ADVENTURES IN TIBET 283 



showing his bare flesh, point to us to shoot at it. 

 Such frenzied determination on the part of these 

 Tibetans proved to us that we should never make any 

 headway in the desired direction, and that our only 

 chance of being able to do so would have been to 

 shoot the most determined of our obstructionists. But 

 inasmuch as we had not started on the expedition with 

 the remotest inclination to shoot Tibetans, we stayed 

 our hands. Even supposing we had shot some of 

 them, it would have been a very hazardous step to 

 have risked a serious scrimmage on our very frontier. 

 We also reflected upon the results of such an affair ; 

 not only would it bar any future travellers from peace- 

 ably entering the country from this direction, but we 

 ourselves would be pestered for many days to come 

 by an increasing fore of Rundore and Rudok men 

 following in our rear. 



Therefore, after we had been driven back some dis- 

 j tance and were left alone again, we pitched a fresh 

 I camp with the intention of remaining another day, in 

 I hopes that something or other would turn up in our 

 I favour. Perhaps we might get round these officials 

 after all, or perhaps others of more influence would 

 in the meantime arrive from Rudok and allow us to go 

 the way we wanted when they became convinced that 

 we had no intention of making an attempt on Lhassa. 

 Such were our faint hopes as we commenced un- 

 loading, for we dreaded beyond measure the very idea 

 of having to recross the Napu La a second time, being 

 alone dependent upon ourselves for doing so. 



Throughout the morning we tried every means we 

 could think of to be allowed to march up this nullah, 

 which they called Kerambutabuk. The officials in- 



