XX INTRODUCTION. 



concentrate troops at points of importance ; while the entire position 

 was enfiladed by the Tukola peak, on which their right flank rested. 

 Once in possession of this peak, less than a mile and-a-half from 

 Gnatong, we could roll up the enemy's line at leisure, and the con- 

 formation of the ground was such that a force retiring towards the 

 Jelap must need suffer terribly during its retreat. This fact deter- 

 mined the scheme of our attack. Approaching the Tukola peak by a 

 route which covered them from the fire of its defenders, the Goorkhas 

 carried the position by a rush, and their attack, combined with the 

 parallel advance of the Pioneers, swept the Tibetans from the ridge. 

 In their flight down that fatal hill, and the ascent of the Nimla ridge 

 which lay between them and the Jelap, the ill-armed, undrilled 

 militia whom the monks had sent forth as the army of Tibet lost 

 nearly a tenth of their number in killed and wounded. On our side, 

 Colonel Sir Benjamin Bromhead, commanding the 32nd Pioneers, was 

 severely wounded in the attempt to take prisoners two Tibetans, 

 whom he believed to have surrendered ; one of the Goorkhas was 

 severely and two Pioneers slightly wounded. No effort was made by 

 the Tibetans to rally their broken troops or to keep up a running 

 fight; the rout was complete. We bivouacked that night in the 

 enemy's camp on the Jelap, and no resistance was offered to our 

 advance ujjou Kinchagong nest day. Straggling parties of the 

 enemy were seen emerging from the Tibetan side of the Pembii'ingo 

 pass, but they broke off into Bhutan as soon as they realised that we 

 were about to enter Rinchagong, and the village was empty when our 

 troops reached it. The march to Chumbi through the beautiful valley 

 of the Mochu was a mere promenade, and our troops returned to 

 Gnatong without seeing any more of the enemy. 



There seems to be reason to believe that this unavoidably severe 

 lesson has been taken to heart by the Tibetans. The force which was 

 dispersed at Gnatong had been drawn from all parts of the country, 

 and the knowledge of our overwhelming military superiority must 

 by this time be so widely diffused that even the ai-rogance of the 

 lamas can no longer affect to ignore it. Indications, indeed, are 

 not wanting that the Tibetan claim to suzerainty over Sikhim had 

 already been practically abandoned, though the Tibetans tried hard 

 to retrieve their defeat in the field by a diplomatic triumph of the 

 Fabian type, and seem for a time to have had the supjjort of China 

 in their ingenious efforts to tire out our representatives. 



The Anglo-Chinese convention of 1890 secures the formal 

 acknowledgment of our rights which the Gnatong victory entitles 

 us to demand. At the close of a costly and vexatious campaign, 

 carried on at an elevation never before readied by regular troops, 

 and involving transport difficulties of the most serious kind, it was 



