.

The Tibetans' ruse was to open fire from the wall directly our troops
came into view, and then evacuate the position. They thus delayed the
pursuit while we were waiting for the scaling-party to ascend the
heights.

At nine o'clock the Gurkhas on the left signalled that no enemy were to
be seen. At the same time Colonel Cooper, of the Royal Fusiliers,
heliographed that the wall was unoccupied and the Tibetans in full
retreat. The mounted infantry were at once called up for the pursuit.
Meanwhile one or two jingals and some Tibetan marksmen kept up an
intermittent fire on the right flanking party from clefts in the
overhanging cliffs. A battery replied with shrapnel, covering our
advance. These pickets on the left stayed behind and engaged our right
flanking party until eleven o'clock. To turn the position the Gurkhas
climbed a parallel ridge, and were for a long time under fire of their
jingals. The last part of the ascent was along the edge of a glacier,
and then on to the shoulder of the ridge by steps which the Gurkhas cut
in the ice with their _kukris_, helping one another up with the butts of
their rifles. They carried rope scaling-ladders, but these were for the
descent. At 11.30 Major Murray and his two companies of Gurkhas appeared
on the heights, and possession was taken of the pass. The ridge that the
Tibetans had held was apparently deserted, but every now and then a man
was seen crouching in a cave or behind a rock, and was shot down. One
Kham man shot a Gurkha who was looking into the cave where he was
hiding. He